istence seems to have a charm for all who have adopted it, and very few of the officers take advantage of their furloughs to visit the Eastern cities. Ladies, too, find rare attractions in a garrison winter, and the forts all along the frontier do not lack good society from November until May. At Fort Riley the soldiers support a good little theater, much of the talent for which is furnished by members of the cavalry regiment quartered there. Not far from the fort is the "geographical center of the United States," on a hill-top, where stands a monument erected to the memory of Brevet-Major E. A. Ogden, founder of Fort Riley. We hastened back towards Parsons, again crossing the great Kaw Reservation, and meeting long trains of Indians, mounted on their shaggy ponies. This Neosho Valley line, which we had traversed, was the beginning of the present great trunk route from Sedalia to the Gulf. Work was begun on it, under a contract with the Land Grant Railway and Trust Company, in November, 1868, the line to extend from Junction City to Chetopa, on the frontier of the Indian Territory, a distance of 182 miles; and it was completed in October, 1870. While this was in construction, the building of the line from Sedalia to Parsons was begun, and the whole route, 160 miles, was completed early in 1871. Meantime work was going forward, at lightning speed, in the Indian Territory. The manager of the line had made a bold stroke in order to be the first to reach the Cherokee country, and obtain permission to run a line through it, as well as to get conditional land-grants; and in May of 1870 occurred quite an episode in the history of railway building. On the 24th of that month the line had reached within twenty-four miles of the southern boundary of Kansas. Much of the grading was unfinished; bridges were not up; masonry was not ready. But on the 6th day of June, at noon, the first locomotive which ever entered the Indian Territory uttered its premonitory shriek of progress. In eleven days twenty-six and a half miles of completed rail were laid, four miles being put down in a single day. A grant of over three millions of acres of land, subject to temporary Indian occupancy, under treaty stipulations, has been accorded the M., K. and T. Railway Company, on the line of the road in the Territory between Chetopa and the Red River. The question of the future disposition of the Indian Territory is now interesting to the M., K. and T. Railway Company, as they have built their line through the great stretch of country, hoping that the fertile lands now waste may come into market. Until the country is opened to white settlement, or until the Indians adopt some new policy with regard to the disposition and development of their lands, the territory is, in many respects, a barrier to the best development of that portion of the Southwest. The immense reservation, larger than all New England, extending over sixty millions of acres, lying between Texas, with her million settlers, Arkansas, with her hardy half million, and Missouri and Kansas, with their two millions of stout frontiersmen, is now completely given over to the Indian, and the white man who wishes to abide within its borders will find his appeal rejected with scorn by an Indian legislature, unless he marries the daughter of some dusky descend ant of Jephthah, and relinquishes his allegiance to Uncle Sam. A little beyond Chetopa lies a range of low hills extending for miles. The new Gulf Route, cutting through them, carries you out of the United States and into the Cherokee Nation. You are no longer under the domination of the white man; the government of the United States can protect you only through the feeble medium of marshals and deputymarshals, who exercise their own judgment as to whether or not they shall do you justice; and the nearest towns are away among the hills, or nestled on the banks of creeks, in the tall timber. The railway runs through a seemingly deserted land. Rarely does one see along the route the face of an Indian, unless at some of the little wooden stations, or a lone water-tank, near a stream. The Indians sullenly acquiesced in the opening of their country to railway travel, but they do not build near the line, and rarely patronize it. tlemen at each end of the main line, that they would join us at Fort Gibson, and we set out on our journey with keen anticipa tions of delight. The long grasses rustled weirdly; the tim ber by the creeks stood out in bold relief against the Naples-blue of the sky; the distant line of mounds now assumed the appearance of a giant fortification, now of a city, and now of a terraced garden; here and there a gap in the timber lining the horizon, showed a glimpse of some far-reaching valley, on whose bosom still lightly lay a thin snowveil; and sometimes we saw a symmetrical tree, standing mid-prairie, with a huge whitehooded hawk perched lazily upon a bending bough, and a gaunt wolf crawling away from the base. But nowhere was there any sign of man. Our special train halted for water and coal; the engineer and firemen helped themselves at the coal-cars and water-tank, and we moved on. At last, at a little wooden station, we saw half a dozen tall, awkward, tawny youths, with high cheek-bones, intensely black hair, and little sparkling eyes, which seemed to have the very concentrated fire of jealousy in them. jealousy in them. This was a party of young beaux from the nearest Cherokee village. They wore the typical American slouch hats, but had wound ribbons around and fastened feathers in them; their gayly-colored jackets were cut in fantastic fashion, and at their sides they carried formidable revolvers, which they are, however, slower to use than is the native American. They stared curiously at our party, seated in luxurious chairs on the ample platform of the rear car; and, after having satisfied themselves that we were not of their race and kind, they mounted their horses and galloped away. So we rattled on towards Gibson Station, and as the twilight set an eerie stamp on all the wild, desolate landscape, we came to a region where great mounds reared their whale-backed heights on either hand. Upon the summit from various gen- of one mound stands a monument of hewa After leaving Chetopa, a pretty town, with nearly two thousand inhabitants, the fruit of two years' growth, and a point of supply for traders in the Territory, the SCRIBNER TRAIN rattled merrily along the broad expanse of prairie until Vinita, the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific line with the M., K. and T. Railway, was reached. At Vinita, the junction has made no growth, because white men are not allowed to live there, and the Indians content themselves with agriculture and hunting. We had prepared ourselves for a sojourn of a fortnight between this point and the Red River, and a brief inspection of the culinary department, over which the ebony Charles presided, was eminently satisfactory. Telegrams were received FORT GIBSON, INDIAN TERRITORY. A SOUTH WESTERN FERRY. stone, doubtless to some deity who went his ways hundreds of years before Columbus discovered America to European eyes. These mounds seem constructed according to some general plan, and extend for miles throughout the land. We went on in the twilight deepening into dark, until we came to Gibson Station, the terminus of our journey for the day. Only one or two houses were to be seen; a cold wind blew over the prairie, and we ensconced ourselves at the supper-table, where prairie chickens, mysteriously purveyed for our surprise by the beneficent Charles, sent up a savory steam. The stillness of death reigned outside, and we listened languidly to the conductor's stories of terminus troubles a brace of years agone, until the night express trains from each way brought delegations to join our party, and we were roused to welcome and prepare for the morrow. went on. When we were all snugly tucked up in our berths in the gayly-decorated sleeping-saloon, one of the new-comers began dreamily to tell stories of termini troubles. "Not much as it was when we were here and at Muskogee in 1870," he said. "Three men were shot about twenty feet from this same car in one night at Muskogee. Oh! this was a little hell, this was. The roughs took possession here in earnest. The keno and monte players had any quantity of tents all about this section, and life was the most uncertain thing to keep you ever saw. One night a man lost all he had at keno; so he went around behind the tent and tried to shoot the kenodealer in the back: he missed him, but killed another man. The keno man just got a board and put it up behind himself, and the game One day one of the roughs took offence at something the railroad folks said, 50 he ran our train off the track next morning. There was no law here, and no means of getting any. As fast as the railroad moved on, the roughs pulled up stakes and moved with it. We tried to scare them away, but they didn't scare worth a cent. It was next to impossible for a stranger to walk through one of these canvas towns without getting shot at. The graveyards were sometimes better populated than the towns next them. The fellows who ruled these little terrestrial hells,-where they came from nobody knows. Never had any homes-grew up like prairie grass, only ranker and coarser and meaner They had all been terminuses ever since they could remember. Most of them had two, three and four murders on their hands, and confessed them. They op defied the A CREEK INDIAN Indian authorities, he meant (with an oath) to stay, and he'd like to hear any one hint that he had better go away. Then they told stories of their murderous exploits, practised at marks with their revolvers, and seemed not to have the least fear of the Secretary." and scorned Uncle Sam and his marshals. They knew there was money wherever the end of the road was, and they meant to have it." "But how long did this condition of affairs continue?" "It went on steadily until the Secretary of the Interior came down here to see the Territory and to examine the railroads. He went down in this same car, and he was carefully informed of all the lawlessness and flagrant outrages which decent people had been obliged to submit to. One night while they were on the road, the superintendent-in-chief pushed on a little ahead of the train to get a physician, as a gentleman in the special car was taken suddenly ill. The roughs captured the superintendent and proposed to shoot him, as they fancied him some local emissary of the general government. He begged off, however, and explained who he was. They hardly dared to shoot him then; so he succeeded in getting a physician, got back to the train, and next day he took the Secretary of the Interior to inspect this choice specimen of railroad civilization." "And what did the Secretary see?" "Oh, all the ruffians flocked to hear what he had to say. They had killed a man that morning for a mere caprice, and he was laid out in a little tent which the party passed by as they looked around. One after another of the rough fellows was presented to the party; and each one spoke very plainly, and said he had a good right to stay in the Nation,' and "I'M FROM ALABAMA." "What was the result?" "Well, the Secretary of the Interior took a bee-line for the nearest telegraph station, and sent a dispatch to General Grant, announcing that neither life nor property was safe in the Territory, and that the Indians should be aided in expelling the roughs from their midst. So, in a short time the Tenth Cavalry went into active service in the Ter ritory." "Did the ruffians make any resistance?" "They got together, at the terminus. armed to the teeth, and blustered a good deal; but the cavalrymen arrested one after A CREEK INDIAN WOMAN. Slim Jim, or Wild Bill, or you twelve hours to leave another, and examined each man separately. When one of the terminuses was asked his name, he usually answered that it was Slim Jim. or Wild Bill, or Lone Jack (with an oath), and that he was a gambler. or a 'pounder, as the case might be, and, furthermore. that he didn't intend to leave the Territory. Whereupon the officer commanding would say: 'Well Lone Jack, I'll give this town in, and if you are found in the Territory a week from this date, I'll have you shot!' And they took the hint." "Where are these men now?" "Some of them are at Denison, at the end of this road. They are secure enough there, because when they are pursued on a criminal process, they are only four miles from the Red River, and they can escape into the Territory, beyond the reach of United States law, and recross the frontier in some other direction. You will see them at Denison. Good-night." 66 A moment afterwards, the voice added: By the way, at the next station, Muskogee, a man was shot before the town got AT THE FERRY. on. there, and the graveyard was started before a single street was laid out. You can see the graveyard now-a-dayseleven men are buried there with their boots Good night, again." The land scape was snow-besprinkled next day, but we mounted in a rickety ambulance, a merry party of six, and set out on the seven miles' ride to Fort Gibson. As we rattled along past the dense bosquets of trees, great flocks of prairie-chickens rose in a leisurely flight; wild turkeys waddled away; deer fled across the roads after bestowing a scornful gaze upon us; and rabbits jumped painfully in the snow. The farm-houses which we passed were all built of logs, but were large and solidly constructed; and the Indian farmers were making preparations for the Spring plowing. When we came to the bank of the Grand River, on a hill beyond which was the post of Fort Gibson, we found the ferries impeded with a steady moving mass of floating ice, and the negro cavalrymen from the fort in mid-stream, desperately clinging to the guide-rope, and in imminent danger of being carried down river and out into the mighty Arkansas. At last, the dangers over, two lazy half-breeds ferried us across, after infinite shouting and disputing; and we met, on the other bank, "Uncle John" Cunningham, post-master at Fort Gib son. "I was watching out for you a little carefully," said Uncle John, "for there's a fellow come into town this morning with six gallons of whisky, and we expect some of the Indians to go circusing around as soon as they get it down." We climbed the hill to the fort, a wellbuilt post usually garrisoned by three companies either of infantry or cavalry. Fort Gibson is the residence of the present chief of the Cherokee nation, William P. Ross, a cultivated and accomplished gentleman whom I had previously met in Washington. He is VOL. VI.-18 the son of the noted John Ross, chief of the Cherokees for thirty years, and one of the most remarkable men ever connected with the history of the South-western frontier. The fort stands on the Grand River, about two and a half miles from its confluence with the Arkansas, and is only twenty-one miles from Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokees. The whole of the adjacent country, except upon the high range of hills along the Grand, Verdigris and Illinois rivers, is arable and easy to cultivate. From the veranda of the commanding officer's quarters at the fort, one can look away at a range of hills known as the "Boston Mountains," and the little town, set down in an amphitheater hemmed in by the sloping elevations, and with the broad swift river running between its picturesque banks, forms a charming scene. At Fort Gibson we were in a real Cherokee town, and at every turn saw one of the tall, black-haired, tawny-faced citizens of the Territory. It was evidently a market-day with the farmers for many a mile around; for before the porches of the Indian traders, and along the bank of the river, horses were tied, and every few moments some stout Indian came rattling into town, his wife mounted behind him on the demure looking pony, who was equal to anything, from the fording of a river to the threading of a canyon. Many of the men carried side-arms, but there was no one who manifested any disposition to quarrel with his neighbor, and we saw no one who seemed to have been drinking liquor. Indeed, so severe are the penalties attaching to the sale of ardent spirits in the Indian Territory, that men do not care to risk their lives even for the money they might make. The United States marshals and the Indian authorities pursue the offenders with great persistence, and a |