destined to become almost
immediately the greatest in the nation. Corn fields were platted out
into town sites, and additions to existing cities were arranged in every
direction. For a time it appeared as though there was little
exaggeration in the extravagant forecast of future greatness. Town lots
sold in a most remarkable manner, many valuable corners increasing in
value ten and twenty-fold in a single night. The era of railroad
building was coincident with the town boom craze, and Eastern people
were so anxious to obtain a share of the enormous profits to be made by
speculating in Kansas town lots, that money was telegraphed to agents
and banks all over the State, and options on real estate were sold very
much on the plan adopted by traders in stocks and bonds in Wall Street.

The greed of some, if not most, of the speculators, soon killed the
goose which laid the golden egg. The boom burst in a most pronounced
manner. People who had lost their heads found them again, and many a
farmer who had abandoned agriculture in order to get rich by trading in
lots, went back to his plow and his chores, a sadder and wiser, although
generally poorer, man. Many hundreds of thousands of dollars changed
hands during the boom. Exactly who "beat the game," to use the gambler's
expression, has never been known. Certain it is, that for every man in
Kansas who admits that he made money out of the excitement and
inflation, there are at least fifty who say that the boom well-nigh
ruined them.

Kansas is as large as Great Britain, larger than the whole of New
England combined, and a veritable empire in itself. It is a State of
magnificent proportions, and of the most unique and delightful history.
Three and a half centuries ago, Coronado, the great pioneer prospector
and adventurer, hunted Kansas from end to end in search of the precious
metals which he had been told could be found there in abundance. He
wandered over the immense stretch of prairies and searched along the
creek bottoms without finding what he sought. He speaks in his records
of "mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome and bare of
wood. All the way the plains are as full of crooked-back oxen as the
mountain Serena in Spain is of sheep."

These crooked-back oxen were of course buffaloes, or, more correctly
speaking, species of the American bison. No other continent was ever
blessed with a more magnificent and varied selection of beasts and birds
in forests a