ir saddles, idle spectators of the extraordinary
scene.[72]

Many of the Indians were killed on their ponies, however, by those
who were fortunate enough to have a few cartridges left; but none
were captured, as the savages had taken their usual precaution to tie
themselves to their animals, and as soon as dead were dragged away by
them.

CHAPTER XXIV. INVASION OF THE RAILROAD.

The tourist who to-day, in a palace car, surrounded by all the
conveniences of our American railway service, commences his tour of the
prairies at the Missouri River, enters classic ground the moment the
train leaves the muddy flood of that stream on its swift flight toward
the golden shores of the Pacific.

He finds a large city at the very portals of the once far West, with all
the bustle and energy which is so characteristic of American enterprise.

Gradually, as he is whirled along the iron trail, the woods lessen; he
catches views of beautiful intervales; a bright little stream flashes
and foams in the sunlight as the trees grow fewer, and soon he emerges
on the broad sea of prairie, shut in only by the great circle of the
heavens.

Dotting this motionless ocean everywhere, like whitened sails, are quiet
homes, real argosies ventured by the sturdy and industrious people who
have fought their way through almost insurmountable difficulties to the
tranquillity which now surrounds them.

A few miles west of Topeka, the capital of Kansas, when the train
reaches the little hamlet of Wakarusa, the track of the railroad
commences to follow the route of the Old Santa Fe Trail. At that point,
too, the Oregon Trail branches off for the heavily timbered regions of
the Columbia. Now begins the classic ground of the once famous highway
to New Mexico; nearly every stream, hill, and wooded dell has its
story of adventure in those days when the railroad was regarded as an
impossibility, and the region beyond the Missouri as a veritable desert.

After some hours' rapid travelling, if our tourist happens to be a
passenger on the "California Limited," the swift train that annihilates
distance, he will pass by towns, hamlets, and immense cattle ranches,
stopping only at county-seats, and enter the justly famous Arkansas
valley at the city of Hutchinson. The Old Trail now passes a few miles
north of this busy place, which is noted for its extensive salt works,
nor does the railroad again meet with it until the site of old Fort
Zarah is reache