to be had. The race had become a race of endurance, and the strongest
stomachs were destined to be the winners.

Stewart made a bad job of the crossing. The river was high, and his
mules quickly mired down in the quicksand. The more they pawed the
deeper they went.

Simpson picked a place for crossing below the ford Stewart had chosen.
He put enough bulls on a wagon to insure its easy progress, and the
bulls wallowed through the sand on their round bellies, using their
legs as paddles.

Steward pulled ahead again after he had crossed the river, but soon his
mules grew too feeble to make anything like their normal speed. We
passed them for good and all a few days farther on, and were far ahead
when we reached the North Platte.

Thus ended a race that I shall never forget. Since that time the
stage-coach has outdistanced the bull team, the pony express has swept
past the stage-coach, the locomotive has done in an hour what the
prairie schooner did in three or four days. Soon the aeroplane will be
racing with the automobile for the cross-country record.

But the bull team and the mule team were the continental carriers of
that day, and I am very glad that I took part--on the winning side--in
a race between them.

We soon began meeting parties of soldiers, and lightening our loads by
issuing supplies to them. When at last we reacted Fort Laramie, the
outfit was ordered to Fort Walback, located in Cheyenne Pass,