his mule again. When we'd go into camp,
Paul, he'd run and pick up buffalo-chips for the fire, and wanted to
help all he could. Then when it came time to go to sleep, the boy would
always get under my blankets and cuddle up close to me. He'd be sure to
say his prayers first, though; but it seemed so strange to me who hadn't
heard a prayer for thirty years. I never tried to stop him, you may be
certain of that. He'd ask God to bless his pa and ma, and wind up
with 'Bless Uncle John too.' Then I couldn't help hugging him right up
tighter; for it carried me back to Old Missouri, to the log-cabin in the
woods where I was born, and used to say 'Now I lay me,' and 'Our Father'
at my ma's knee, when I was a kid like him. I tell you, boys, there
ain't nothing that will take the conceit out of a man here on the
plains, like the company of a kid what has been brought up right.

"I reckon we'd been travelling about ten days since we left Point o'
Rocks, and was on the other side of the Big Bend of the Arkansas, near
the mouth of the Walnut, where Fort Zarah is now. We had went into camp
at sundown, close to a big spring that's there yet. We drawed up the
wagons into a corral on the edge of the river where there wasn't
no grass for quite a long stretch; we done this to kind o' fortify
ourselves, for we expected to have trouble with the Ingins there, if
anywhere, as we warn't but seventeen miles from Pawnee Rock, the worst
place on the whole Trail for them; so we picked out that bare spot where
they couldn't set fire to the prairie. It was long after dark when we
eat our supper; then we smoked our pipes, waiting for the oxen to fill
themselves, which had been driven about a mile off where there was good
grass. The Mexicans was herding them, and when they'd eat all they could
hold, and was commencing to lay down, they was driven into the corral.
Then all of us, except Comstock and Curtis, turned in; they was to stand
guard until 'bout one o'clock, when me and Thorpe was to change places
with them and stay up until morning; for, you see, we was afraid to
trust them Mexicans.

"It seemed like we hadn't been asleep more than an hour when me and
Thorpe was called to take our turn on guard. We got out of our blankets,
I putting Paul into one of the wagons, then me and Thorpe lighted our
pipes and walked around, keeping our eyes and ears open, watching the
heavy fringe of timber on the creek mighty close, I tell you. Just as
daylight was