With some trouble I got an explanation. It appeared from the borderer’s statement that, years ago, a speculative individual of the name of Harvey had undertaken to construct a railway from Nebraska to Nauvoo, with a branch linking it to the Central Illinois line. He had obtained the usual charter and grant of land from the State, and had actually commenced operations between Keosauque and New Buda, two little towns not far from the Missouri boundary. But he had soon desisted from the Sisyphean task, ruined, disheartened, or disappointed of the aid on which he had somewhat sanguinely reckoned; and thenceforth no more had been said of the scheme or the schemer. “But the property,” groaned I, “the works, surely _they_ must remain?” “Why,” said Ichabod, meditatively, “I kinder think there’s rails laid down a bit—yes, for some miles I guess, and they’ll be there still. The cussed Indians can’t have stampedoed them, like they do the cattle. There’s a tidy bridge over a creek or two Harvey built, and some sheds and scantling; and that’s about all.” “All,” said I, “think again, Ichabod. Surely there must be more plant than that, and then the rolling stock?” The frontiersman laughed. “We know more about gunstocks than rolling stocks, out here on the pararas,” said he; “and I never heard of plants, onless ’twas hickory or sumach. But I’ve kinder catalogued the hull fixings for you, Colonel, without ’tis a pile of rusty iron, or a few waggon-loads of logs—neat bits of oak timber they were, trimmed and dressed, and shaped mighty like a saddle-tree, that Harvey left on the ground.” “The sleepers, I suppose,” returned I; “are they there still?” “Well, Colonel, mebbe some of ’em are taking a nap there still,” replied Ichabod, “but parara men often camp thereabouts, hunting, cattle-tending, or prospecting, and firewood being mortal scarce on the plains, ’twasn’t to be expected the bhoys wouldn’t make free with some chips to cook with. I may have had a chop at those logs with my tomahawk, when I wanted a broil, onst or twice, myself.”