class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 46]"/> A couple of incidents along here will serve to show how these conditions sometimes worked.

We were turned into camp one evening, and as we were getting supper there came along a man pushing a light handcart, loaded with traps and provisions, and asked permission to camp with us, which was readily granted. He was a stout, hearty, good-natured fellow, possessed of a rich Irish accent, and in the best of humor commenced to prepare his supper. Just about this time there came into camp another lone man, leading a diminutive donkey, not much larger than a good-sized sheep. The donkey, on halting, gave us a salute that simply silenced the ordinary mule. The two men got acquainted immediately, and by the time their supper was over they had struck a bargain to put their effects together by way of hitching the donkey to the cart, and so move on together. They made a collar for the donkey out of gunny-sack, and we gave them some rope for traces. Then, taking off the hand-bar of the cart, they put the donkey into the shafts and tried things on by leading it around through the camp till it was time to turn in.

Everything went first-rate, and they were so happy over their transportation prospects that they scarcely slept during the whole night. In the morning they were up bright and early, one making the coffee and the other oiling the iron axle-trees and packing the cart. Starting out quite early, they bade us goodby with hearty cheer, saying they would let the folks in California know that we were coming, etc. About 10 o'clock we came to a little narrow creek, the bottom being miry and several feet below the surface of the ground. There upon the bank stood the two friends who had so joyously bidden us goodby only a few hours before. The cart was a wreck, with one shaft and one spindle broken. It appeared that the donkey had got mired in crossing the creek and in floundering about had twisted off the shaft and broken one of the wheels. We left them there bewailing their misfortune and blaming each other for the carelessness which worked the mishap. We never saw them again.

This incident is an illustration of those cases where a man obtained his passage by contributing something to the outfit and working his way through. There were quite a number of this class, they having no property rights in the train.

At the usual time we turned in for dinner near by a camp of two or three wagons. On the side of one wagon was a doctor's sign, who, we afterwards learned, was the proprietor of the train. As we were quietly eating and resting we suddenly heard some one cursing and yelling in the other camp, and saw two men, one the hired man and the other the doctor, the latter being armed with a neck-yoke and chasing the hired man around the wagon, and both running as fast as they could. They had made several circuits, the doctor striking at the man with all his might at each turn, when some of us went over to try to stop the fight. Just at this point, the hired man, as he turned the rear of the wagon, whipped out an Allen revolver and turning shot the doctor in the mouth, the charge coming out nearly under the ear. The doctor and the neckyoke struck the ground about the same time. His eyes were blinded by powder and he had the appearance of being dangerously if not fatally wounded. Everybody was more or less excited except the hired man. From expressions all around in both trains, the hired man seemed to have the most friends. There were many instances of this kind, though none quite so tragic, the quarrels usually arising from the owner of the wagons constantly brow-beating and finding fault with the hired man.

Again I saw an instance where two men were equal partners all around, in four horses, harness and wagon. They seemed to have quarreled so much that they agreed to divide up and quit travelling together. They divided up their horses and provisions, and then measured off the wagon-bed and sawed it in two parts, also the reach, and then flipped a copper cent to see which should have the front part of the wagon. After the division they each went to work and fixed up his part of the wagon as best he could, and drove on alone.

The entire trip from Monroe, Michigan, our starting-point, to Hangtown, the point of landing in California, covered 2,542 miles, and we were five months, lacking six days, in making it. Today the same trip can be made in a half week, with every comfort and luxury which money and invention can provide. There is probably nothing that marks the progress of civilization more distinctly than do the perfected modes and conveniences of travel. It is strange, but true, however, that so long as our prairies shall stretch themselves from river to ocean the imprint of the overland trail can never be obliterated. Today, after a lapse of over fifty years, whoever passes within seeing distance of the old trail can, upon the crest of grain and grass, note its serpentine windings, as marked by a light and sickly color of green. I myself have followed it from a car-window as traced in yellow green upon an immense field of growing corn. No amount of cultivation can ever restore to that long-trodden path its pristine vigor and productiveness.