The Newtown bee., 1907-09-06

rivers beyond their banks and turn
 them out of course or wet up the sticky
 Gumbo soil of that region so that it
 would fill in the spaces between the
 spokes of the wagon wheels until one
 must halt and take an axe and chop
 it out This sounds like large story,
 this story about gumbo, to you, gentle
 reader, with your nifty horse and natty
 runabout on state roads at the east.
 But it is no exaggeration. Gumbo
 on the Indian Reservations of South
 Dakota is no dream when it is wet.
 Mir Ashley and Mir Deloria and Mir
 Cleveland and Mir Walker and Bishop
 Hare and Bishop Johnson have all had
 experience of stopping the rig and
 chopping out gumbo, which was cling
 ing so heavily to the wagon box. No. gumbo in wet weather is no dream. The flores of grass which the wheels track up as they roll along hold the pasty stuff together as flores of hair hold together lime and sand to make the plasterer's mortar. Gumbo balls up or packs like moist snow on the horses feet; and the places where wagoners unload their wheels of the Accumulated mass are marked by quite Transferable mounds of once pasty but [xiow hardened mud at frequent inter- vals along the wheel tracks as one travels through the gumbo beds of South Dakota. Of course. 1 would rot wish to have you think that South Da- kota is all gumbo. To use an expres- sion which is not rare hereabout, South Dakota has as fine soil as Hays out of doors" Nor is it true Athat all the gumbo on the map is in the Missionary District of South Dakota. North Da- kota has it. too. And have "heard gay" that it has it quite as bad as we Fhave. But I have no desire to throw
 mud at Bishop Mann or his Missionary J District.
 ''North wind or South wind he cares not groat." Gumbo or no gumbo. he goes his cheery rounds and carries face
 inspiring optimism and leaves bless ing everywhere and is loved by every body.
 have told you why it didn't seem wise to start by wagon to journey in
 June one hundred and sixty miles to White Horse. A mixed train on a new reconstructed railway extension, with out grading. without ballast, steel ano stringers laid upon the grass, was sure 1 to be more reliable. So paid my fare and went. That is, started. Betweer two o'clock in the afternoon and eight | in the evening, seventy-five miles hao been accomplished. There were symp toms of sea-sickness among some of tht passengers as the railway coach lunged l first to one side, then to the other caused by the unevenness of what by |; euphemism is termed 'road-bed. Once the coach gave an unusally em phatic lurch- I was on the up hil
 side and measurably unconcerned ;then | too, I was somewhat familiar with the
 sensation, having made the trip fror
 Cripple Creek to Colorado Springs b.
 the six-horse stage some years ago
 Nearly every passenger on the down-hil
 side of the car jumped to my side aa
 caused little f1utter. A woman wh
 was heavier than most women are, ros
 from her seat and stood in the car aisl
 holding on to the backs of seats an
 amused me for time by her evider , determination to place herself on neu } tral ground. Two men on the rear pla ] form, whose lack of equilibrium coul only partly be explained by bad COT , struction of the railway, were pitche } off by this particular wobble of tt car. They were of the genus ''hobo, riding without the proper form ( l transportation and the conductor le 5 them .where they landed, evident quite unharmed. Eight o'clock of tf t evening brought us to the western bar f of the Missouri, where we crossed on 9 gasoline ferry boat. The temporal : railway bridge was out. It had gol out two or three days before, coup f of hours after train load of peep o had crossed it. This bridge has be- f out three times in less than-aLyea l? The tables of logarithms which q 7, used in bridging other rivers dor :. seem to work in bridging the Missoui r It is treacherous stream: the I seems to be no bottom to it but quic 1t sands. The water swirls and chur
 and twists and turns in all directions O the same time : the channel changes . d CT night. Unless this tempora Is bridge, built on piles. shall be repla IT ed soon by substantial structu y built with piers and caissons, fe 2, me that train of cars will find y- burial there in the Missouri yet. n- A late supper and comfortable b le were mine when had crossed to t g. east side of the river. Before eig st o'clock next morning I started by trs ye again on my way to the Cheyen od Agency. There were two changes he cars and tedious waits for indeterm