My inspections at Leavenworth and Riley being completed, we left Fort Riley just after sunrise Aug. 16th, and soon were fairly afloat on the Plains, and off for the Pacific. Hitherto the railroad had still served to connect us with the East. But now we bade good-bye to cars and locomotives, and did not see them again until we heard their tramp and whistle two thousand miles away, in the cañon of the Columbia. "Afloat," I think, is the only right word for the Plains; because the first impression they give you is that of the sea, so vast is their extent, and even the wagons that cross them--huge, lumbering, fore-and-aft vehicles, with from eight to ten yoke of oxen each--in border parlance are called "Prairie-Schooners." My orders were to proceed from Fort Riley on the Kaw or Kansas, to Fort Kearney on the Platte; and, as the shortest and most direct route, we were now off, across the country, in execution of them. Our route lay northwest across the high "divide" between the Kansas and the Platte, through central Kansas; and as there was no stage-line here, we had to go by ambulance. Neither was there any well-defined road; but we were told that at Marysville, some sixty miles north, we could strike the great Overland Route, from Atchison, Mo. and afterwards travel westward by that. Our "outfit" consisted of one ambulance for ourselves, one army-wagon for our escort of five infantry-men, and another for baggage, forage, and rations. Our friends at Riley knew little about the intervening country, except that Indians were reported there; and as their cavalry was all out scouting, could furnish only the infantry escort, as above. Even this seemed small; but we were all well-armed ourselves; and what with our repeating rifles and revolvers, few as we were, felt good for fifty red skins or more, come as they would.