As I was moving along on the prairie just before dark my ears caught the sound of a peculiar barking and soon a pack of what I supposed to be dogs were following me. I noticed that _Paul's_ manner changed and he appeared disturbed, but attributed this to the barking and the persistent keeping at his heels of the little animals. To a man whom I met later, I explained that I had been followed for some hours by a pack of dogs, when he promptly informed me that they were doubtless prairie wolves. Of course to an Easterner this news gave an added interest to Grand Prairie. [Illustration: COUNTRY ROAD IN ILLINOIS.] One hundred and Thirtieth Day. _Robertson House_, JOLIET, ILLINOIS. _September Eighteenth_. Had _Paul_ brought out at eight o'clock. As soon as he was saddled at Richton the man who attended to him threw the rein over the neck of the horse, and a moment later he made his appearance unaccompanied in front of the Rohmer House. This being an undoubted sign of his anxiety to be off, I mounted at once and we were soon lessening the distance to Joliet, our evening destination, twenty-one miles away. Was all day again on Grand Prairie, which may give some idea of this the greatest and truly the grandest prairie yet passed on my route. Its proximity to Chicago is doubtless one of the chief causes of the high winds for which the "Windy City" is noted; and if Chicago could, she would gladly change her inconvenient environment. At Lenox I halted for dinner, reaching Joliet at four P. M. In riding through Jefferson street, I was met by Babcock who seemed much surprised at my early arrival. Notwithstanding the fact that "Rip Van Winkle" was being played at the opera house, Robert McWade, a young actor of some prominence, taking the leading _rôle_, I found a fair audience awaiting me at Werner Hall in the evening, which proved that interest was still felt in the Custer Monument movement. One hundred and Thirty-first Day. _Hopkins House_, MORRIS, ILLINOIS, _September Nineteenth_.