Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1886 — A Ride on the Plains. [ARTICLE]

A Ride on the Plains.

Down the river, now slowly and cautiously scraping over the wide sandbars, now Swiftly gliding along, aided by the rapid-flowing current; down the river through the Country of Hell, with its brood desert plains and barren brown hills,, inky black where *the moving clbudS cast their shadows; down the river past bid abandoned Indian trading posts fast crumbling into ruins, past the lonely military telegraph station, where we learn of the passage of a “dug-out,” with its crew of fugitive desperadoes flying from the wrath of the cow-lioys; down the river between perpendicular sand-banks, crumbling away at the touch of the “rollers" caused by the passage of our boat, scaring up flocks of wild-geese and swift-flying, blue-winged heron; down the river through lovely prairies covered with waving grasses and gayly colored wild flowers, into the Indian country, until, looking across one of the long, flat outrunning points of land that mark the constantly recurring curves of the river, there, shining in the morning sun, the distant buildings of the military post, our destinatiofi, gleam bright under the blue, white, and scarlet folds of the national standard floating gracefully out from its tall pole against the deep warm purple of the sky beyond. Hundreds of Indian tepees are scattered over the wide plain, and at onr approach we can see the inmates hurrying to the hanks to watch the arrival of the great steamer. Wildlooking savages, their faces smeared with streaks of bright vermilion or orange, are watering their horses, their gaudily-clothed forms reflecting straight down in the mirror-like surface of the water; some half-clad lads, who, lying prone upon their bellies, and leaning far over the high banks, have been Ashing in the stream, pull in their lines and race along the shore, their course, black hair floating out behind, and their bronze-colored naked limbs moving with untrammeled ease, as they easily keep pace with the boat; young bucks mounted on half-tamed ponies, gallop along and mingle with the throng; the white sombreros and light-blue uniforms of the Indian police contrast strangely with the party-colored rags of their fellow-savages. As we slowly paddle up to the landing we make our preparations to land, recognizing our acquaintances in the little group of shoulder-strapped bluecoats near the ambulance, which has just been drawn up to the bank by its team of four mules, and are soon exchanging greetings with our friends, who receive us with the frank, kindly, ready hospitality of the American soldier.— B. F. Zogbaum, in Harper’s Magazine.