Taking his section in a palace car in luxurious ease, he travels in six days over the same road which he wearily traveled, forty-five and fifty years ago, in from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and ninety days. The fact is not without interest to him that for more than a thousand miles of the way on the great central routes, he can throw a stone from the car window into his old camping grounds. The old plainsmen were not bad surveyors. They may not have been advanced in trigonometry or logarithms, but they had keen eyes and ripe practical judgment, which enabled them to master the situation. The trails marked and traveled by the old missionaries, nine times in every ten, proved the best. Many a time did I, and others, by taking what seemed to be inviting "cutoffs," find out to our sorrow that the old trailers of ten years before us had been wiser. I make this a chapter of personal experience, not for any personal gratification, but because of the desire to make it real and true in every particular, and because the data and incidents of travel of the old missionaries are meager and incomplete. The experiences in 1836, 1843 and 1850, were much the same, save and except that in 1850 the way was more plainly marked than in 1836, which then was nothing more than an Indian trail, and even that often misleading. Besides that, the pioneer corps had made passable many danger points, and had even left ferries over the most dangerous rivers. From 1846 to 1856 were ten years of great activity upon the frontier. The starting points for the journey across the plains were many and scattered, from where Kansas City now stands to Fort Leavenworth. The time of which I write was 1850. Our little company of seven chosen friends, all young and inexperienced in any form of wild life, resolved upon the journey, and began preparations in 1849 and were ready in March, 1850, to take a steamer at Cincinnati for Fort Leavenworth. We had consulted every authority within reach as to our outfit, both for our safety and comfort, and few voyagers ever started upon the long journey who had nearer the essential things, and so few that proved useless. In one thing we violated the recommendations of all experienced plainsmen, and that was in the purchase of stock. We were advised to buy only mustangs and Mexican mules, but chose to buy in Ohio the largest and finest mules we could find. Our wagons were selected with great care as to every piece of timber and steel in their make-up, and every leather and buckle in the harness was scrutinized.