A HALT AT OMAHA. 455 



Gone and only remembered by some quaint name still 

 attached to stream or mountain. 



To-day "the moving millions, both in this country 

 and Europe, are making earnest inquiry for Ne- 

 braska." 50,000 new inhabitants came to it in 1880. 

 The close of the late war brought many ex-soldiers 

 and their families here to claim land privileges near 

 Omaha, and from " the four quarters of the globe the 

 swelling thousands have come to settle with those that 

 made their way thither. From Maine and Texas, and 

 from every territory of the Rocky Mountains, they 

 came." " The rank and file, the bone and muscle, 

 were men who came to stay, who counted the cost, 

 who measured the sacrifice." Under their faithful 

 bauds the desert has been made to " blossom like the 

 rose." *' The dug-out and the log house have given 

 place to the elegant mansion, and thousands of groves 

 have sprung up almost as if by magic all over the 

 prairies." 



These brave pioneers knew it would be so. They 

 believed in the embryo city. By faith they saw the 

 fields blossoming for the harvest. "They heard the 

 song of harvest home, they saw the smoke of the ris- 

 ing city, the highways of commerce, and some of them 

 saw the highways of nations, so long a fable to the 

 American people, stretching up through their valleys 

 to the everlasting mountains and on to the broad 

 Pacific. To-day the day-dream of these brave men is 



realized — 



For lo 1 it has all come true. 



