Early on the next morning we reached Kansas, about five hundred miles from the mouth of the Missouri.

The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent was: Shall France remain here, or shall she not?

We were now arrived at the close of our solitary journeyings along the St. Joseph's trail.

Art, industry, and commerce, so long crushed and overborne, were stirring into renewed life, and a crowd of adventurous men, nurtured in war and incapable of repose, must seek employment for their restless energies in fields of peaceful enterprise.

Versailles was a gulf into which the labor of France poured its earnings; and it was never full.

Fort Leavenworth is in fact no fort, being without defensive works, except two block-houses.

America was still a land of wonder. The ancient spell still hung unbroken over the wild, vast world of mystery beyond the sea,-a land of romance, adventure, and gold.