Buffalo Land Part 23

The bows around the maid were more Than suited to her mind; Cupid and Shamus rode before, The savage rode behind.

They each pursued the maiden coy, Two wooed her _a la_ bow; The arrow tips of one were joy, The other's tips were woe.

'T is said that Shamus won the race, And saved his hair and bacon: If Mary loved his wooing pace, His heart may stop its achin'.

And this was the Professor's letter, which had evidently set the aldermanic machine to grinding doggerel again:

"ON THE SOLOMON, } LINDSEY, OTTAWA COUNTY, KANSAS. }

... "I have run down here after my mail. Am progressing finely with my studies. Shamus had an adventure yesterday. Mary and he rode over on horseback to a neighbor's, a mile away, and on the return were pursued by an Indian. Hard riding brought them in safely. Mary tells her mistress that, during the terrors of the chase, Shamus would not refrain from courting. He lashed her horse, and spurred his, and popped the question, alternately.

"I shall probably remain here a month or so longer, as I am much interested in the _Flora_ of the Solomon Valley."

The italicized word in the last sentence is underscored, and its initial letter bears evidence of having been maliciously transformed into a capital by Sachem.

THE END.

APPENDIX.

PRELIMINARY TO THE APPENDIX.

The officials of the new States and Territories are constantly overwhelmed with letters of inquiry from all parts of our own country and the Canadas, and even from Europe. Some of the writers wish particulars concerning the opportunities that exist for obtaining homes; others seek information as to the best points for hunting; while what to bring with them, in the way of household goods, and farming implements, or guns, dogs, etc., is the common question of nearly all.

While engaged in preparing "Buffalo Land" for the press, I published in a newspaper at Topeka a brief summary of the information then at my command upon the subjects above named. The result was the receipt of a large number of letters, asking for all sorts of details, many of which I found it impossible to answer through the mail. This fact, added to the requests of various public officers, whom I take pleasure in thus obliging, has induced me to attach an appendix to the present volume, containing a condensed statement of such matters (not elsewhere described in this work) as will a.s.sist parties westward bound, whether emigrants, sportsmen, or tourists.

The Appendix which follows is divided into three chapters. The first of these embodies information of especial interest to the immense army of home-seekers who, from every quarter, are turning their eyes eagerly and hopefully toward the free and boundless West. The second chapter is designed for the use of the sportsman, and the third furnishes very valuable and instructive details concerning the topography, resources, climate, etc., of the plains, and, more particularly, a description of the larger streams, with their contiguous valleys, which drain the vast area included within the limits of Buffalo Land.

W. E. W.

APPENDIX.

CHAPTER FIRST.

FURTHER INFORMATION FOR THE HOME-SEEKER.

APPENDIX.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER FIRST.

PAGE

COME TO THE GREAT WEST, 435

SHOULD THERE NOT BE COMPULSORY EMIGRATION, 436

"GET A GOOD READY," 437

HOMESTEAD LAWS AND REGULATIONS, 438

THE STATE OF KANSAS, 447

THE COST OF A FARM, 448

A FEW MORE PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS, 449

APPENDIX.

CHAPTER FIRST.

_FURTHER INFORMATION FOR THE HOME-SEEKER._

COME TO THE GREAT WEST!

The Western States and Territories afford unexampled inducements to the surplus energy and capital of the East and Europe; and the field which they spread out so invitingly to the emigrant's choice is as wide as it is magnificent. Hundreds of millions of acres of rich land--embracing bottom and prairie, timber and running water--are open for settlement.

Counties are to be populated, and towns built, all over the new States and Territories. Each of these latter is an empire in itself. Great Britain could be set down within the borders of any one of them, and yet leave room for some of the German princ.i.p.alities. The records of the Agricultural Bureau at Washington show that, wherever the new soil has been cultivated, both the yield per acre and the quality of the crops produced are better than in the older States. The balance of power is moving westward, and the capital of the nation, it can scarcely be doubted, must eventually come also.

There is no reason why people should starve in the great cities of this broad and heaven-favored land of ours. Business men, so often besieged and worried with applications for positions in their stores and counting-rooms, might with advantage tack up a copy of the Homestead Law by their desk, and keep a further supply on hand for distribution. Every few months some poet sings of the ill-paid seamstress in the crowded town, or some hideous murder brings to light the heroine of the garret-st.i.tched shirt. Yet, meanwhile, at Denver City, house-girls have been getting from six to ten dollars per week, and thousands could find comfortable homes throughout Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, with remunerative wages. Abroad, men toil, and women work in the fields, and in one year pay out from the scanty earnings which they wring from a stingy soil more than enough to purchase one hundred and sixty acres of good land in the great and growing West.

SHOULD THERE NOT BE COMPULSORY EMIGRATION?

Except in the case of the very decrepit, or totally disabled, there can be no excuse for begging, in a country which offers every pauper a quarter-section of as rich land as the sun shines upon. I suppose the millennium will commence when laws compel the cities to drive from them the idle and vicious, and make them tillers of the soil in the wilds.

Instead of brooding in the dark alleys, and breeding vice to be flung out at regular intervals upon the civilized thoroughfares, these germinators of disease and crime would be dragged forth from their purlieus and hiding-places, and disinfected in the pure atmosphere of the large prairies and grand forests. Granting that it might be a heavy burden upon their shoulders at the outset, the present generation of reformers would have the satisfaction of knowing that the sores were cleansed, and that moral and physical disease was not being propagated to suffocate their children; and even although some of the present mult.i.tude of evil-doers might not be reclaimed, most of their children certainly would be. It is more profitable to raise farmers than convicts. Instead of building jails to hold men in life-long mildew, our artisans might be building steamers and cars, to carry their products to the seaboard.