tion of all the outposts on the Santa Fe Trail.
He was stationed at Fort Riley at the time, and the evening the order
arrived, active preparations were immediately commenced for his extended
and hazardous trip across the plains. Lieutenant Hallowell, of the Ninth
Wisconsin Battery, was to accompany him, and both officers went at once
to their quarters, took down from the walls, where they had been hanging
idly for weeks, their rifles and pistols, and carefully examined and
brushed them up for possible service in the dreary Arkansas bottom.
Camp-kettles, until late in the night, sizzled and sputtered over
crackling log-fires; for their proposed ride beyond the settlements
demanded cooked rations for many a weary day. All the preliminaries
arranged, the question of the means of transportation was determined,
and, curiously enough, it saved the lives of the two officers in the
terrible gauntlet they were destined to run.

Hallowell was a famous whip, and prided himself upon the exceptionally
fine turnout which he daily drove among the picturesque hills around the
fort.

"Booth," said he in the evening, "let's not take a great lumbering
ambulance on this trip; if you will get a good way-up team of mules
from the quartermaster, we'll use my light rig, and we'll do our own
driving."

To this proposition Booth readily assented, procured the mules, and, as
it turned out, they were a "good way-up team."

Hallowell had a set of bows fitted to his light wagon, over which was
thrown an army-wagon-sheet, drawn up behind with a cord, similar to
those of the ordinary emigrant outfit to be seen daily on the roads of
the Western prairies. A round hole was necessarily left in the rear end,
serving the purpose of a lookout.

Two grip-sacks, containing their dress uniforms, a box of crackers and
cheese, meat and sardines, together with a bottle of anti-snake bite,
made up the principal freight for the long journey, and in the clear
cold of the early morning they rolled out of the gates of the fort,
escorted by Company L, of the Eleventh Kansas, commanded by Lieutenant
Van Antwerp.

The company of one hundred mounted men acting as escort was too
formidable a number for the Indians, and not a sign of one was seen as
the dangerous flats of Plum Creek and the rolling country beyond were
successively passed, and early in the afternoon the cantonment on Walnut
Creek was reached. At this important outpost Captain Conkey's command
was livi