The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-06-18
FINALLY.
Pacific Railroad Excursion.
The LAST RAIL ON U. P. r. W., E. d..
Iune 9th. 1867.
Editors I.teIIigence,-

Editors InteIti0encer:
At Junction City, after our vigorous
appetites, which had been reinvigorated
| by the breezy ride across the prairies,
had been satiated by the good cheer OF
the Hall House, we walked quietly
| down TO our sleeping cars, where we
| had all determined to lodge, ms the hotel
| could not accommodate the whole OF
| our party. But sleep did not worry
/ our ewes nor slumber our eyelidS much
that night, for the indefattgable Wells
gathered uuIo him fifty souls, and all
/ the mAddest OF the IneTrinent that had
I been curbed by the restraints of civil
/ lied life broke loose and GideOn's band
went wild. Song. speech. and shout
made the prairieS and the sleepy heads
| of our elders ring. By and by messa-
| ges began to come from the beleaguered
| somnolents; they coaxed through the
car windows, vapored through
the ventilators. and parleyed from
the platforms, each with his flag of
| truce. But Young America, in such
cause and with such n leader, could not
Weld, and when one corrupt politician
ventured forth from the comnissary
car and attempted to beguile us from
our virtuous noise and bride us to
craven silence with a variety of drinks,
patriotism could stand it no longer, we
look the spy and his drinks, collective
lv surrounded the former and individ-
OalIS SurfOunOeN Ine la1leEs III PEONISeN
war dance around the enemy's ennis
sary, and sent him back under guard
for another bride.
When Gideon's band began to fail in
eloQuence, they suddenly remembered
that u fellow traveller, the Marquis de
Chambrun, n grandson of Lafayette,
and therefore entitled TO all honor from
Americans, had not as yet had an op-
portunity to express himself on
American institutions, and resolved
| to atone for this neglect. A committee
OF Gideonites waited on the Marquis
but did not wait on him long, for find.
ing that his mo6esty was in his road
th5y quietly conducted him to the
American rOstrum, the car platform,
and introduced him to an appreciative
audience, whose frequent responses
testified their full understanding of his
remarks. The speaker went on TO dis
cuss three pOlnts-Ftrst, unity, at
which the band in line advanced two
PAGES. The orator encouraged by this
evidence of his hearers interest grew
grandiloquent, and as he launched out
in praise OF his second pOint-Republi-
canism, the line again advanced.
What the third point was remains
for as he came TO Thirdly" the band
with a whoop that did credit to their
days practice swooped down upon the
noble pale-1Hce, and bore him, as with
one hand he held fast his scalp and
with the other his combinations TO a
safe and cool spot out on
the prairies with full permission
to speak the rest of his piece to the
prairie dogs and winged winds.i The
Marquis, however, did not seem to dis
like this novel American welcome, but,
like his grandfather, asked leave TO
join our forces, which was cheerfully
granted, and we, like our revolutionary
fathers, thus reinforced by France,
renewed the combat until daylight
found US masters of the field, and the
first up for breakfast.
After the said breakfast was disposed
of, our train moved after the music of
the band and waving adieus of our
Junction City friends. Thirty miles out,
we stop at Abilene, the county seat
of Dickinson county. Here we find a
frontier store and courthouse, all in one,
and a large town of prairie dogs.i Some
of the prairie dogs had been partially
tanned, and as soon as our crowd had
would come TO the mouth Of their holes
to eat the crackers thrown to them.
One, indeed, was bold enough to come
clear out, but still thought SO little OF
the good faith of his visitors
as to remain within one jump
OF his hole, into which, at every
suspicious motion, he disappeared,
habits, and the construction of their
homes were matters of a good deal of
Interest to those of us who had often
heard OF but never seen them. The en-
trance TO each hole Is through little
mound and thence the burrow runs
obliquely eight or ten feet down, con-
Meeting at the bottom with other holes
1t is said by the knowing ones that one
or more OF the holes in every town
reaches water in sufficient qua nifty to
to supply the whole town.
We took dinner at Salina, nearly two
hundred miles from Kansas City, and
here had our first taste of buffalo meat.
about which nobody had much to say,
except to brag that they had eaten their
piece. Several celebrities were discov.
cred here, among them Wild Bill,
whom Harper has made known by
reputation to a good many. Wild Bill,
whose real name Is Hickok, had just
come in from Fort Hayes with dis
patches. He Is a good-looking, dash
Ing, sturdy fellow who seems to be
about twenty-five years old, though in
reality thirty-eight. He, with his in
Separable companion or "partner,"
Jack Harvey, are in the employ of the
Government as scouts for General
Hancock. Ts E7155-
Col. VIM. A. Phillips, well-known as
The Kansas correspondent of the New
York Tribune in border rnffian times.
resides In Salina, which was In factlaid
out by HIM. He invited several OF the
party to his pleasant home, which with
other luxuries contains a collection of
Judge, the finest private library west Of
the Alleghenies.
The grasshopper plague appeared at
Salina about the first of March, and
during tho month Of its stay DESTROYED