As we approached the city the driver made me get down, and he told me to follow the sidewalk along the main street until I came to a foundry, next to which was father's house. I followed close behind the stage, keeping in the middle of the road. Soon I found myself in the city, where there were houses and stores on each side of the street, and board walks for pedestrians. I feared to walk on the sidewalks, for I was barefooted, and my feet were muddy and the sidewalks very clean. The people seemed to be dressed up as if for Sunday, and all the boys wore shoes, which excited my pity, for I knew how hot their poor feet must be. As I groped my way along Main Street I noticed a sign that stretched nearly across the entire building over three stores. In large wooden letters, at least six feet long, were the words "Darling's block." It was the largest building I had ever seen, three stories high, and I ventured to step on to the sidewalk; and while gazing in awe upon the mighty structure my attention was attracted by a noise inside. I walked in and found myself in a printing-office. As I was taking in the wonderful scene the pressman spoke to me in a gruff voice, asking me what I wanted. "Nothing," I said, trembling, and starting for the door. "Don't you want to learn the trade?" he shouted. "The editor wants an apprentice." Just then the editor appeared in the doorway of his sanctum. He was a pleasant-faced man, and he asked me in a kindly tone whose boy I was and where I belonged. "Why, your father is one of my subscribers. I want an apprentice to learn the printer's trade. I can give you twenty-five dollars for the first year, thirty for the second, and fifty dollars and the carrier's address for the third year, with your board and washing." "All right." In less time than it takes to write it I was behind the press, and in five minutes I was covered with printer's ink from head to foot. My pioneer days were over. [Illustration] "THE PLAINS ACROSS" BY NOAH BROOKS [Illustration: A bull-whacker. The loaded whip was used in two hands and was twenty feet long, or more, in the lash. In some cases it had a horseshoe-nail in the end of the snapper.] During the ten years immediately following the discovery of gold in California, the main-traveled road across the continent was what was known as the Platte River route. Starting from Council Bluffs, Iowa, a town then famous as the "jumping-off place" for California emigrants, the adventurers crossed the Missouri by a rope ferry and clambered up a steep, slippery bank to the site of the modern city of Omaha. The only building of any considerable dimensions in the early fifties was a large, unpainted, barn-like structure, which, we were proudly told, was to be the capitol of the Territory of Nebraska, the Territorial organization of which was authorized by Congress in 1854.