Travelling was a new experience to me, and on the first night after I
left home I lay awake until we reached Altoona. We rolled out of smoky
Pittsburg at dawn, and from then on the only bitter drop in my cup of
bliss was that the train went so fast I could not see everything out of
my window.
Four days to ride! The great Mississippi to cross, the plains, the Rocky
Mountains, then the Arizona plateaus-a long, long journey with a wild
pine forest at the end! I wondered what more any young fellow could have
wished. With my face glued to the car window I watched the level country
speed by.
There appeared to be one continuous procession of well-cultivated
farms, little hamlets, and prosperous towns. What interested me most, of
course, were the farms, for all of them had some kind of wood. We passed
a zone of maple forests which looked to be more carefully kept than the
others. Then I recognized that they were maple-sugar trees. The farmers
had cleaned out the other species, and this primitive method of forestry
had produced the finest maples it had ever been my good-fortune to see.
Indiana was flatter than Ohio, not so well watered, and therefore less
heavily timbered. I saw, with regret, that the woodland was being cut
regularly, tree after tree, and stacked in cords for firewood.
At Chicago I was to change for Santa Fe, and finding my train in
the station I climbed aboard. My car was a tourist coach. Father had
insisted on buying a ticket for the California Limited, but I had argued
that a luxurious Pullman was not exactly the thing for a prospective
forester. Still I pocketed the extra money which I had assured him he
need not spend for the first-class ticket.
The huge station, with its glaring lights and clanging bells, and the
outspreading city, soon gave place to prairie land.
That night I slept little, but the very time I wanted to be awake--when
we crossed the Mississippi--I was slumbering soundly, and so missed it.
“I'll bet I don't miss it coming back,” I vowed.
The sight of the Missouri, however, somewhat repaid me for the loss.
What a muddy, wide river! And I thought of the thousands of miles of
country it drained, and of the forests there must be at its source. Then
came the never-ending Kansas corn-fields. I do not know whether it was
their length or their treeless monotony, but I grew tired looking at
them.
From then on I began to take some notice of my fellow-travelers. The
conductor proved to be an agreeable old fellow; and the train-boy,
though I mistrusted his advances because he tried to sell me everything
from chewing-gum to mining stock, turned out to be pretty good company.
The Negro porter had such a jolly voice and laugh that I talked to him
whenever I got the chance. Then occasional passengers occupied the seat
opposite me from town to town. They were much alike, all sunburned and
loud-voiced, and it looked as though they had all bought their high
boots and wide hats at the same shop.
The last traveller to face me was a very heavy man with a great bullet
head and a shock of light hair. His blue eyes had a bold flash, his long
mustache drooped, and there was something about him that I did not like.
He wore a huge diamond in the bosom of his flannel shirt, and a
leather watch-chain that was thick and strong enough to have held up a
town-clock.
“Hot,” he said, as he mopped his moist brow.
“Not so hot as it was,” I replied.
“Sure not. We're climbin' a little. He's whistlin' for Dodge City now.”
“Dodge City?” I echoed, with interest. The name brought back vivid
scenes from certain yellow-backed volumes, and certain uncomfortable
memories of my father's displeasure. “Isn't this the old cattle town
where there used to be so many fights?”
“Sure. An' not so very long ago. Here, look out the window.” He clapped
his big hand on my knee; then pointed. “See that hill there. Dead Man's
Hill it was once, where they buried the fellers as died with their boots
on.”