In the late Civil War, Omaha responded nobly to the call of the General Government. The First Regiment of Nebraska Volunteers, the First Battalion, the Second Regiment Nebraska Volunteers, the First Nebraska Veteran Cavalry, and four companies of Curtis' Horse, came almost entirely from Omaha. The first telegraph line reached Omaha in 1860. The first breaking of ground for the Union Pacific Rail Road took place in Omaha, December 3, 1863. The first train from the East reached Omaha by the Chicago and Northwestern route, January 17, 1867. So Omaha grew and prospered. It took about twenty-seven years to bring it out of original wildness to the state of excellency in which I found it as I passed through on my horseback journey. Yet it seems but yesterday since no human dwelling occupied the place now covered by our young city. Here the Indian council-fires burned; on the bluffs, with no more civilized weapon than his bow and arrow, he hunted deer, buffalo, elk, bear and wolf. Here his war-whoop rang out clear and unmolested. Here brave, free, unfearing, he dwelt, "Monarch of all he surveyed." [Illustration: PAWNEE INDIANS, NEBRASKA.] And now he is completely effaced from this region. Gone and only remembered by some quaint name still attached to stream or mountain. To-day "the moving millions, both in this country and Europe, are making earnest inquiry for Nebraska." 50,000 new inhabitants came to it in 1880. The close of the late war brought many ex-soldiers and their families here to claim land privileges near Omaha, and from "the four quarters of the globe the swelling thousands have come to settle with those that made their way thither. From Maine and Texas, and from every territory of the Rocky Mountains, they came." "The rank and file, the bone and muscle, were men who came to stay, who counted the cost, who measured the sacrifice." Under their faithful hands the desert has been made to "blossom like the rose." "The dug-out and the log house have given place to the elegant mansion, and thousands of groves have sprung up almost as if by magic all over the prairies." These brave pioneers knew it would be so. They believed in the embryo city. By faith they saw the fields blossoming for the harvest. They heard the song of harvest home, they saw the smoke of the rising city, the highways of commerce, and some of them saw the highways of nations, so long a fable to the American people, stretching up through their valleys to the everlasting mountains and on to the broad Pacific. To-day the day-dream of these brave men is realized-- For lo! it has all come true. CHAPTER XXV. OMAHA TO CHEYENNE.