"_Dear Class_--I know the staid and quiet habits that characterize all of you, and that you are not given to hard riding and buffalo hunting. Yet this prairie air, with its rich fragrance and wild freeness, would give a new circulation to the blood of each one of you. Like a gale at sea, the breeze sweeps against one's cheeks, and the great billows of land rise on every side, as mountains of troubled ocean. Why not desert the city and lose yourself for awhile in this great grand waste? Antelope are bounding and buffalo running on every side of us, while villages of prairie dogs bark at the flying herds. One grows in self-estimation after breathing this air, and, feeling that safety and life depend on his own exertions, learns to place reliance upon the powers which Nature has given him, with manly independence of artificial laws and police. "While I am writing, the first victim of our prowess, a magnificent specimen of the American bison, is being skinned by our suite, the robe from which, when prepared, we intend sending you. The men say it must be dressed by some of the civilized Indians on the reserves, as the white man's tanning injures the value. * * * * * "The robe is now off, and half a ton of fat meat lies exposed. We shall only take the hind quarters, a portion of the hump, and the tongue. How glad the famishing wretches in the tenement houses of the city would be for an opportunity to pick those long ribs which we leave for the wolves! His horns are somewhat battered, but we have cut them off, to supplant hooks on a future hat-rack. One of the men has just taken a large musket ball from the animal's flank. That shot must have been received years ago, as the ball is an old fashioned one and is thickly encased in fat. "The geological formation of the country is very interesting. I expect to examine the same more thoroughly after we have studied the animals traversing its surface. Yesterday, we had in camp a family from the Solomon, who were sufferers some months since from the fearful Indian massacre there. Their story was an exceedingly interesting one, though very sad. We shall visit them if duty calls that way. I must close. The men have thrown the skin in the wagon, flesh side up, and deposited the meat upon it, and all are now ready for further conquests. "Your sincere friend and instructor, "H----." CHAPTER XVIII.