What a strange life for a highly educated lady, whose mind had been formed by travel and stored with memories of London, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome! That she should turn cateress for a rough crowd of engineers, navvies, teamsters and hunters! We were truly in a land of surprises where your tavern-keeper may be a polished gentleman and the chief of the State an ignorant boor. After breakfast we held a council of war, Mr. Ruggles being the chief spokesman. After some debate we agreed by his advice to enter into negotiations with one Mr. Dodge, the boss of an “outfit” about thirty miles off, to which he was going to send out a team with flour for his men—in that “outfit” there was the unique advantage of a small tent—in any other we should have to lie under the stars; a glance at a frozen fountain which the sun’s rays had not yet been able to melt decided us. The tent was the great lure, and we determined to join Mr. Dodge’s outfit if he would have us. Mr. Ruggles soon settled that for us, and at ten o’clock, having crammed a few necessaries into a bag and put our rifles together, we started under the convoy of Andy Phillips, teamster, hunter, and partner in some sort with Mr. Dodge. By this time a whole troop of idlers, hunters and navvies had crept out of sundry very dirty blankets and buffalo robes in which they had been huddled in back rooms and outhouses, and we had to run the gauntlet of a volley of chaff as we sallied forth. “What will you take for your skins?” “What’s your contract for heads?” They did not believe in us nor in our smart-looking Rigby rifles. It is astonishing how suspicious men of a certain class are of cleanliness; dirt alone is to them workmanlike. The last thing I heard was: “Wal! Wal! Wal! Damn me if them fellers don’t think they’re gwine to hunt bufflers! Wal! Wal! Wal!” The contemptuous way in which this was said was greeted with loud applause and laughter. Our way lay for a while eastward along the line of the railway, and then we struck off north on to the open prairie.