The C. & R.W. put on fifteen regular trains daily, and the little single track, unballasted and squirmy, was very unsafe to ride over and the crowded trains had to run very slowly on this account. Because of the fact that it was difficult to find adequate side tracking, it took two full days to make the trip from Omaha to Calias and return. All the day and night the "toot, toot" of the locomotives could be heard and the sound seemed to make the country seem very old indeed. Megory's brass band--organized for the purpose--undaunted, continued to play frantically at the depot to try to induce the crowded trains to unload a greater share, but to no avail, although the cars were stuffed like sandwiches. Those times in Calias were long to be remembered. As the trains disgorged the thousands daily it seemed impossible that the little city could care for such crowds. The sidewalks were crowded from morn till night. The registration booths and the saloons never closed and more automobiles than I had ever seen in a country town up to that time, roared, and with their clattering noise, took the people hurriedly across the reservation to the west. Along toward the close of the opening a prairie fire driven by a strong west wind raced across Tipp county in a straight line for Calias. Although fire guards sixty feet wide had been burned along the west side of the town, it soon became apparent that the fire would leap them and enter the town, unless some unusual effort on the part of the citizens was made to stop it. It was late in the afternoon and as seems always the case, a fire will cause the wind to rise, and it rose until the blaze shut out the western horizon. It seemed the entire world to the west was afire. Ten thousand people, lost in sight-seeing, gambling and revelry, all of a sudden became aware of the approaching danger, and began a rush for safety. To the north, south, and east of the town the lands were under cultivation, therefore, a safe place from the fire that now threatened the town. All business was suspended, registration ceased, and the huge cans containing more than one hundred thousand applications for lands, were loaded on drays and taken into the country and deposited in the center of a large plowed field, for safety. The gamblers put their gains into sacks and joined the surging masses, and with grips got from the numerous check rooms, all the people fled like stampeding cattle to a position to the north of town which was protected by a corn field on the west.