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Show JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE. 213 along the streams, the soil is rich, and the road is through a continuous line of settlements. We are in the valley of the Kaw or Kansas, ( aboriginal for " blue" or " smoky") till noon; then leave it for the Smoky Hill Valley, after crossing Republican, Big Blue and Solo-mon's Fork. These three are big streams on the map. Combined they would make a river about the size of the Miami. We find the valley pretty well settled for fifty miles west of Junc-tion City ; then rise rapidly to the high plains where nothing is seen but an occasional stock ranche. We breakfast at Ellsworth, which only five years before was the rival of Cheyenne in all that pertains to rush, crush, business and deviltry. It was then the terminus of the road also the terminus of at least a hundred lives. When I was there in October, 1867, J. H. Runkle, Esq., Prosecut-ing Attorney, informed me that for ninety- three days there was a homicide every day in the town or vicinity. Those were the palmy days of your " Wild Bills " ( I made the acquaintance of the orig-inal, and found him quite a gentleman), and " Long Steves," your " Dad Smith," " Rake Jake" and " Tom Smith of Bear River." " Shall we have a man for breakfast?" was the ordinary morning salutation ; and usually it was found that somebody had answered the ques-tion affirmatively during the night. " A short life and a merry one," was the motto of these roysterers. The life was short enough ; its merriment will be a matter of doubt. Strange to say, officials who had much to do in thwarting or arresting these men, themselves became careless of life, or moody and inclined to suicide. " Wild Bill " sleeps beneath the green prairies on which he figured in so many tragedies died by the shot of an assassin. " Dad Smith " was hanged by the vig-ilantes. " Long Steve" met a like fate at Laramie. " Tom Smith" was brained by an ax in the hands of a drunken companion. And saddest of all, but a few months ago ( February, 1877) came a dispatch that J. H. Runkle, U. S. Attorney, committed suicide at Columbia, South Carolina. " Rake Jake " made his exit from a tragedy more " WILD BILL " J. B. HICKOCK. |