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7 with forced cheerefulness, encouraging one another and cracking jokes at the expense of those fellows who had paid from fifty to seventy five dollars for their passage or as we would tell them for the privilege of shoving a wagon up hill all day. On this day we again made only twenty miles owing to the uneven roads, we camped at night foot sore and tired on the banks of a beautiful little stream called Walnut Creek, It was a nice camping place as there was wood water and grass plenty. I now began to enjoy in earnest the solitary expanse of prairies and the deprivation of the luxuries of cities, After traveling all day over the hot shelterless prairie it was indeed a delightful feeling of repose came over us as we saw in the far distance the long belt of timber which conceals within its green boughs the stream of cool running water, It is as unfailing a sign of water on the western prairies, as the Oasis is to the parched and wearied traveler on the great African Desert. This night we enjoyed ourselves hugely, had a good meal of stewed rabbits and prairie chickens which we killed during the day, and as the evening was cold we built a rousing fire got out our buffalo skins spread them on the grass all round the fire, and stretched ourselves at full length to rest our weary limbs. And now commenced the merry part of our voyage the joke, song, and laugh went round as merrily as if it was all a holyday break, and we intirely forgot the solemn fact that there were more hills to be surmounted on the morrow, forgot all the vexations and annoyances of the day and thought only of spending pleasantly the passing hour, The night was so beautifully calm and clear that we concluded not to set our tent and we set our guard and lay down to sleep in regular Indian style by our camp fire. The night passed calmly without any annoyance from our horses or what more frequently happens from our fellow travelers. but I must say that thefts are of very rare