So when the call came, "Dob-ee! Dob-ee! Time for a scrub!" he went meekly to the operation.
Red and shining, his hair slicked down stylishly with bear's grease, his best homespun suit on, Doby mounted a borrowed horse to sit behind his mother, and formed one of a company who fared away to the grove where the meeting was held.
His shoes were tied round his waist by a thong. They were ready to put on when he came in sight of the meeting-place. Cobbled shoes of leather were the most expensive luxury a pioneer boy could own. Neither Doby nor any other backwoods fellow would think of wearing them if he could possibly go barefoot or use his moccasins.
He and his mother were following a little procession of neighbors over the very best thoroughfare in all that region, the "Buffalo Trace."
In the spring when the buffalo came up from the South to graze through the summer on Northern plains, the great herds crossed the Ohio River below the Big Falls. There were thousands and thousands of buffalo. It took days and days for the long parade of them to pass the settlements. Their countless hoofs beat out a path wide enough for the largest wagons and hard enough to make a perfect road.
Riding the "Buffalo Trace" was the best of going.
"Although it is a new country and a strange horse, I feel safe on the road to-day," said his mother, "for there is plenty of company. The preacher rides around such a big circle of settlements that he cannot get to any one place very often."
"When he does come," Doby observed, "it is the big event. Everybody goes to hear him. But I don't think there are many folks near us just now. Some have dropped out of sight around the bend and there isn't any one ahead of us."
For a moment the mother was uneasy. The "Trace" between the grim lines of dark forests seemed suddenly a dreary lane. The distant murmur of the Big Falls always trembling in the air was very like a growling beast. She gave the nag a hasty whack and jounced along at livelier gait.
"Now I can see horses ahead of us," began Doby in a loud tone. "But"—and his voice sank to a whisper—"the men are not on them. How odd their motions are! What are they doing?"