"Stop, stop! I have all these things. That is not what I would be at, but this: You, gentlemen, carry goods to Santa Fe. You double or treble your money on them. Now, I have ten thousand dollars in a bank here. What should hinder me to combine profit with pleasure, and invest it as you do?" "Nothing; nothing! A good idea," answered several. "Well, then, if any of you will have the goodness to go with me, and show me what sort of merchandise I am to lay in for the Santa Fe market, I will pay his wine bill at dinner, and that's no small commission, I think." The prairie men laughed loudly, declaring they would all go a-shopping with me; and, after breakfast, we started in a body, arm-in-arm. Before dinner I had invested nearly all my disposable funds in printed calicoes, long knives, and looking-glasses, leaving just money enough to purchase mule-waggons and hire teamsters at Independence, our point of departure for the plains. A few days after, with my new companions, I was steaming up the Missouri, on our way to the trackless prairies of the "Far West." CHAPTER THREE. THE PRAIRIE FEVER. After a week spent in Independence buying mules and waggons, we took the route over the plains. There were a hundred waggons in the caravan, and nearly twice that number of teamsters and attendants. Two of the capacious vehicles contained all my "plunder;" and, to manage them, I had hired a couple of lathy, long-haired Missourians. I had also engaged a Canadian voyageur named Gode, as a sort of attendant or compagnon. Where are the glossy gentlemen of the Planters' Hotel? One would suppose they had been left behind, as here are none but men in hunting-shirts and slouch hats. Yes; but under these hats we recognise their faces, and in these rude shirts we have the same jovial fellows as ever. The silky black and the diamonds have disappeared, for now the traders flourish under the prairie costume. I will endeavour to give an idea of the appearance of my companions by describing my own; for I am tricked out very much like themselves.