CHAPTER XXXII
LAZYING ALONG
UPON even the most seasoned outdoor men the weather has undeniable influence. Came now a bright sun and gentle winds. The prairie lay like a silver sea. The surliness of the men vanished, they were children again. Once more the force of custom, of duty, made itself felt.
One more camp brought them to the North Fork of the Canadian, a more serious proposition than had been the main river of that name. The channel was narrower and deeper, and the banks, especially upon the south side, much more steep. There was only a narrow channel of swimming water, but not a man in the outfit would have consented to see the mistress of Del Sol undertake to swim her own horse across even the narrowest channel. The entire herd was held up for half a day while the men make a rude raft sufficient to cross the carts and their occupants. They dug down the bank on the farther shore so that better egress might be offered for the cattle.
“By the time a cow has swum a river,” said Jim Nabours to expostulating men, who did not like shovel work, since that, at least, could not be done on horseback, “he’s plumb tired, like enough. Make him climb a steep bank and he may fall back in. The worst place for them to get crowded is on the far side of a river. Now you fellows go on and dig a nice path, or else maybe we won’t have no cows a-tall before long. I’m scared to make a tally, way it is.”
So they passed yet another unknown river and swung on out, their own trail makers.
“I wish to God I knowed where we was,” grumbled the trail boss to Len Hersey, carefree cowhand, to whom he happened to be talking. “Unless’n that wagon tongue has got warped we’re still heading north. I done set her on the North Star last night my own self. But a trail scout had orto have a watch and a compass, and there ain’t nary one of either in this whole outfit.”
Hersey took a chew of tobacco.
“Heap o’ things in life ain’t needful,” said he; “just only folks gets used to them, that’s all. That lead steer Alamo’s all right if nobody don’t move the North Star. He’s got his eye sot on that. I seen him standing up the other night about one o’clock, looking at that star with one eye. He done wink at me with the other one. He shore knows where we’re at, Jim. You’d oughtn’t to worry. This suits me, although I will say that this here shirt I got now might be a little better around the elbows. I hate to go to meeting in it.”
“When I was a boy,” said Nabours reminiscently, “the onliest kind of church we had was camp meeting. I ain’t saw one of them for quite a while.
“Them big meetings used to bring in everybody from all over. The preacher’d throw the camp in some nice grove, and folks would build a shed with a brush roof and make some seats out of slabs. That was the church. I’ve saw a bearskin used for a pulpit cover. If there was extra ministers on hand, sometimes they’d have rawhide-bottom chairs made for them. The mourner’s bench, it always had a good rawhide bottom too. There used to be plenty straw scattered around between the benches for the sake of them that got conviction right strong and begun to throw fits. What with horses and dogs and babies, there was quite a settlement to a good camp meeting, while it lasted. The men didn’t always have hats and the women couldn’t always afford calico, but I can’t see but what we got along all right.