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Show 136 WESTERN WILDS. Sioux City we traveled by way of the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad. All this distance, one hundred miles, is over the broad, level valley of the Missouri. The lower part of the valley is wet, and largely occupied by sloughs and old bayous. That region is settled only on the border-ing highlands and slopes. This improves as we go northward; Onawa and Woodbury are fair villages in fine stretches of land, and near Sioux City the country is higher and better improved. That city had held its own better than most places on the Missouri. At one time it was intended that the Union Pacific shjould run westward from that point, and up the valley of the Niobrara. But mysterious influences were at work at Washington, and Sioux City lost that advantage. She now has, however, four lines of railroad, including that to Yankton.. From Missouri Valley Junction to Sioux City the passengers were a new set entirely. There were emigrants for North- west Iowa or Da-kota, Indian traders or agents, cattle dealers who had army contracts, herders, fur dealers, officers and soldiers for the posts on the Upper Missouri, and a sprinkling of passengers for the Red River of the North, Pembina, and the British Possessions. From Sioux City we took stage for Yankton. The night had been rainy, and the mud was like glue. A tenacious mixture of clay and sand, mingled with prairie grass, would collect on the wheels till they resembled vast re-volving cylinders, then fall off in immense wads, each weighing at least a hundred pounds. Through this we toiled for twenty miles, reaching a better country, dotted with fine farms and neat cottages. In the cor-ner between the Big Sioux and Missouri is a French settlement; further on are Scandinavian and Bohemian villages. The settled part of the Territory is largely filled with foreigners all industrious, and most of fair intelligence. In the valley of the Missouri there is a nearly level flood plain, of inexhaustible richness, and adorned by heavy bodies of timber along the streams. The heavy fields of grain were ripe, and in them were Danes and Norwegians at work, men and women binding wheat together in happy equality. The women were every whit as stout as the men, and seemed to endure the heat equally well. Anthony, Stanton, and Livermore would have preached wotn-ans' rights to them in vain. Whatever rights they wanted they took, and thought no more' about it. Outsiders have repeatedly peti-tioned the Dakota Legislature to enfranchise the sex, and have as often been refused. The residents care nothing about it, and evidently have an eye to the utility of woman, rather than her rights. Fourteen hours staging from Sioux City brought us to Yankton, the ambitious capital of Dakota, where I spent a week with my |
