Chicago had been a trading post, and to an extent was yet.  The population was less than 1000 people.  There was a fort here, too, built in place of one which had been destroyed in a massacre by the Indians.  There was much activity here, particularly in land speculation.  Not a half mile from the place where we landed there was a forest where some Indians were camping.  I heard that an Indian war was just over.  The Black Hawks had been defeated and driven off.  But some friendly remnants of other breeds were loitering about the town.

Carrying my valise, I began to look for a hotel for the night.  Also, how and when was I to get to Jacksonville?  A man came by.  I hailed him and asked to be driven to a hotel.  He walked with me north toward the river, past the fort and landed me at a hostelry built partly of logs and partly of frames.  Surely this was not New York or Buffalo!  As I came to the hotel I saw a man standing at the door, holding the bridle bits of an Indian pony.  He came into the hotel soon, evidently after disposing of his charge.  At that moment I was asking Mr. Wentworth, the hotel manager, how to get to Jacksonville.  The man came forward and in the kindest of voices interrupted to tell me what the manager evidently could not.  “I am going there myself to-morrow,” he said.  “You can ride behind.  The pony can carry both of us.”  I looked at my new-found friend.  He had deep blue eyes, a noble face, a musical and kindly voice.  He looked like the people I had known in England.  I was drawn to him at once in confidence and friendship.  He went on to tell me later that he had been in the Black Hawk War; that he had been spending some time in Chicago trying to decide whether he would locate there or return to Jacksonville.  He had been offered forty acres of land about a mile south of the river for the pony.  But what good was the land?  It was nothing but sand and scrub oaks.  Unless the town grew and made the land valuable as building property, it would never be of value.  For farming it was worthless.  But around Jacksonville the soil was incomparably fertile and beautiful.  He had decided, therefore, to return to Jacksonville.  His eyes deepened.  “You see that I am attached to that country.”  He smiled.  “Yes, I must go back.  Some one is waiting for me.  You are heartily welcome to ride behind.”  How long would it take?  A matter of five days.  Meanwhile he had told me how to reach there independently:  by stage to a place 90 miles south on the Illinois River, then by boat to a town on the river called Bath, then cross country to Jacksonville.  I began to balance the respective disadvantages.  “My name is Reverdy Clayton,” he said, extending his hand in the most cordial way.  I could not resist him.  “My name is James Miles,” I returned with some diffidence.  “James Miles,” he echoed.  “James Miles ... there was a man of that name in Jacksonville, poor fellow ... now gone.”  “Perhaps he was my father ... did you know my father?” I felt a thrill go through me.  Was this new-found acquaintance before me a friend of my father’s?  It turned out to be so.  But why “poor fellow”?