“While Cudjo and the boys were engaged in putting them into the park, all at once I remembered what I had read of, but which had hitherto escaped my memory—that the great American elk is capable of being trained as a beast either of draught or burden.
“I need hardly tell you, my friends, that this thought at once led to a series of reflections. Could these elk be trained to draw a wagon?—to draw us out of the Desert?
“I lost no time in communicating my thoughts to my wife. She, too, had read of this—in fact, in a London menagerie, had seen the elk in harness. The thing, therefore, was practicable. We resolved to use every effort to make it so.
“Let me not weary you, my friends, with details. We set to work to train our young elk. No man knew better than Cudjo how to break a pair of oxen to either plough or cart; and when the elk had grown big, Cudjo yoked them to the plough, and turned up several acres of ground with them. During the winter, too, many a good load of dead-wood did Cudjo make them ‘haul’ up to the wood-pile that supplied our fire. In short, they worked, both in the plough and cart, as gentle as oxen.”
Chapter Forty Four.
Catching the Wild Horses.
“We had accomplished a great object. Nothing remained but to train a sufficient number of elk for our purpose. We trapped several fawns; and Cudjo proceeded in breaking them as he had done the others.
“At this time, however, an event occurred which verified my wife’s prediction still more clearly, and proved that the hand of God was over and around us.