Dave would hook and kick and perform every other mean trick. Besides, he would stick his tongue out from the smallest kind of exertion. He had just been shipped in off the Montana cattle range and had never had a rope on him, unless it was when he was branded. Like a great over-grown booby of a boy, he was flabby in flesh, and he could not endure any sort of exertion without discomfort. At one time I became very nearly discouraged with him.
Yet this was the ox that made the round trip. He bore his end of the yoke from the tidewaters of the Pacific to the tidewaters of the Atlantic, at the Battery, New York City, and on to Washington City to meet the President. He finally became subdued, though not conquered. At times he became threatening with his horns, and I never did trust his heels.
Taking off the wagon box.
The other ox, Twist, died suddenly on August 9, 1906, and was buried within a few rods of the trail. It was two months to a day after his death before I could find a mate for the Dave ox, and then I had to take another five-year-old steer off the cattle range of Nebraska. This steer, Dandy, evidently had never been handled; but he came of good stock and, with the exception of awkwardness, gave me no serious trouble. Dandy was purchased out of the stockyard at Omaha. He then weighed 1,470 pounds, and the day before he went to see the President he tipped the scales at the 1,760-pound notch. Dandy proved to be a faithful, serviceable ox.
On the journey Dave had to be shod fourteen times, I think, and he always struggled to get away. Once, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, we had to throw Dave and tie him hard and fast before we could shoe him. It takes two shoes to one foot for an ox, instead of one as for a horse, though the fastening is the same; that is, by nailing into the hoof. At one time Dandy's hoofs became so worn that I could not fasten a shoe on him, and so I had what we called leather boots put on, that left a track like an elephant's; but he could not pull well with them on.
Calking the wagon box to turn it into a boat.
Besides the oxen we had a dog, Jim. More will be told of him later.
An authentic prairie schooner, a true veteran of the Plains, was out of the question. In building the new one, use was made of parts of three old wagons. The woodwork of the wagon had to be new throughout except for one hub, which had done service across the Plains in 1853. This hub and the bands, boxes, and other iron parts were from two old-time wagons that had crossed the Plains in 1853. They differed somewhat in size and shape; hence the hubs of the fore and hind wheels did not match.