Year: 1868

DEAR FREEMAN i have snatched leisure
hour, of which l have but few, to send you
line from this remote quarter. l shall not
need to say that times are dull for almost
every where people complain of that. and |
allude to it only as an excuse for the dullness
of my letter, for you know l always like to
keep pace with the times


What makes the times, or business rather,
so particularly dull with just now, is the
scarcity of money, and what makes money
50 scarce, is because there has been no dro-
vers around buying up cattle this fall, or at
least, this is among the reasons for it. OF
course, we, here, have other ways for in
creasing our gains, but this is one great re-
source for getting spending money. This
being cut off, and the high taxes this year,
bring many of poor fellows into tighter
pinch than we like to be in. The wheels of
business get clogged. Nobody can pay his
debts, because nobody can get his dues. A
owes B. and B owes G, and G owes d. and SO
on to the end of the chapter. If A could
pay his debts, he would soon enable B to pay
his, and so on. A few drovers around to
buy our cattle, or, some one to give us
money for our produce, would relieve matters
greatly. 1t would operate as pay day used
to in the army.


We have had some very singular weather
this winter. Some remarkably warm, and
some remarkably cold. Up to the first
week in January it warm the mos. of
the time, and tho ground continued open.
Men were plowing their felds-somc to put
in winter grain, and some to help along
their springs work. The thermometer
ranged from 65 to 20, in the shade, for many
days, and if interrupted by a cold snap, it
was only for a short time But old Boreas
was not to be cheated out of his dominion
all winter. The first week in January it
changed to the opposite extreme and has re-
mained SO ever since. There has been snow
on the ground since the 9TH inst, and the
most of the time there has been some of the
finest sleighing 1 have seen in Kansas, if in
deed there can be such thing sleighing
where there are no sleighs.


We have had a remarkably dry fall.
There was rain enough during the summer,
in fact everything flooded, but just after
harvest it stopped raining and has rained
nOne or next to none, since. The immense
and luxurious growth of prairie grass, which
the summers warm rains produced, this fall
became dry as crisp This has made prairie


fires unusually destructive. We hear OF
losses by them from every qnarter. Cattle
and horses and even men have been burned
| to DEATH not to mention houses, fences or
hay stacks One man lost one hundred and
| fifty head, in one of these fires. Near OF
tumwa, an enterprising little town in Coffey
County, a prairie fire did much damage.


Last week man from there, lodged with us


and from him / learned many interesting


particulars of the fire one night. He bad


been a severe loser. Almost everything he


had was swept away. His house. fortunate
ly, was spared. lie lost a span of valuable


mares, two calves, good wagon, two new


harnesses all his hay stacks, crib of corn


containing, he estimates, one hundred anc
fifty bushels, and all the fence around forty


acres of land. There were others that los


as much as he, and some lost moro. Thai


day, he said. he had observed fire on th'


prairie, off to the north, but took no par


ticular notice of it. They were too common


to attract attention. Between him and tn


fire was a wide, we'll travelled road, and tina


was considered sufficient safe guard. Th


wind had been blowing from the south for


number of days, but all at once it changed


A great black cloud came up in the west


which seemed to be charged north with
tempest of wind, it amounted almost to


hurricane. The prairie was all ablaze in al
instant. No man or beast could get out o
., the way of it. This man was at work no


far from his house when he saw the win
stacks were blazing before he could get t
them He exerted himself and succeeded il
saving some of his horses and cattle. W
can imagine how precious time would b
under such circumstances. His wagon
, which happened to be near hay stack, b
could have run to a safe place in hal


minute, if he could only have had that hal
minute to spare. A great many poor settler
will have to toll hard to replace what the
lost then, and some, perhaps, never can re
place it.


But the worst part of this calamity wa
the burning to death of man. He wa
horseback He saw the fire behind him, an
tried to out run it, but finding he could nc


he turned about and thought he would max
e the attempt to run through it. But the he


flames made the horse unmanageable and
Z turned and ran with the fire, keeping in tn