Along that old wilderness trail I went across the Ohio, through prairie lands, across the rich fields of Iowa, the plains of Nebraska, over the Rockies, and down into the great deserts that stretch to the Sierras. Along went others who were concerned in that trail: three Japanese students hurrying home from England, France, and Germany, bits of that network of eager investigation that Japan has spread over the globe--quiet, unobtrusive little fellows who rushed for papers at every station to see news of the war; three Americans on the way to the Philippines for the Government; an English Major of Infantry and an English Captain of Cavalry and a pretty English girl; and two who in that trail had no interest--two newspaper men from France. I have been told that the only two seven-masted vessels in the world collided one night in mid-ocean. Well, these sons of France--the only ones on their mission, perhaps, in broad America--collided not only on the same train, the same sleeper, and the same section, I was told, but both were gazetted for the same lower berth. Each asserted his claim with a politeness that became gesticulatory and vociferous. Conductor, brakeman, and porter came to the scene of action. Nobody could settle the dispute, so the correspondents exchanged cards, claimed Gallic satisfaction mutually, and requested the conductor to stop the train and let them get off and fight. The conductor explained that, much as he personally would like to see the scrap, the law of the land and the speed of the Overland Limited made tarrying impossible. Without rapiers I have often wondered how those two gentlemen of France would have drawn each other's blood. Each still refused to take the upper berth, but next day they were friends, and came over sea practically arm and arm on shipboard, and arm and arm they practically are in Japan to-day. Through the stamping grounds of Wister's "Virginian" and other men of fact and fiction in the West, the trail led--through barren wastes with nothing alive in sight except an occasional flock of gray, starved sheep with a lonely herder and his sheep-dog watching us pass, while a blue-eyed frontiersman gave me more reasons for race arrogance with his tales of Western ethics in the old days: How men trusted each other and were not deceived in friendship and in trade; how they sacrificed themselves for each other without regret, and no wish for reward, and honored and protected women always.