Part 2 (2/2)

After a month of hard travel we reached Leavenworth I set out at once for the log-cabin ho as I walked, and the first to welco toward erness I alad to see ht never return

My next journey over the Plains was begun under what, tocircumstances I spent the winter of '57-'58 at school My mother was anxious about my education But the master of the frontier school wore out several armfuls of hazel switches in a vain effort to interestof my short but adventurous past And as soon as another opportunity offered to return to it I seized it eagerly

That spring htning bull team” for his employers, Russell, Majors & Waddell

Albert Sidney Johnston's soldiers, thenWest, needed supplies, and needed them in a hurry Thus far the mule was the reindeer of draft ani to hurry the needful supplies to the soldiers

But Sireat faith in the bull A picked bull train, he allowed, could beat ahaul All he wanted was a chance to prove it

His eave hi his aniin what is perhaps the most remarkable race ever made across the Plains

Abulls began their ard course Whichever outfit got to Fort Laramie first would be the winner No more excitement could have been occasioned had the contestants been a reindeer and a jack-rabbit To ht Simpson let me join his party

My thousand- habit and I was glad to find that this time I was to have a horse to ride--part of the way, anyhoas to be an extra hand--which eneral-utilityevent Men, women and children watched our chosen animals amble out of Salt Creek The ”mule skinners,” busy with preparations for their own departure, stopped work to jeer us

”We'll ketch you in a couple of days or so!” yelled Torinned Jeers couldn't shake his confidence either in hi-horned motive power

We lad to be a plains that went forward We were reallyspeed, too, which added to the excitement The ordinary bull team could do about fifteen miles a day

Under Si twenty-five, and doing it right along

But one day, while ere nooning about one hundred and fifty miles on the way, one of the boys shouted: ”Here co up, and a joyful lot the ”mule skinners” were at what they believed their victory

But it was a short-lived victory At the end of the next three hundredheavy work of it The grass fodder had told on the mules Supplies from other sources were now exhausted There were no farrain to be had The race had becoest stomachs were destined to be the winners

Stewart h, and his mules quickly mired down in the quicksand The more they pawed the deeper they went

Si below the ford Stewart had chosen

He put enough bulls on a wagon to insure its easy progress, and the bulls ed through the sand on their round bellies, using their legs as paddles

Steward pulled ahead again after he had crossed the river, but soon hislike their norood and all a few days farther on, and were far ahead e reached the North Platte

Thus ended a race that I shall never forget Since that tie-coach has outdistanced the bull teae-coach, the locomotive has done in an hour what the prairie schooner did in three or four days Soon the aeroplane will be racing with the automobile for the cross-country record

But the bull team and the mule tealad that I took part--on the winning side--in a race between thehtening our loads by issuing supplies to them When at last we reacted Fort Laramie, the outfit was ordered to Fort Walback, located in Cheyenne Pass, twenty-five miles from where Cheyenne stands today, and ninety miles from Fort Laramie

This was in the very heart of the Indian country Our animals were to haul in plows, tools and whatever was necessary in the constructing of the new fort then building The wagon-beds were taken froreater loads The beds were piled up at Fort Laraned 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 Noas on fixed post with plenty of time for observation

Fort Laramie was an old frontier post, such as has not existed for many years Nearby, three or four thousand Sioux, Northern Cheyennes and Northern Arapahoes were enca much of the ti coht it and -place of the Plains Here the greatest Indian councils were held, and here also cahters,been known to me, but whoer, Baker, Richards and other of the celebrated hunters, trappers and Indian fighters were as familiar about the post as are bankers in Wall Street All these men fascinated me, especially Carson, a small, dapper, quiet man whom everybody held in profound respect