My first acquaintance with a cache on the plains was in the vicinity of Fort Kearney. Our party was camped near a half dozen men who were returning from Salt Lake City, and had lost three of their oxen. We struck up an acquaintance, and in the evening invited them to sit around our fire, where we exchanged news and stories, they telling us of Utah, and we telling them about the States or “God’s Country,” as one of them called it. “Stranger,” said he, “if ever I get back to God’s Country, and you catch me again on these yere plains, you may just shoot me for a prairie dog. I’ve seen all I want of this yere living, and don’t hanker for no more of it. I’m a going back where I can have a square meal at a table, and drink whiskey that wouldn’t burn a hole through an old boot in five minutes.” We were not bountifully supplied with the necessaries of life, but we felt liberal, and ventured to offer a drink of whiskey to each of the strangers. They took it as unhesitatingly as a kitten would take a saucer of new milk, and we became friends in a short time. When we separated, one of the eastward-bound travellers said,— “May be you’ll run short of flour before you get to the mountains, and a little would help you along. Now, we had to lighten up just this side of the Platte crossing, where we lost two of our oxen. We couldn’t find anybody to sell to, and as we didn’t like to throw things away altogether, we cached some of them. Next day we met a man one of us knew, and we sold him all the caches but one, and told him where to find them. But there was one bag of flour in a cache away from the rest, and he didn’t want no flour; so we didn’t tell him where it was.” We offered to buy the flour, but the men would not listen to the proposition. “It’s Utah flour,” said one of them, “and isn’t very good. The sack is small, and the whole lot wouldn’t be worth a great deal; but you can’t buy it. You’ve treated us handsome, and we’re not going to be rattlesnakes. We want you to take that flour, and you shan’t pay for it.” We thanked them heartily, and proffered another drink, which was accepted and swallowed. [Sidenote: HOW TO CONCEAL FLOUR.] “About five miles this side of the old crossing of the Platte,” one of the strangers continued, after wiping the drops of whiskey from his lips, “you will come to a dry creek. There’s a small clump of willows on your right hand, and mighty small willows they are too; and on the left side, a dozen yards off the road, there are three buffalo heads piled up, with a sage bush sticking in the top one. Now, you go up the creek past these yere buffalo heads about fifty yards, and you’ll see a grave with a little board at one end. On the board are some words which we cut, that says, ‘J. MEANS, SALT LAKE, 34 YEARS.’ Now, there ain’t no J. Means there, but there is a sack of flour, and you’ll find it by digging.”