south, leaving only a portion of the old bridge to span what in high
water becomes an arm of the river, but which ordinarily serves to convey
the water from a neighboring mill. We lean upon its guard-rail while
fancy is busy with the past. We picture the prairie-schooners winding
around the mesas and through the gap: soon they have come to the grove
by the river-bank; the horses are picketed and the camp-fire is blazing;
brown children play in the sand while their parents lie stretched out in
the shadow of the wagons. They left civilization on the banks of the
Missouri more than a month ago, and their eyes are still turned toward
those grand old mountain-ranges in the west over which the declining sun
is now pouring its transfiguring sheen. The brightness dazzles the eyes,
and the Mexican who rides by on a scarce manageable broncho with nose
high in air might be old Juan Chiquito bent upon some murderous errand.
But no: the rider has stopped the animal, and is soliciting the peaceful
offices of a blacksmith, whose curious little shop, bearing the
suggestive name of "Ute," is seen near the bridge. Here bronchos, mules
and burros are fitted with massive shoes by this frontier Vulcan and
sent rejoicing upon their winding and rocky ways. Our sleepy gaze
follows along Santa Fé Avenue, and the eye sees little that is
suggestive of a modern Western town. But soon comes noisily along a
one-horse street-car, which asserts its just claims to popular notice in
consequence of its composing a full half of a system scarce a fortnight
old by filling the air with direful screeches as each curve is
laboriously described. And later, when the magnificent overland train,
twenty-six hours from Kansas City, steams proudly up to the station,
fancy can no longer be indulged. The old has become new. The great
Plains have been bridged, and the outposts of but a decade ago become
the suburbs of to-day.

[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE.]