AND PACIFIC

It is claimed this route is 33 miles
shorter to Chicago than via Omaha, but we
do not know of any through travel ever
going by this line, and judge the local
travel to be its sole support.

The Fremont & Elkhorn Valley rail-
road to the northward is completed to
Wisner, about 50 miles, and trains are run-
ning regularly. This road runs through a
very rich and well cultivated country,
where wheat yields as high as 30 bushels
to the acre,

Fremont is connected with the south
side of the Platte by a wagon bridge that
cost over $50,000.

Tur Puarte RrveEr—We arenow going
up the Platte, and for many miles we shall
pass closely along the north bank; at other
times, the course of the river can only be
traced by the timber growing on its banks.
Broad plains are the principal features,
skirted in places with low abrupt hills,
which here, in this level country, rise to
the dignity of “bluffs.”

It would never do to omit a description
of this famous stream, up
the banks of which so many
emigrants toiled in the

COAST GUIDE. Al

time and skill to decipher the old and
time-stained hieroglyphics with which it
is decorated, will learn that it marks the
last resting-place of some emigrant or
freighter, who, overcome by sickness, laid
down here and gave up the fainting spirit
to the care of Him who gave it; or, per-
chance, will learn that the tenant of this
rentless house fell while defending his
wife and children from the savage Indians,
who attacked the train in the gray dawn or
darker night. There is a sad, brief his-
tory connected with each told to the passer-
by, mayhap in rude lines, possibly by the
broken arrow or bow, rudely drawn on the
mouldering head-board. However rude or
rough the early emigrants may have been,
it can never be charged to them that they
ever neglected a comrade. The sick were
tenderly nursed, the dead decently buried,
and their graves marked by men who had
shared with them the perils of the trip.
Those were days, and these plains the
place that tried men’s mettle; and here the
Western frontiersman shone superior to all

 

 

 

 

 

“Whoa, haw” times, from

 

 

 

 

 

1850 to the time when the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

railroad superseded the “prai-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rie schooner.” How many

 

 

 

blows from the ox-whip have -
fallen on the sides of the pa-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tient oxen as they toiled along,

 

hauling the ponderous wag-
ons of the freighters, or the |
lighter vehicles of the emi-
grant! How often the sharp
ring of the “ popper” aroused
the timid hare or graceful
antelope, and frightened
them away from their meal
of waving grass! How many
tremendous, jaw - breaking
oaths fell from the lips of
the “bull-whackers” during
that period, we will not even
guess at; but pious divines
tell us that there is a Statisti-
cian who has kept a record
of all such expletives; to
that authority we refer our
readers who are fond of fig-
ures. Once ina while, too,
the traveler will catch a
glimpse of a lone grave,
marked by a rude head-board,
on these plains; and with the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HIGH SCHOOL, OMAHA,