Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/129

Rh course the necessities of grease spots and parabolic—though the latter, it seems, in this road, under Mr. Kilbourn's improvements in railroading, are substituted by angles. The cars came in there with a jolting, rattling sound as if running on pavement—and the first thought was that they were off the track running right along over the hubs on a straight cut to the next turn of the road. It was a mizzling, dense, palpable night, and as the cars crept slowly and noiselessly away to the west, it required no great stretch of the fancy to the thought that they were afraid to run in the dark. And if they were animate, it might well be so—for just west of Milton, a mile or so, the track takes a short turn around the point of a gravel ridge, where the first impression of safety is in being ready for a jump, or footing it over the point and taking the train as it comes along. The man whose name is associated with this road, will live in the memory of men, forever; at least he ought to.

I have been over northern Illinois and 150 miles, or so, into Indiana—over a region that I traveled 15 years ago. On every hill and valley and stream, the Anglo-Saxon has, in this little time, written his character in signs that a half century of barbarism could not efface. After leaving the lake region and going south into Indiana, although the setment [settlement] dates back far anterior to that of central Wisconsin, the improvement is much less marked. The southern Hoosier is seen in their roads and fields and buildings and towns, as readily as in the peculiar phrases and wanging tone of voice of the people. Where the country has been settled from the eastern and middle states, the progress has been truly wonderful. Where, 15 years ago, the traveler threaded his weary and solitary way over the plains and through the openings on Indian trails, finding the rude habitations of men scattered here and there far from each other, and now and then a mere saw mill frame, perhaps, erected, with the miller's cabin by it, the whole country, even the prairies, are covered all over with fields and dwellings, and each "water-power" is the