The letter of Battersleigh to his friend Captain Franklin fell therefore upon soil already well prepared.  Battersleigh and Franklin had been friends in the army, and their feet had not yet wandered apart in the days of peace.  Knowing the whimsicality of his friend, and trusting not at all in his judgment of affairs, Franklin none the less believed implicitly in the genuineness of his friendship, and counted upon his comradeship as a rallying point for his beginning life in the new land which he felt with strange conviction was to be his future abiding place.  He read again and again the letter Battersleigh had written him, which, in its somewhat formal diction and informal orthography, was as follows: 

“To Capt.  Edw.  Franklin, Bloomsbury, Ill.

“My dear Ned:  I have the honour to state to you that I am safely arrived and well-established at this place, Ellisville, and am fully disposed to remain.  At present the Railway is built no further than this point, and the Labourers under charge of the Company Engineers make the most of the population.  There is yet but one considerable building completed, a most surprising thing to be seen in this wild Region.  It is of stone and built as if to last forever.  It is large as a Courthouse of one of your usual Towns, and might seem absurd in this country did it not suggest a former civilization instead of one yet to come.  It is full large enough for any Town of several thousand people.  This is the property of the Co. that is building the Ry.  It is said that the Co. will equip it fully, so that the country round about may depend upon it for Rations.

“There is another building, intended also for an Hotel, but of a different sort.  This is called the Cottage, and is much frequented by fellows of the lower sort, the Labourers and others now stopping in this vicinity.  It is the especial rendezvous of many men concerned with the handling of Cattle.  I must tell you that this is to be a great market for these Western Beeves.  Great numbers of these cattle are now coming in to this country from the far South, and since the Ry. is yet unable to transport these Animals as they arrive there is good Numbers of them in the country hereabout, as well as many strange persons curiously known as Cowboys or Cow-Punchers, which the same I may call a purely Heathan sort.  These for the most part resort at the Cottage Hotel, and there is no peace in the Town at this present writing.

“For myself I have taken entry upon one hundred and sixty Acres Govt.  Land, and live a little way out from the Town.  Here I have my quarters under tent, following example of all men, for as yet there are scarce a dozen houses within fifty Miles.  I find much opportunity for studies to be presented to the London Times, which paper as you know I represent, and I prosecute with great hopes the business of the British American Colonization Society, of which corporation I am resident Agent.