make sure of
the exact contour of the ground.

'Did yer ever try to make the thing go up hill?' asked the trapper.

Young Brainerd shook his head. 'Impossible! he would fall over on us,
the minute it was attempted. When I was at work at first making him,
what do you think was the hardest thing for me to do?'

'Make him go, I s'pose.'

'That was difficult, but it was harder work to balance him, that is, so
when he lifted up one foot he wouldn't immediately fall over on the
same side. I got it fixed after a while, so that he ran as evenly and
firmly as an engine, but I didn't fix upon any plan by which he could
ascend or descend a hill.'

'Can't you make him do it?'

'Not until he is made over again. I would be afraid to attempt to walk
him up a moderate inclination, and know it would be sure destruction
to start him up such a steep bank at that.'

'Then we must work him round, I s'pose.'

'There is nothing else that can be done.'

'Let's at it, then.'

This proved as difficult a job as they imagined. The steam man was so
heavy that it was impossible to lift him, but he was shied around as
much as possible; and, by the time he had walked across the valley he
had half turned round.

He was then coaxed and worked back a short distance, when, with the
'leverage' thus gained, the feat was completed, and the steam man
stood with his face turned, ready to speed backward the moment that
the word might be given.

By this time, however, the day was gone, and darkness was settling
over the prairie. Quite a brisk breeze was blowing, and, as the
position of the party was sheltered against this annoyance, Hopkins
proposed that they should remain where they were until morning.

'We couldn't get a better place,' said Johnny Brainerd, who was quite
taken with the idea.

'It's a good place and it's a bad one,' replied the trapper, who had
not yet made up his mind upon the point.

They inquired what he meant by calling it a bad place.

'Ef a lot of the varmints should find we're hyar, don't you see what a
purty fix they'd have us in?'

'It would be something like the same box in which we caught them in
Wolf Ravine,' said young Brainerd.

'Jist the same, perzactly.'

'Not the same, either,' said Hopkins; 'we've got a better chance of
getting out than they had. We can jump into the wagon and travel,
while they can't; there's the difference.'

'S'pose they git down thar ahead of us, how ar' we goin' to git away
fr