On arriving at Cheyenne I found it would be impossible to reach Omaha in time to perform _Carmen_, which was announced for the following evening; or Burlington, where _Lucia_ was billed for the Saturday; or Chicago for our Sunday concert, for which every place had been taken. All had to be abandoned. Our special train was consequently diverted off to the right in the direction of Denver, where I telegraphed to know if they could take us in for a concert the following Sunday. On receiving a negative reply, I telegraphed to Kansas City, where my proposition was accepted. I consequently wired the Kansas manager the names of the artists and the programme containing the pieces each would sing. Through the manipulation of the telegraph clerks scarcely one of the artists' names was spelt right, whilst the pieces they proposed to sing, as I afterwards found, were all muddled up together. In due course our party reached Denver, where we took half an hour's stop for watering the train and obtaining ice for the water tanks in the different cars, after which we started on our road to Kansas City. Shortly after leaving Denver one of my sergeants belonging to the corps of commissionaires--several of whom I had brought from London--was taken ill and reported to be suffering from sunstroke received many years previously in India. During our brief stoppage at Denver one of the other sergeants had purchased him some medicine which he was in the habit of taking. About two o'clock in the morning he became very violent, and it was found necessary to cut the bell-cord running through the carriage in order to tie him down. I then gave orders to the sergeant-major to place him in a bed and have him watched by alternate reliefs of the other sergeants, changing every two hours. About four in the morning, in the midst of a terrific thunderstorm, accompanied by torrents of rain, I was alarmed by the sudden entry of the sergeant-major, stating that the invalid under his charge had opened the window and taken a header straight out. There was great difficulty in stopping the train in consequence of the absence of the bell-cord; but we ultimately succeeded in doing so. Numbers of us went out to look for the poor man's remains, the vivid flashes of lightning assisting us in our search. As the water on each side of the railway was several feet deep, and as the sergeant was nowhere to be found on the line, we concluded after three hours' search that he must be drowned, and again started the train, leaving word at the first station of the misfortune that had happened.