Leaving the valley and striking west for Council Bluffs, we opened into a wild country, and for the first time realized that we were leaving civilization behind. The broad forest had entirely faded away, and the surface that had begun to wave at the great river-bank had now become very rough, and the steel of the husbandman had not yet pierced the aged sod. A broad, open land stretched out before us, like a sea whose waters were tossed by a mighty wind, and marked only by the dim trails that led from one to the other of the distant little sod domiciles. Great herds of cattle may be seen upon the hill-sides of this rich pasture-land, and large flocks of sheep are bleating in the valleys. The country being _very_ rough, there is very little _farming_ done; and a fence is a novelty. Herders are employed upon these conditions: They are to take care of the cattle on the prairie for four months, salt them, and stand all losses,--unless the brand of the missing animal can be produced,--and while _boarding themselves_ they receive one dollar and twenty-five cents per head; and often having five and six hundred head together, there is money in it; and a number of young men find employment here. It was only with _great effort_ that we found our way over the rough prairie and unbridged streams, in which we often stuck. The country looks as if God had carefully made the hills to order, and then fitted them together as closely as he could; and heavy rains falling here all run down the hills into the valleys, which are usually very soft, and many times the water stands very deep in them. There was one time (and which I shall not soon forget) that we came to a slough about fifty yards wide. We could tell by its _look_ that it was a _bad crossing_, and as far as we could see either way, it appeared the same. So, seeing several old wagon tracks through it, we pushed in. Starting in _lively_, we managed to get about half way, when the wagon was in to the hub and the mud so stiff that the horses could get no further. There we were in the middle of a slough between the hills of Iowa, and the prospect of our being anywhere else for some time about as limited as a boy’s show for victory in a fight with a red-headed school-marm. You may all talk of wisdom, but I will bet a million if Solomon _himself_ had been there, he would have stood out upon the bank and said, “Boys, you are in a worse fix than five hundred wives have ever been able to put me.” But after about exhausting our ingenuity, we at length unhitched our horses and took them across. Tying a long rope to the end of the tongue, we hitched the team to it and pulled the wagon on a lock. Unluckily for me, I had the appearance of being the best wheel-horse in the crowd; and though I coughed and told the boys that getting into the mud and over exerting myself would certainly be the cause of my _death_, they still insisted. Just then finding that they too were consumptive, and limping