man.

I remember that our start was a big event. Men, women and children
watched our chosen animals amble out of Salt Creek. The "mule
skinners," busy with preparations for their own departure, stopped work
to jeer us.

"We'll ketch you in a couple of days or so!" yelled Tom Stewart, boss
of the mule outfit.

But Simpson only grinned. Jeers couldn't shake his confidence either in
himself or his long-horned motive power.

We made the first hundred and fifty miles easily. I was glad to be a
plainsman once more, and took a lively interest in everything that went
forward. We were really making speed, too, which added to the
excitement. The ordinary bull team could do about fifteen miles a day.
Under Simpson's command his specially selected bulls were doing
twenty-five, and doing it right along.

But one day, while we were nooning about one hundred and fifty miles on
the way, one of the boys shouted: "Here come the mules!"

Presently Stewart's train came shambling up, and a joyful lot the "mule
skinners" were at what they believed their victory.

But it was a short-lived victory. At the end of the next three hundred
miles we found them, trying to cross the Platte, and making heavy work
of it. The grass fodder had told on the mules. Supplies from other
sources were now exhausted. There were no farms, no traders, no grain