Reminiscences of Ten Years Experience on the Western Plains: How the United States Mails Were Carried Before Railroads Reached the Santa Fe Trail (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Reminiscences of Ten Years Experience on the Western Plains: How the United States Mails Were Carried Before Railroads Reached the Santa Fe TrailCreek, Round Mound, Rock Creek, Point of Rocks, Rio Colorado, Ocate, Santa Clara Springs, Apache Canon, Bourgon Valley, Fort Union. We made three drives a day and always stopping at noon to water the mules and let them browse around for half an hour. When creeks were frozen we would have to cut the ice before we could get the mules to cross; one man always rode alongside the team to see that each animal did his portion of the work. It would be far advanced in the night some times when our day's journey was completed. We cooked twice a day, using an oilcloth spread on the ground for a table cloth, starting early every morning to get water for breakfast. In summer we could see buffalo as far as our eyes could reach; when they were quiet and lying down, it was our sign that there were no Indians in the vicinity. There was a great rush of travel in the fall of 1858 on account of re ports of rich gold discoveries in Pikes Peak. The gold seekers travel ed the Santa Fe Trail until they reached the fork of the road to bring them to the promised land, which junction is about fifteen miles west of where Dodge City is now located.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.