OMAHA TO CHEYENNE. 461 



a large trade in grain, cotton and lumber. It has a 

 court house, a high school, three banks and four news- 

 papers. 



Left early the following morning and at night slept 

 in a wigwam with Pawnee Indians, in the absence of 

 other shelter, and they gave me of their best. At 

 Lone Tree, a post office in Nance County, I stopped 

 at the Lone Tree House for the night, and next morn- 

 ing at dawn, the weather being very fine, hurried for- 

 ward on my journey. Reached Grand Island, where 

 I was accommodated at a private house with bed and 

 board. 



Grand Island is in the Great Platte Valley on 

 Platte River, one hundred and fifty-four miles west of 

 Omaha. It stands 1,800 feet above sea level. The 

 Island, on which the town is built, is fifty miles long. 



Wood River, my next resting-place, is a township 

 in Hall County with a population not exceeding one 

 thousand. On the following day good headway was 

 made, but I could find no better accommodation for 

 the night than at a Pawnee camp. On the suc- 

 ceeding night, after a hard day's ride, I stopped 

 at Plum Creek, two hundred and thirty miles west of 

 Omaha, and w^as accommodated at the Plum Creek 

 House. A bridge spans the Platte River at this point. 

 The population was only three hundred, but a \veekly 

 paper had been started and was w^ell supported. The 

 next evening, the McPherson House, McPherson, 

 received me and my mustang and treated us hospitably. 

 Then followed North Platte, one hundred and thirty- 

 seven miles from Grand Island, where I lodged for the 

 night at a private house, the home of a pioneer. The 

 repair shops of the Union Pacific Railroad were located 



