Читать книгу The Overland Trail онлайн

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It was well on in the 1860’s before stages were general as far as Leavenworth and these were so cramped that knees sat interlocked with knees, and husky travelers preferred horseback. When you consider that even the fastest stage travel of the 1850’s seldom exceeded ninety miles a day and often averaged twenty miles with upsets and broken axles and delays in quicksand fords—the discomforts of such travel can be guessed.

Prices were staggering from Leavenworth to Laramie—$1.50 for a pound of tea or coffee; so settlers contented themselves with kin-i-kin-nick—willow leaves steeped as a tea, which were a good purgative for too heavy a meat diet. Sugar, brown, was twenty-five cents a pound; so the Pioneers had brought maple sugar. Flour was $1.50 a pound; so travelers came to depend more and more on berries and roots dried and pounded to a flour.

The place has come to deal with two very controversial topics as to the Overland Trail. The disputes rage chiefly with study-chair trail markers—not Pioneers, nor the descendants of Pioneers, nor people who, themselves, have followed wild trails.