Merely to indulge myself in feminine beauty, however, I need not have undertaken the expense and fatigue of journeying from Albany on the Hudson out to Omaha on the plains side of the Missouri River; thence by the Union Pacific Railroad of the new transcontinental line into the Indian country. There were handsome women a-plenty in the East; and of access, also, to a youth of family and parts. I had pictures of the same in my social register. A man does not attain to twenty-five years without having accomplished a few pages of the heart book. Nevertheless all such pages were--or had seemed to be--wholly retrospective now, for here I was, advised by the physicians to "go West," meaning by this not simply the one-time West of Ohio, or Illinois, or even Iowa, but the remote and genuine West lying beyond the Missouri. Whereupon, out of desperation that flung the gauntlet down to hope I had taken the bull by the horns in earnest. West should be full dose, at the utmost procurable by modern conveyance. The Union Pacific announcements acclaimed that this summer of 1868 the rails should cross the Black Hills Mountains of Wyoming to another range of the Rocky Mountains, in Utah; and that by the end of the year one might ride comfortably clear to Salt Lake City. Certainly this was "going West" with a vengeance; but as appeared to me--and to my father and mother and the physicians--somewhere in the expanse of brand new Western country, the plains and mountains, I would find at least the breath of life. When I arrived in Omaha the ticket agent was enabled to sell me transportation away to the town of Benton, Wyoming Territory itself, six hundred and ninety miles (he said) west of the Missouri. Of Benton I had never heard. It was upon no public maps, as yet. But in round figures, seven hundred miles! Practically the distance from Albany to Cincinnati, and itself distant from Albany over two thousand miles! All by rail. Benton was, he explained, the present end of passenger service, this August. In another month--and he laughed. "Fact is, while you're standing here," he alleged, "I may get orders any moment to sell a longer ticket. The Casements are laying two to three miles of track a day, seven days in the week, and stepping right on the heels of the graders. Last April we were selling only to Cheyenne, rising of five hundred miles. Then in May we began to sell to Laramie, five hundred and seventy-six miles. Last of July we began selling to Benton, a hundred and twenty miles farther. Track's now probably fifty or more miles west of Benton and there's liable to be another passenger terminus to-morrow. So it might pay you to wait." "No," I said. "Thank you, but I'll try Benton. I can go on from there as I think best. Could you recommend local accommodations?" He stared, through the bars of the little window behind which lay a six-chambered revolver. "Could I do what, sir?"