The long line of vehicles and troops came to a sudden stop. Tired horses lowered their heads to the cutting blast and shivered. Weary oxen leaned heavily against the wagon-tongues. Footsore soldiers threw themselves upon the damp ground and feelingly rubbed their aching limbs. Drivers stamped their feet and slapped their palms together to restore the circulation to their benumbed members. Far down toward the rear of the line, a militiaman was singing:
“I left my home in ol’ Kaintuck,
An’ my wife an’ babes behind me;
An’ if the Injins gits my scalp,
My folks ’ll never find me.”
“An’ by the everlastin’ Kinnikinnick, I don’t b’lieve his fam’ly ’ld grieve much ’bout him, if he’s in the habit o’ singin’ that tune ’round home!” growled a tall angular ox-driver, resting his arm upon the yoke and whipping the water from his fur-cap, with the butt of his gad. “Did anybody on earth ever hear such a dang caterwaulin’? Whew, but I’m cold an’ hungry!
“Drivin’ oxen ain’t to my likin’—not, by a dang sight! But here I am doin’ menial servitude fer my country, when I never disgraced myself by doin’ anything o’ the kind fer Joe Farley. ’Pears that I’ve become the plaything o’ fate—it does, by Melindy! Come out here to fight Injins an’ help save the gover’ment; an’ they’ve set me to whackin’ bulls. By my gran’mother’s goggles, I ain’t a-goin’ to stand it! I’ll desert an’ go over to the redskins, bag an’ baggage! ’Tain’t fair—’tain’t. Jest ’cause a driver gits sick an’ has to be left at Fort Harrison, they take an’ put me in his place. I ort to be out scoutin’ with Ross Douglas an’ Bright Wing. An’ I would ’ave been—dang it!—but my limber tongue got the best o’ me an’ let out that I’d druv oxen, w’en a boy.
“Well, ther’s one consolation, anyhow. We’re purty near to the end o’ our journey; an’ then I’ll git to tote a rifle ag’in an’ feel like a man. Whoa, there, you brindle-hided brute! What in the dangnation ’re you tryin’ to do? Think you can crawl through that bow? Whoa, I say! Bless my peepers, if I ever did see such a c’ntrary critter, anyhow! Whoa, now!”
And Farley applied the gad to the ribs of the lank ox, as though he were energetically beating a bass drum.