Where else but in America are mistakes so quickly and nicely remedied?  Perhaps in this instance it could be explained by the fact that one of them was a prominent member of the Republican party, and the other no less than the Assistant Secretary of State.  We were glad to receive our penitent wanderers, who promised to be more careful another time.  We slept at Omaha, which is the jumping-off place, and to-morrow morning early we are going to “jump.”  We have already traveled seventeen hundred and fifty miles, and have not yet begun our real trip.  Omaha has still wooden sidewalks and muddy roads; the post-office, school-house, and churches are all built on a grand scale, and the streets laid out in squares and broad avenues.  Probably they have already designs for a grand-opera house.  One can see FUTURE written all over it.

Mr. Cadwalader had bought in Philadelphia the best comestibles that it could provide, and had them stowed away in big hampers and put in the baggage-car.  When the train stopped an hour for food, which it did three times a day, we preferred to spend that hour looking about us and (as Mr. Kasson said) stretching our legs rather than going into the overcrowded eating-rooms, which were reeking of food, loud talk, and ravenous passengers.  The stations were always low wooden buildings with a piazza; sometimes no other houses were to be seen.  On wooden boxes were enthroned the loafers, who must have ridden miles just to see passengers get in and out of the train.  To show how kind these rough people must be when they are not engaged in killing people, chickens foraged about between their huge boots, and I saw a dog quietly asleep within an inch of a kick.  As soon as the train started we went into the baggage-car and, seated about on the trunks, enjoyed our delicious feast.

We occupied almost one entire parlor-car.  There were only two extra seats, and those were filled by two men surrounded by a mountain of newspapers and magazines of all kinds.  I said, nodding toward one of these, “What a handsome man that is!”

“Do you know who it is?” asked Mr. Cadwalader.

“No.  How should I?”

“That is the famous scout, Buffalo Bill.”

“Really!” I exclaimed.  “I had fancied him quite different from that.  He looks like the pictures of Charles the First.  His eyes are so soft, and he has such lovely brown curls and a could-not-hurt-a-fly look about him.”

“Well,” said Mr. Cadwalader, “he has killed more men than he can count on his fingers when he tries to go to sleep.”

“I can’t imagine it,” I said, gazing with admiration at Buffalo Bill’s fine and kind face and splendid figure.  “His friend does not look so amiable.”

“I should think not.  That is the celebrated Mr. Holmes of Texas.  He is a terror in this part of the world.”

“He looks it,” I said.  “See all the pistols he has about him.  I can see one in his coat pocket, and one in his vest pocket, and...”