November, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 641 
SOUTHWESTERN KANSAS IN THE EIGHTIES 
rN E DT A ROUcSD 0 yN H w™T FOR^^NGUNFS^rSP ™ E QUACKING MALLARD 
1 fuk 1HL WAVING LINES OF GEESE COMING HOME TO ROOST 
H AVING inherited the wanderlust trait 
of my family, I love to travel, but 
the lines of my life have been cast in 
such pleasant though circumscribed places 
that circumstances beyond my control have 
prevented me from indulging my heritage, 
excepting at rare and infrequent intervals. 
Such an occasion arose in the Autumn of 
1881 when I made a shooting trip to South¬ 
western Kansas. I was then twenty-eight 
years of age and my eldest son (now a man 
well known in the public affairs of his 
State), was an infant in arms. Accompa¬ 
nying me on the trip, were Uncle Billy 
M-and Andrew W. H-. Uncle Billy 
with his dry humor and quaint philosophy 
made a very agreeable companion, while 
Andrew s quiet ways and unobtrusive man¬ 
ner endeared him to every one. I had a 
married sister residing in the new but 
thriving town of McPherson, and it was 
our intention to visit her, making that town 
our headquarters, while taking side trips 
into the surrounding country. 
Traveling then could not be done with 
the luxurious ease of today. The great 
Consolidated Trunk lines were then but a 
promoter s dream. Changes of cars were 
frequent and it was very necessary to 
watch your baggage at each change to in¬ 
sure its accompanying you. Pullman sleep¬ 
ers, chair and dining cars were a novelty 
and found on but few of the roads. The 
- ar seats were crude and far from com¬ 
fortable, while the great Westinghouse Air 
Brake was then in its infancy and the jerk- 
ng, thumping, bumping, staggering stop of 
he trains at the stations, by the use of the 
land brakes, were an episode of the jour- 
ley that will never be forgotten by the 
ravellers of that day. 
Fixed ammunition then was an uncertain 
nd unreliable quantity, so we took a large 
upply of the empty cartridge cases with 
! is and loaded them as needed. Our bat¬ 
tery was a fine ten bore Webly for Uncle 
filly, a twelve bore Colt for Andrew, and 
ten bore Clabrough for myself. We had 
een talking over and planning this trip all 
irough the summer, intending to get away 
oon after the middle of October, but 
>ncle Billy had the misfortune to cut one 
f his feet very badly, delaying our de- 
irture until the first week in November. 
yr E left New 
York at 
nine o’clock 
the evening over 
e Erie. There 
is no pooling of 
ssenger rates 
en, and the rival 
i ads were “cut- 
'ig” the prices on 
":st-bound tickets, 
fs result being 
issengers packed 
< the trains like 
By WIDGEON 
sardines in a box, making traveling condi¬ 
tions extremely uncomfortable. We passed 
on our way without incident, until we 
reached a point near the Ohio State Line, 
where we traversed a large tract of re¬ 
markably fine timber. At one point a tor¬ 
nado had crossed it, breaking some of the 
immense trees off as if they were pipe 
stems, and pushing the rest over until it 
looked as if a gigantic steam roller had 
passed over them. From Warsaw to Val- 
pariso, and so to Chicago, we passed 
through the vast duck marshes, and the 
number of wild fowl we saw was aston¬ 
ishing. You could see long lines of them 
from the car windows, flying in all direc 
tions; some would spring from the rushes 
and fly away as the train passed, others 
would pay no attention whatever. The 
great drainage system of Chicago had not 
then been put into operation and the ap¬ 
proaches to the city were practically under 
water. We saw plenty of ducks within the 
city limits, and ‘crow ducks” crowded the 
wide ditches beside the track and would 
merely swim away a little as we passed. 
There were no dining cars on the run from 
New York to Chicago, so we stopped at 
intervals for meals at the eating stations. 
We soon learned to take a seat as near the 
conductor as possible, and keep our eyes on 
him, if you did not, you would frequently 
hear the cry of “All Aboard” just as you 
were trying to swallow some scalding hot 
coffee, then all you could do would be to 
snatch a sandwich or two and “beat it.” 
W E left Chicago over the C., B. & Q. for 
Kansas City and enjoyed the advan¬ 
tages of only dining car of the trip. 
Trom Chicago to Quincy we passed through 
vast corn fields; far as the eye Could reach, 
they stretched away on each side of the 
track. Crossing the Mississippi at Quincy 
we found the river had overflowed its west¬ 
ern bank, and for ten miles the train ran 
very slowly, with the water almost up to 
the car steps, and a brakeman seated on the 
cow-catcher with a pike pole to push the 
drift wood off the track. We were now in 
Missouri, the “stamping ground” of the 
noted desperado, Jesse James, and 
his band of train robbers. It gave 
one a thrill to see great post¬ 
ers in every station offering 
?5,ooo reward for the body of Jesse James, 
dead or alive, and smaller amounts for 
other members of his band. Kansas City 
was at this time a vast storehouse for man¬ 
ufactured goods, which were distributed 
by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, and 
its branches to all points of the great 
Southwest. After leaving Topeka, we be¬ 
gan to enter the real prairie country. 
At the time of which I write, most of 
Southwestern Kansas was newly settled 
and the first view of those apparently 
limitless prairies made an impression 
never to be forgotten. To a resident of the 
Atlantic Seaboard, they looked somewhat 
like a vast salt meadow; they appeared to 
be perfectly level, but were really gently 
rolling and treeless, excepting here and 
there scattering cottonwoods along the 
“coulees.” Every eight or ten miles the 
train would pass through newly built 
towns. All appeared to be thriving and 
many of them have since become populous 
cities. At many of the sidings we saw rem¬ 
nants of the great piles of buffalo bones, 
gathered from the virgin prairies for the 
fertilizer companies by the desperate set¬ 
tlers, to keep them from starvation during 
the grim “grasshopper years,” now happily 
past. As we penetrated deeper into the 
prairie country we came to the newly set¬ 
tled portions; here the comfortable farm 
house gave way for the “soddy” or for the 
regulation settlers wooden “shack,” which 
if I remember rightly was fourteen by six¬ 
teen feet in dimensions. The section lines 
were “back furrows” thrown together, the 
“tree claims” were little seedlings newly 
set or in some instances waist high. In 
many places we would pass for long dis¬ 
tances through virgin unbroken prairie; 
here worn deeply in the soil the paths of 
the vanished buffalo were plainly to be 
seen, with here and there their deserted 
“wallows,” grown high with the thrifty and 
ever present sun flower. Those gently 
rolling plains of the “Sun Flower State” 
are now the Granary of the World. Those 
little puny “tree claims” are now stately 
groves, and the buzz of the saw mill can 
now be heard in that formerly barren 
treeless land. 
Passing through 
Osage County, we 
saw many crude 
“collieries,” where 
with horse and 
windlass they were 
bringing bitumi¬ 
nous coal to the 
surface. 
I 
W E were 
greatly im- 
pressed 
with the great 
quantities of game, 
every puddle and 
m a r c 
