y barefooted. We kept busy
indeed, attending the fires under the meat and under the kettle, besides
our shoemaking, and were getting along nicely about sundown, when Old
Christian Crump appeared in sight followed by the women and the rest of
the party. The women were just as tired as ever and dropped down on the
blankets the first thing. "How many such days as this can we
endure?"--they said. We had them count the days gone by, and look around
to see the roughest part of the road was now behind them. They said that
only five days had passed, and that two thirds of the distance still
remained untraveled, and they knew they could never endure even another
five day's work like the last. We told them to be brave, and be
encouraged, for we had been over the road and knew what it was, and that
we felt sure of being able to do it nicely. They were fed in bed as
usual, and there they lay till morning. We men went to making moccasins
from the green hide, and when we had cut out those for the men and women
the balance of the hide was used in preparing some also for the oxen,
particularly the worst ones, for if I remember correctly there was not
enough to go round.

The morning came, bright and pleasant, as all of them were, and just
warm enough for comfort in the part of the day. The women were as usual,
and their appearance would remind one quite strongly of half-drowned
hens which had not been long out of trouble. Hair snarled, eyes red,
nose swollen, and out of fix generally. They did not sleep well so much
fatigued, for they said they lived over their hard days in dreams at
night, and when they would close their eyes and try to go to sleep, the
visions would seem to come to them half waking and they could not rest.

There was now before us a particularly bad stretch of the country as it
would probably take us four or five days to get over it, and there was
only one water hole in the entire distance. This one was quite salt, so
much so that on our return trip the horses refused to drink it, and the
little white one died next day. Only water for one day's camp could be
carried with us, and that was for ourselves alone and not for the
animals.

When the moccasins were finished in the morning we began to get our
cattle together when it was discovered that Old Brigham was gone, and
the general belief was that the Indians had made a quiet raid on us and
got away with the old fellow. We circled around till we found his track
and