There are so many heroes of the Don Quixote school, who are so brave in fighting wind-mills, who, in time of peace, are “soldiers armed with resolution,” but in the real conflict what Shakspeare designates as “soldiers and afeard.”  There was in our train a young prig, who “played the braggart with his tongue,” telling of his brave exploits, like a very Othello recounting the “dangers he passed,” ending with a defiant show of how he should act in the event of an attack from marauding Indians, to which the trains were at that time so subject, after which he fell into a profound slumber, resting upon his imaginary laurels.  While he slept the train had changed conductors, and it became necessary to see his ticket.  This new official passing by, and finding himself unable to arouse the snoring sleeper by ordinary means, gave him a lusty shake, whereupon our hero gave a hideous yell of “Indians!  Indians!” his lips quivering and his frame palsied with fear.  The sound was so startling that the affrighted passengers imagined themselves for the moment in the merciless grasp of a band of Red Men.

The conductor gave this quaking coward another energetic shake and an imperious demand for “your ticket, sir!” and the quondam man of war “smoothed his wrinkled front,” and humbly subsided into a semblance of sleep, while the conductor was no doubt astonished at the loud laughter that followed a brief silence, during which the passengers recovered their composure, and realized the full ludicrousness of the incident.  In my experience in life I have met a great many people who were ready to tell what they would have done “had they been there;” but this priggish gascon was the first I had ever seen put to the test, and I believe him to be a fair sample of that smart class who could, if you take their words for it, have done better on any given occasion than those whom the occasion found “there.”

Emerging from the Platte Valley, we realized the fact that we were fairly on our way to the far West, ready to take in with insatiable avidity all the immensity and grandeur of our territorial scenery.

Arriving at Cheyenne, we were surprised to find a comfortable hotel-omnibus in waiting, and most of the concomitants of a metropolis, notwithstanding the oft-expressed surprise and fear of friends at the daring venture of two unprotected women in going alone to this lawless and God-forsaken country.

Alas for the demoralizing influence of so-called civilization!  While in the elegant counting-rooms of polished millionaires in more eastern localities we had occasionally met with insults and snubs; in this place of reputed “roughs” we received not one rebuff, and were greeted not merely with respect, but with unbounded generosity.  While we found rough diamonds, they were diamonds nevertheless.

Over this city has since swept the tidal wave of reform, and a great temperance awakening evoked by one of the great workers in that movement, Mr. Page, who, with gentle yet royal mandate, has said to the many “troubled waters,” with their sad wrecks of human souls—­“peace! be still!”