^F^ Locating a Homestead 



|Hbout midday we unhitched the bulls and 

 Ifave them a drink at a slough,^ and sitting 

 iown under the shelter of a bluff, which kept 

 i»ff some of the biting wind, we made a hearty 

 aeal from a loaf and a tin of herrings, bought 



n a store at B before starting ; the oxen, 



arefully tied to the wagon, grazed on the prairie 

 neanwhile. 



We had just finished our frugal lunch 



\rhen Tom rose and went towards the oxen. 



'J^oticing that Joe had stopped grazing and was 



hatching the young fellow's approach with big, 



/^ide-open eyes, I had just time to say " Be 



autious," when the beast swung his great head, 



roke the line, and following this up with an 



nwieldy gambol and dragging Nigger by his 



ose-chain, they both trotted away due north. 



'om, giving vent to a very unparliamentary 



xpression, was on the point of following, when 



checked him, and remarked, " Profanity is use- 



?ss and wrong, and, besides, wastes breath. I 



idn't think such well broken bulls would play 



s this trick, but should have remembered that 



fter all we are strangers to them." 



We looked at one another for a moment or 



' This term (pronounced " sloo ") is used of a depression 

 the surface which may hold water or from which the water 

 have gone, leaving it marshy. Thus, if a crop of hay 

 ows in the depression, it is spoken of as a " hay sloo." 



47 



