What
courage to have started exploring on such places!
We passed one or two smaller camps on the way to Osages, with board
shanties and a shaft here and there sticking up from the earth. "All
going on," the Senator said. I can't tell you, Mamma, the fun we had
in the car; the party is so harmonious, and Nelson and the friend such
amusing people to keep it going. The friend is too attractive, that long
lean shape like Tom, and the same assurance of manner. Octavia says she
has not enjoyed herself so much for years.
Towards evening we arrived at Osages, and a most wonderful wind-swept
town it is. Imagine a bare plain of rubbly, stony ground, with a few not
very high hills round it, with shafts piercing them, and then dotted all
about on the outskirts with tents; then board houses of one story high,
looking rather like sheds for gardeners' tools, and then in the middle
a few stone and frame habitations, and standing out among the rest the
Nelson building, a hideous structure of grey stone making the corner
of a block. We got from the train and climbed into motors; to see them
seemed strange in such a wild; we ought to have been met by a Buffalo
Bill stage coach;--but there they were.
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