At Wichita we remained three or four days, having our transportation repaired. As I remember it, we had a long stretch of sand before crossing the Arkansas and forded the river below the town and then turned to the west. It was a little village of one main street and I think they called it Douglas avenue. The houses were small but neat, and being the first town I had seen for a year or two it looked very attractive. We were there over the Fourth of July and I remember a delightfully clean, attractive little place where they sold ice cream. We had camped just north of the village and Mr. Reese, Mr. Parker and I frequently visited the ice cream parlor. If there were any saloons in the place I do not remember them for if there had been it would have probably shown on the enlisted men of the command. I do not remember which one suggested it, but we concluded that it would be some fun to visit the real estate offices, of which I think there were two in the town, and hear what the agents had to say. They treated us most cordially and were anxious to show us around and told us what a wonderful city it was going to be. All the southwest was going to be a great wheat country, although we saw no wheat, and would be tributary to their town and they were going to vote bonds the following Monday for a railroad from Newton, then the terminus of the Santa Fe. If not the terminus it was the great cattle shipping point for the immense herds that came up the Chisholm trail from Texas, the trail we had followed some distance from Fort Sill. Everything would eventually come to Wichita and it would be a second Chicago. One agent offered us a corner lot centrally located for one hundred dollars, and out farther to the west, or north, whichever it might have been, I don't remember, on down to fifteen dollars a lot. We approved of the wonderful prospects for the town and told them we would consider the the matter of investing, and then went back to our tents and laughed about it. We at least had an enjoyable hour or so. I have had occasion to think about it since, not with any particular feeling of hilarity, but rather one of regret that I did not grasp the wonderful possibilities of the country. Either of the three of us could have invested a little money if we had known enough. After we had again started on the march I stopped and talked with a man standing by the roadside and he told me each alternate section of the land was offered by the Santa Fe railroad at two dollars per acre. It was a beautiful valley and the land looked rich but the country generally looked very primitive.