WESTERN INCIDENTS. 55

ever selected for a large city; and the country about it
cannot be excelled for beauty, as well as productiveness.
Elegant residences, and large brick blocks of stores, are
continually being erected. “The Credit Foncier of
America,” and other capitalists, are making large imvest-
ments there, and the inhabitants are wealthy, energetic,
and liberal. Why, then, not give us one or two more
hotels, equal at least to the Tremont and Sherman House
of Chicago?

WILD GEESE AND DUCK SHOOTING.

Having received orders to remain for the present at
Omaha, I was very glad of an opportunity, when other
duties would permit, of accompanying my friend Collins
on his hunting expeditions to the Florence lakes, a
few miles above Omaha, where fat wild geese and
ducks did much abound. And here I must be permitted
to say, that a young wild goose, when cooked under the
supervision of Mrs. Collins, is the finest eating of the
feathered game kind that I ever tasted.

My friend Major Bent would sometimes join us in these
excursions, and then we would be sure to return with
enough game to supply our restaurant table for one or
two days.

CHICAGO AND NORTHWESTERN RAILWAY AGENTS.

Another pleasant incident, in this somewhat dull and
monotonous period of my Western sojourn, was the
advent of Messrs. Tappen, Patrick and Brown, heads of
the freight and passenger departments of that “ Great
connecting link,” the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad,
who tarried a few days at Council Bluffs and Omaha, as
they were passing on their way to Denver, for the pur-