Thirty-three years ago the incidents of the…

chunk 900 · paragraph 1092

ature denied the wayfarer fuel, but the buffalo in the plentitude of its na- ture, supplied the omission, and no one for the want of fuel was compelled to go supperless to bed. Thirty-three years ago the incidents of the journey were being related by “a tenderfoot,” ( 66 ) who had just arrived in Santa Fe “over land,” from the states. Kit Carson and others were present, and among other astonishing things the newcomer related was, that he had been obliged to cook by a buffalo-chip fire. When doubts were expressed as to the truth of his assertion, “Kit” came to his relief by stating that he had been so frequently reduced to the same necessity that he finally acquired such a taste for the chip that he was induced to throw away the meat and eat the chip. The writer, the senior of the Belt, inasmuch as he has had some experience, can well credit the statement of the stranger and Carson. The trail is now obliterated, the buffaloes are gone, chips are a thing of the past, railroad cars have superceded the prairie schooner and the car- rion crow, on the trail, no longer revels upon the decaying flesh of an overworked ox or mule that fell from exhaustion upon the unfenced expanse west of the Missouri river and east of Santa Fe.