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It was the beginning of the end; on the 9th of February, 1880, the first train over the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad arrived at Santa Fe and the Old Trail as a route of commerce was closed forever.
The next afternoon, being tired of this sort of prison-life, and cramped for lack of exercise, I launched the canoe into the rough water, and crossing to Crow Island found a lee under its shores, which permitted me to ascend the river to the mouth of Atchison Creek, through which I passed, two miles, to the South Santee River.
Without any particular adventures the train arrived in due season at Atchison, and there so much was said about Pony Riding on the Overland that Buffalo Billy decided to volunteer as a rider. Resigning his position with the train, Mr. Russell gave him a warm letter to Alf Slade, a noted personage on the frontier, and to him Billy went.
Having appointed a committee of seven to certainly hang me the next time I should come into Atchison, they tossed my clothes into my buggy, put me therein, accompanied me to the outskirts of the town, and sent me naked out upon the prairie. It was a cold, bleak day. I adjusted my attire about me as best I could, and hastened to rejoin my wife and little ones on the banks of the Stranger Creek.
In the early days of which I write, the margin of the stream was heavily timbered with cottonwood, and the tourist to-day may see the remnant of the primitive great woods, in the huge isolated trees scattered around the bottom in the vicinity of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad station of the charming mountain city.
A delegation of the citizens of Atchison visited Leavenworth after the arrests had been made, to confer with General Blunt, the commander of the District, on the best means of securing order. They made a full representation of the state of affairs, and requested that two of the prisoners, then in jail, should be delivered to the citizens for trial.
The water of the west, in some places, is not good, but they make it up here by plenty of very fair wine, and inexhaustible quantities of the best beer in the world. There are immense establishments for slaughtering beef and pork and I saw flocks of sheep, 5000 in a flock. Another in Atchison, Kansas, same extent; others nearly equal elsewhere. Oct. 29th, 30th, and 31st.
All this was not the worst, however. Deep in the background stood the sinister apparition of the Atchison cabal.
I question if there is much more peculation on the part of the employees of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé to-day than there is on the part of the servants of the Great Western of England or any other British company. The place where the conductor advised me not to buy a ticket had then a few yards of planking laid on the prairie for a platform and a small shed as a station building.
Governor Folk signified his approval of the work, and I was given a cordial hearing by the citizens. On the fourth of April I arrived at Independence, Missouri, which is generally understood to be the eastern terminus of the Santa Fé Trail. I found, however, that many of the pioneers had shipped farther up the Missouri, some driving from Atchison, some from Leavenworth, others from St. Joseph.
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