The few settlers along the route consisted chiefly of New Englanders, with a goodly sprinkling of Germans. They generally had milk and eggs to sell, but seldom butter or vegetables. We camped one night on Fancy Creek, near a Mr. Segrist's, where we got tomatoes and onions, as well as eggs and milk; and as we had shot several prairie-chickens during the day, we supped luxuriously. Our mess-kit was rather a primitive affair, not much to speak of, and our cook quite a worthless fellow, as it turned out; but L. developed a talent that way very surprising, and so we got along comfortably. This Segrist himself was quite a character in his way. A Pennsylvania Dutchman by birth, he was bred in Indiana, but emigrated to Fancy Creek during the Kansas troubles, to help save the territory to freedom. Squatting on a quarter-section there, he first built himself a log-cabin, and then subsequently enlarged and improved this by a "lean-to;" now he had just completed a good two-story stone house, of magnesian limestone, and aspired to luxury. He had flocks and herds well about him; he was a hearty, cheery man, not afraid of hard work, nor a spice of danger; and, it was plain to be seen, would soon be a rich man, if he kept on. Of course, he was a Republican in politics, and took the St. Louis _Westliche Post_. On Wild-Cat Creek, the first day out from Fort Riley, we struck a Mr. Silvers, who proved to be a minister of the United Brethren. He had a half-section of land there, and his son-in-law as much more just adjoining. They were both living in rude shanties put up by themselves, but seemed happy and contented. During the war, he had sent one son to the army, and when Price invaded Kansas he himself shouldered his Plains rifle, and marched to the defence of Lawrence and Topeka. When at home, he worked upon his farm; but he had a frontier circuit, with preaching places a hundred miles in every direction, which took him away most of the time. He seemed to be a veritable missionary, looking up the lost sheep scattered along the Border, and we bade him God-speed. His "gude wife" gave us a bowl of buttermilk fresh from the churn, and we paid her in the latest eastern newspapers. CHAPTER III. UP THE PLATTE TO DENVER. The Union Pacific Railroad had then just reached Fort Kearney from Omaha, and was the sensation of the hour. With a large force of men, it was being pushed rapidly up the north bank of the Platte; but as our road lay up the south bank, we did not cross to see it. There was little to prevent its rapid progress of a mile and even two miles per day, as the Platte valley ascends gradually, and for railroad purposes is almost everywhere practically a level. We now dismissed our ambulance and escort, with instructions to return to Fort Riley, and transferred ourselves, bag and baggage, to Holliday's Overland Stages, which here connected with the railroad.