“That man,” said the cowman, “is the smartest man I ever saw. He knows the names and surnames of all the bugs in this country.”
On the thirtieth of April we drove down to the Smoky, thirty miles south of Buffalo, and got caught in a quicksand, but managed to save both team and wagon. We camped at the mouth of a large ravine with plenty of grass in it.
All that night it blew a perfect gale. Did you, dear reader, ever try to sleep in a tent when the wind was high and the canvas flapped about you, waking the fear that at any moment the pegs might pull out or a seam part? Do you know what it is to lie, deafened by thunder and blinded by lightning, while the rain and sleet dash against the thin covering which is all that separates you from the fury of the storm? It is not a pleasant experience, and yet in all the years that I have gone camping, although I have expected time and again to find my tent torn to shreds over my head, my fears have never once been realized. Even in the most terrible storms my tent has stood securely, and I have escaped without serious inconvenience.
On this trip, however, we did have a disagreeable experience. A cold rain continued for four days, and the tent sprang a leak right over my bed. Moreover, the buffalo chips were so wet that we could not build a fire, and had to eat cold food and sleep in wet blankets.
Among the difficulties with which we had to contend on this expedition was a defective wagon wheel. One day, as we were driving along a slope, our lower wheel dished out, and dumped us, load and all, to the ground. Upon examination, we found that the maker had used a hub whose mortises were too large for the spokes. The latter had been held in place by wedges which had been painted over so that they should not be detected. The man who sold us the wagon had guaranteed it for a year, but unfortunately, he lived two hundred miles away. When the necessity arises, however, one can solve any problem somehow; so we took off the tire, put back the spokes and wedges, heated the tire in a fire of buffalo chips, and reset it. We tried to drive carefully after this and avoid sloping places, but it generally happened that when we least expected it, we would fall by the wayside. Most aggravating of all, when we did take the defective wheel back to the man who guaranteed it, he gave us another even more unreliable than the first. It is a mystery to me how manufacturers can play such miserable tricks on their customers.
We were much inconvenienced also by the illness of one of our horses. He often gave out on the open prairie, in one case, I remember, three miles from water. The only vessel we had in which to bring it to camp was a gallon jug, and it kept one person busy getting enough for our use. We were finally obliged to get another horse in place of the sick one; and our bad luck persisting, hit upon one which had evidently been trained to the wheel of a coach, for as soon as the last trace had been hitched, he was off like a shot. Fortunately, his mate could not run as fast, so that they simply went round in a circle, and the boys, watching their chance, caught hold of the wagon and got aboard.
This horse was continually giving us trouble. One day when we were about to cross Hackberry Creek I went ahead with my pick and struck the dry, cracked clay of the bed, to see whether it would hold. As I could not break through, I concluded that we could cross safely, and beckoned to Will Brouse to come on. Whereupon that miserable mustang, taking his bit between his teeth, came down the hill with the load at full speed, and, dashing onto the hardened clay, broke through into the thick mortar below.
The boys, jumping out, managed to get both horses unhitched before they went down, and quickly hitched them to the hind axle of the wagon, to save the load of fossils which we were hauling to the station. Then began a performance of that tantalizing trick which horses know so well how to play. Rowdy would make a rush forward, as if he intended to haul out the load in a hurry, but the moment he felt the collar press his neck, he would fall back against the wheel, while his mate went through the same performance. So they see-sawed up and down, until I could stand it no longer, as the wagon was slowly sinking. I took the lines, and putting all my will-power into the command “Get out of this!” I forced them to pull together and haul the wagon out to solid ground. Then when we unhitched them, they ran away and scattered singletrees, nuts, and bolts all over the prairie.
South of the river we found some fine examples of large Haploscapha shells, some of them a foot in diameter. The valves of this shell are shaped a little like a woman’s bonnet, and the name Conrad gave it, “Haploscapha grandis,” may be freely translated “The great hood.” (Fig. [17].)
