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The waggons were driven in even closer order; the women and children were told to keep between the lines; the men distributed themselves among the teams, ready to unyoke the oxen at the shortest notice, and to form the waggons in order of defence. Abe and his companions had not yet returned; but a quarter of an hour later they were seen galloping towards the camp.
The lightest was said to weigh 1375 pounds, and the heaviest not more than a hundred pounds more. Two of the teams were bay with a sprinkling of white feet, while the other pair was red roan, and, to my mind, the best looking. Four of these horses are still doing service on the farm, after more than seven years.
"I told you so," snorted the irate Shorty. "Now we've lost the advance. To-morrow we'll have to take them other fellers' mud, and pry their teams out o' the holes." "I wonder how many o' them 25 miles toward Shelbyville we've made to-day?" asked Si. "I heard the Adjutant say," said one of his comrades, "that we'd come just six miles." "Jewhillikins," said Shorty sorrowfully.
When teams from different clubs, or schools, or places meet to try their skill in some game requiring skill and endurance, there is no occasion to "choose sides" for that has been done in advance. But when boys of the same school or association meet for a game, it is necessary that the leaders should be decided on in advance, as also the means by which the respective sides must be chosen.
Then the two teams, still fast in their traces, were picketed behind the ice hummocks near the igloo, for had they been set at liberty each dog would have gone hunting on his own account, and the seals would have been driven from the ice and beyond range of the guns.
Small, two wheeled carts were made at the place of starting in Iowa. On these carts were loaded baggage and provisions, and the men and boys pulled them across the plains. Sometimes the women and girls helped. A few ox teams usually hauled the heaviest loads in wagons, and in this way the Saints walked and pulled their carts over the thirteen hundred miles of their journey.
All who use horses or oxen, except the worst of men, would scout such a practice. They say, "To have teams work well, feed well." So it must be with men, whether in prison or elsewhere. Power for muscular labor can be furnished only by generous food.
This fort had become a rendezvous for all the traders within hundreds of miles, a point of supply for many small posts scattered along the rivers of the North. Twelve oxen were hitched to each three-wagon load. Four teams had left Fort Benton together, but two of them had turned east toward Wood Mountain before the party was out of the Assiniboine country.
Our boat floated along through the flags, the horses on a tow-path just wide enough to enable the teams to pass, with bog on one side and canal on the other, water birds whistling and calling, frogs croaking, and water-lilies dotting every open pool.
But most of the emigrants traveled with teams. Some of those who went part of the way in boats had to begin or end their journey in wagons. The vehicles which they provided on such occasions for land carriage were curiosities of wheel-craft I speak of the Jersey wagons.
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