some four or five, and reached Independence in six days, having hardly rested or slept the whole way.  Of course, he was extremely fatigued, and said there was an opinion among the wild Indians that if a man “sleeps out his sleep,” after such extreme exhaustion, he will never awake; and, accordingly, he instructed his landlord to wake him up after eight hours of sleep.  When aroused at last, he saw by the clock that he had been asleep twenty hours, and he was dreadfully angry, threatened to murder his landlord, who protested he had tried in every way to get him up, but found it impossible, and had let him “sleep it out” Aubrey, in describing his sensations to me, said he took it for granted he was a dead man; but in fact he sustained no ill effects, and was off again in a few days.  I met him afterward often in California, and always esteemed him one of the best samples of that bold race of men who had grown up on the Plains, along with the Indians, in the service of the fur companies.  He was afterward, in 1856, killed by R. C. Weightman, in a bar-room row, at Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had just arrived from California.

In going from Independence to Fort Leavenworth, I had to swim Milk Creek, and sleep all night in a Shawnee camp.  The next day I crossed the Kaw or Kansas River in a ferry boat, maintained by the blacksmith of the tribe, and reached the fort in the evening.  At that day the whole region was unsettled, where now exist many rich counties, highly cultivated, embracing several cities of from ten to forty thousand inhabitants.  From Fort Leavenworth I returned by steamboat to St. Louis.

In the summer of 1852, my family went to Lancaster, Ohio; but I remained at my post.  Late in the season, it was rumored that I was to be transferred to New Orleans, and in due time I learned the cause.  During a part of the Mexican War, Major Seawell, of the Seventh Infantry, had been acting commissary of subsistence at New Orleans, then the great depot of supplies for the troops in Texas, and of those operating beyond the Rio Grande.  Commissaries at that time were allowed to purchase in open market, and were not restricted to advertising and awarding contracts to the lowest bidders.  It was reported that Major Seawell had purchased largely of the house of Perry Seawell & Co., Mr. Seawell being a relative of his.  When he was relieved in his duties by Major Waggman, of the regular Commissary Department, the latter found Perry Seawell & Co. so prompt and satisfactory that he continued the patronage; for which there was a good reason, because stores for the use of the troops at remote posts had to be packed in a particular way, to bear transportation in wagons, or even on pack-mules; and this firm had made extraordinary preparations for this exclusive purpose.  Some time about 1849, a brother of Major Waggaman, who had been clerk to Captain Casey, commissary of subsistence, at Tampa Bay, Florida, was thrown out of office by the death of the captain, and he naturally applied to his brother in New Orleans for employment; and he, in turn, referred him to his friends, Messrs. Perry Seawell & Co.  These first employed him as a clerk, and afterward admitted him as a partner.  Thus it resulted, in fact, that Major Waggaman was dealing largely, if not exclusively, with a firm of which his brother was a partner.