José — page 40: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JOSE. 33 selves familiar with them now, we shall be able to use them in case of emergency.” He seized his hat in evident delight, and conducted his companion to the large warehouse in the rear of the building. * 6 * oe *k * 5 People said that times were rather dull at Inde- pendence, near the Missouri River, yet to a stranger the place seemed a theater of bustling energy com- pared with many a larger city. Independence is the harbor of the great Western prairie sea, and at the time of our story it was the only place from which the great trading expeditions embarked. Any one familiar with the drift and tide of sailors of all nations, immigrants and mer- chants in a large seaport, is confronted with similar scenes at this port. The Mexican muleteers, and American and German freighters, may well be called the sailors of the plains, their rough outward ap- pearance having much in common with the mari- ners of the sea; while the commotion created by all other classes of people concentrating here, presents an aspect not at all unlike that witnessed atany . other embarking point. But the real business activity for the present year was over. The California-bound trains, intent on having the great plains behind them before winter set in, had long departed. Preparations for the trains destined for the Santa Fe trail, alone en- livened the place at this time. Near a large, fenced-in square, inclosing a whole park of heavy freight wagons, in the immediate neighborhood of one of the countless lodging and drinking houses of the place, a group of rough char- acters belonging to a Western freighting expedition Gomichbooks (E(o)