We were coming now indeed into the great Plains, of which I had heard all my youth.  A new atmosphere seemed to invest the world.  The talk of my companions was of things new and wild and strange to me.  All my old life seemed to be slipping back of me, into a far oblivion.  A feeling of rest, of confidence and of uplift came to me.  It was difficult to be sad.  The days were calm, the nights were full of peace.  Nature seemed to be loftily above all notice of small frettings.  Many things became more clear to me, as I rode and reflected.  In some way, I know not how, it seemed to me that I was growing older.

We had been out more than two weeks when finally we reached the great valley along which lay the western highway of the old Oregon trail, now worn deep and dusty by countless wheels.  Our progress had not been very rapid, and we had lost time on two occasions in hunting up strayed animals.  But, here at last, I saw the road of the old fur traders, of Ashley and Sublette and Bridger, of Carson and Fremont, later of Kearney, Sibley, Marcy, one knew not how many Army men, who had for years been fighting back the tribes and making ready this country for white occupation.  As I looked at this wild, wide region, treeless, fruitless, it seemed to me that none could want it.  The next thought was the impression that, no matter how many might covet it, it was exhaustless, and would last forever.  This land, this West, seemed to all then unbelievably large and limitless.

We pushed up the main trail of the Platte but a short distance that night, keeping out an eye for grazing ground for our horses.  Auberry knew the country perfectly.  “About five or six miles above here,” he said, “there’s a stage station, if the company’s still running through here now.  Used to be two or three fellers and some horses stayed there.”

We looked forward to meeting human faces with some pleasure; but an hour or so later, as we rode on, I saw Auberry pull up his horse, with a strange tightening of his lips.  “Boys,” said he, “there’s where it was!” His pointing finger showed nothing more than a low line of ruins, bits of broken fencing, a heap of half-charred timbers.

“They’ve been here,” said Auberry, grimly.  “Who’d have thought the Sioux would be this far east?”

He circled his horse out across the valley, riding with his head bent down.  “Four days ago at least,” he said, “and a bunch of fifty or more of them.  Come on, men.”

We rode up to the station, guessing what we would see.  The buildings lay waste and white in ashes.  The front of the dugout was torn down, the wood of its doors and windows burned.  The door of the larger dugout, where the horses had been stabled, was also torn away.  Five dead horses lay near by, a part of the stage stock kept there.  We kept our eyes as long as we could from what we knew must next be seen—­the bodies of the agent and his two stablemen, mutilated and half consumed, under the burned-out timbers.  I say the bodies, for the lower limbs of all three had been dismembered and cast in a heap near where the bodies of the horses lay.  We were on the scene of one of the brutal massacres of the savage Indian tribes.  It seemed strange these things should be in a spot so silent and peaceful, under a sky so blue and gentle.