you really rest well. So much for custom!

* * * * *

SUNDAY, October 20.

All day long we have been passing through the grazing plains of
Nebraska. Endless herds of cattle untrammelled by fences; the
landscape a brown sea as far as the eye can reach; a rude hut now
and then for a shelter to the shepherds. No wonder we export beef,
for it is fed here for nothing. Horses and cattle thrive on the rich
grasses as if fed on oats; no flies, no mosquitoes, nothing to
disturb or annoy, while the pellucid streams which run through the
ranches furnish the best of water. There can be no question that our
export trade is still in its infancy. The business is now fully
organized, and is subject to well-known rules. At Sherman we saw the
large show-bills of the Wyoming County Cattle Raisers' Association,
offering heavy rewards for offenders against these rules, and the
Cheyenne _Herald_ is filled with advertisements of the various
"marks" adopted by different owners. Large profits have been made in
the trade--the best assurance that it will grow--but from all I can
gather it seems doubtful whether the experiment of exporting cattle
alive will succeed.

We saw numerous herds of antelope to-day, but they graze among the
cattle, and are altogether too finely civilized to meet our idea of
"chasing the antelope over the plain;" one might as well chase a
sheep. As night approaches we get higher and higher up the far-famed
Rocky Mountains, and before dark reach the most elevated point, at
Sherman, eight thousand feet above tide. But our preconceived