Nothing ever came of the dream, but it all occurred _exactly_ as I describe it. I have had several quite as strange. Immediately after I had finished my narration, some one, alluding to our party, asked if there was any one present who could sing "Hans Breitmann's Barty," and I astonished them not a little by proclaiming that I was the author, and by singing it. We went on to Leavenworth, where we had a dinner at the hotel which was worthy of Paris. We had, for example, prairie pullets or half-grown grouse, wild turkeys and tender venison. Thence to Fort Riley, and so on in waggons to the last surveyor's camp. I forget where it was on the route that we stopped over-night at a fort, where I found some old friends and made new ones. A young officer--Lieutenant Brown, I think--gave me a bed in his cabin. His ceiling was made of canvas. For weeks he had heard a great rattlesnake moving about on it. One day he had made a hole in the ceiling and put into it a great fierce tom-cat. The cat "went for" the snake and there was an awful row. After a time the cat came out looking like a devil with every hair on end, made straight for the prairie, and was never heard of again. Neither was the snake. They had finished one another. On another occasion, when sitting in a similar cabin, my gentle hostess, an officer's wife, whom I had known a few years before as a beauty in society, remarked that she had two large rattlesnakes in her ceiling, and that if we would be silent we might hear them crawling about. They could not be taken out without rebuilding the roof. Captain Colton had just recovered from a very bad attack of fever and ague, and, being young, had the enormous appetite which follows weeks of quinine. I saw him this day eat a full meal of beefsteaks, and then immediately after devour another, at Brown's, of buffalo-meat. The air of the Plains causes incredible hunger. We all played a good knife and fork. About twilight-tide there came in a very gentlemanly Catholic priest. I was told that he was a roving missionary. He led a charmed life, for he went to visit the wildest tribes, and was everywhere respected. I conversed with him in French. After a while he spread his blanket, lay down on the floor and slept till morning, when he read his prayers and departed. The next day the fort square was full of Kaw Indians, all in savage array, about to depart for their autumnal buffalo-hunt. I met one venerable heathen with his wife and babe, with whom I made genial acquaintance. I asked the wife the name for a whip; she replied _B'meergashee_; a pony was _shoonga_, the nose _hin_, and a woman _shimmy- shindy_! I bought his whip for a dollar. The squaw generously offered to throw in the baby, which I declined, and we all laughed and parted.