mpletely consumed,
and for the next few years the Mormons would ride out to the scenes to
get the iron that was left in the ashes.

Turned adrift on the desert with not a weapon to defend ourselves was
hardly a pleasant prospect. It meant a walk of a thousand miles home to
Leavenworth. The wagon was loaded to its full capacity. There was
nothing to do but walk. I was not yet twelve years old, but I had to
walk with the rest the full thousand miles, and we made nearly thirty
miles a day.

Fortunately we were not molested by Indians. From passing wagon-trains
we got a few rifles, all they could spare, and with these we were able
to kill game for fresh meat. I wore out three pairs of moccasins on
that journey, and learned then that the thicker are the soles of your
shoes, the easier are your feet on a long walk over rough ground.

After a month of hard travel we reached Leavenworth. I set out at once
for the log-cabin home, whistling as I walked, and the first to welcome
me was my old dog Turk, who came tearing toward me and almost knocked
me down in his eagerness. I am sure my mother and sisters were mighty
glad to see me. They had feared that I might never return.

My next journey over the Plains was begun under what, to me, were very
exciting circumstances. 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
interest me in the "three R's."

I kept thinking of my short but adventurous past. And as soon as
another opportunity offered to return to it I seized it eagerly.

That spring my former boss, Lew Simpson, was busily organizing a
"lightning bull team" for his employers, Russell, Majors & Waddell.
Albert Sidney Johnston's soldiers, then moving West, needed supplies,
and needed them in a hurry. Thus far the mule was the reindeer of draft
animals, and mule trains were forming to hurry the needful supplies to
the soldiers.

But Simpson had great faith in the bull. A picked bull train, he
allowed, could beat a mule train all hollow on a long haul. All he
wanted was a chance to prove it.

His employers gave him the chance. For several weeks he had been
picking his animals for the outfit. And now he was to begin what is
perhaps the most remarkable race ever made across the Plains.

A mule train was to start a week after Simpson's lightning bulls began
their westward course. Whichever