In 1861 He Starts as Mail Driver. In the spring of 1861 I went home to Burlingame, Kansas, and went to work on the farm of O.J. Niles. I had just turned the corner of twenty-one summers, and I felt that life should have a "turning point" somewhere, so I took down with the ague. This very ague chanced to be the "turning point" I was looking for and is herewith related. Mr. Veil of the firm of Barnum, Veil & Vickeroy, who had the mail contract from Kansas City, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, stopped over at Burlingame, Kansas, and there met Mr. Niles, the man for whom I was working. Mr. Veil told Mr. Niles that he wanted a farmer boy to drive on the Long Route because the stage drivers he had were cowards and not satisfactory. Niles told him that he had a farm hand, but, he added, "he won't go, because he has the ague." "Oh, well," Mr. Veil replied, "that's no matter, I know how to cure him; I'll tell him how to cure himself." So they sent for me, and Veil told me how to get rid of the ague. He said, "you dig a ditch in the ground a foot deep, and strip off your clothing and bury yourself, leaving only your head uncovered, and sleep all night in the Mother Earth." I did it. I found the earth perfectly dry and warm. I had not much more than engulfed myself when the influences of the dry soil began to draw all the poison out of my body, and I had, as I most firmly believe, the most peaceful and delightful slumber I had ever experienced since infancy. From that day until the present time I have never had another chill. I gained 40 pounds of flesh in the next three months. I have known consumption to be cured with the same "ague cure" on the plains. The distance from Kansas City to Fort Larned, Kansas, is three hundred miles. The distance from Fort Larned to Fort Lyon, New Mexico, is two hundred and forty miles, and from Fort Lyon to Fort Union it is one hundred and eighty miles, from Fort Union to Santa Fe it is one hundred and eighty miles, making nine hundred miles for the entire trip. The drive from Fort Larned, Kansas, to Fort Lyon, Colorado, was known as the Long Route, being 240 miles, with no stations between; but across that treacherous plain of the Santa Fe Trail I made the trip sixty-five times in four years, driving one set of mules the entire distance, camping out and sleeping on the ground.