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Their wagon-beds were built almost in the shape of the crescent moon, bending down in the centre and standing high at the ends, and they appeared half as long again as the Ohio vehicle. The covers were full of innumerable ribs, and the puckered end was drawn into innumerable puckers.
At each nightfall, cleaned and baled, it is hauled on wagon-beds or slides to the barns or the hemphouses, where it is weighed for the work and wages of the day. Last of all, the brakes having been taken from the field, some night dear sport for the lads! takes place the burning of the "hempherds," thus returning their elements to the soil.
You kin go, too, Susan, ef you want to, seein' ez you air 'titled to a leetle play-spaill arter wuckin' so spry all summah. You kin find a place to sleep with Betsy in Gilcrest's tent, or with Molly an' Ann Trabue. I reckon yer pap an' Henry an' Abner kin git a shakedown in some uv the wagon-beds, or else on the groun'; 'twon't hurt 'em this dry weathah.
Then the rakers with enormous wooden rakes; they draw the stalks into bundles, tying each with the hemp itself. Following the binders, move the wagon-beds or slides, gathering the bundles and carrying them to where, huge, flat, and round, the stacks begin to rise.
The underbrush or the jungles of laurel that covered the steeps rendered outlet through the forests impracticable, and indeed the only road was invisible save for a vague line among the dense pines of a precipitous slope, where on approach it would materialize under one's feet as a wheel track on either side of a line of frosted weeds, which the infrequent passing of wagon-beds had bent and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break.
My wagon-beds became splendid playhouses for the Indian children from the villages, who are very much like other children, despite their red skins. I joined them in their games, and from them picked up a fair working knowledge of the Sioux language. The acquaintance I formed here was to save my scalp and life later, but I little suspected it then. I spent the summer of '58 in and about Laramie.
Permission being obtained, the division, with Ammen's brigade the Twenty-fourth Ohio, Sixth Ohio, and Thirty-sixth Indiana in front began their march early on the morning of the 29th, the men stripped of their pantaloons, carrying their cartridge-boxes on their necks; the ammunition-boxes of the artillery taken from the limbers and carried over on scows, and tents packed in the bottom of the wagon-beds, to lift ammunition and stores above water.
The wagon-beds were taken from the wagons to enable the hauling of greater loads. The beds were piled up at Fort Laramie, and I was assigned to watch them. It was here that I had abundant time and opportunity to study the West at first hand. Heretofore I had been on the march. Now I was on fixed post with plenty of time for observation.
And then a stately old brave worked his way through the crowd and came toward my bunk. It was plain from the deference accorded him by the others that he was a chief. And as soon as I set eyes on him I recognized him as old Rain-in-the-Face, whom I had often seen and talked with at Fort Laramie, and whose children taught me the Sioux language as we played about the wagon-beds together.
In crossing rivers where the water is so high as to come into the wagon-beds, but is not above a fording stage, the contents of the wagons may be kept dry by raising the beds between the uprights, and retaining them in that position with blocks of wood placed at each corner between the rockers and the bottom of the wagon-beds.
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