"Maybe somebody'll grub-stake us, on shares. But no matter about that. We'll learn not to eat when we haven't anything to eat. If," continued Harry, "a couple of fellows our size, with a yellow mule and a half-buffalo and two wagon-wheels, can't get through to the mountains, I'd like to know who can! So it's high time we started. Come on."
"What are you going to do first?" demanded Terry, bewildered by Harry's sudden movement.
"Educate Duke, of course. We'll put him and Jenny to the drag and give them their first lesson. You be driving Duke in and I'll talk with Jenny."
Away hustled Harry, at his rapid limp, for a halter and Jenny, where in a stall she was munching a feed of hay as reward after her trip to town. With the interested Shep (shaggy black dog) at his heels, prepared to help, Terry hastened into the pasture and rounded up Duke, the half-buffalo, from amidst the other animals. Duke was now a yearling—grown to be a sturdy, stocky youngster since Terry had captured him and his brindled cow mother during the buffalo hunt with the Delaware Indians last summer.
Knowing Terry well, and tamed to everything except work, Duke submitted to being driven out. In the ranch yard Harry was waiting with big, gaunt Jenny, already attached by collar and traces to the drag. The drag was only an old rail, heavy and spike-studded, used to uproot the brush when the ranch land was cleared.
It required considerable maneuvering to fit an ox-bow around Duke's short neck, and yoke him to the drag. He seemed dumbly astonished. Jenny laid back her long ears in disgust with her strange mate.
"Be patient with him, Jenny," pleaded Harry. "He's only a boy, and part Indian, while you're a cultured lady. I think," he said, to Terry, "that I'll do the driving, for the first spell on this Pike's Peak trail." Holding the lines attached to Jenny's bit (but Duke, ox-fashion, had no lines), he fell a few paces to rear. "No," he added, "that won't answer. You drive Duke and I'll drive Jenny. Get your whip."
Terry stationed himself with the ox-whip at Duke's flank. Harry stepped upon the drag, and balanced.
"Gid-dap, Jenny!" he bade.
"G'lang, Duke!" bade Terry.