54 HIS FIRST JOURNEY ACROSS THE PRAIRIES 



astonishment of our teamsters when they saw him make a bound 

 from his seat upon the wagon to the ground and rush to plain, 

 woodland, or marsh. At first, they all hauled up to see what was 

 the matter — it must be gold or silver he had found. But, when 

 he came back triumphantly waving a flower or bunch of grass, 

 and exclaiming: "Did you ever see the like of that?" "No, I 

 never," was the general response from every disgusted teamster. 

 The internal cachinnation of a braw Scotch lad from the kingdom 

 of Fife, over the phenomenon, was so violent that he would have 

 exploded had he not relieved himself by occasional witticisms; 

 "Jock," he cried to the teamster who had the honor of driving our 

 Botanist, "Tell yon man if he wants a load of grass, no to fill the 

 buggy noo, an' a' 11 show him a fine place where we feed the horse." 

 But when one of us explained to the Scot that all this was done in 

 the interests of science and would end in something good for 

 schools, he ceased to jibe, though he could not altogether suppress 

 a deep hoarse rumble far down in his throat — like that of a distant 

 volcano — when the Professor, as we now called him, would come 

 back with an unusually large armful of spoil. The bonny Scot was 

 an immigrant who had been a farm servant in Fife five years ago. 

 He had come to the Angle this spring, and was getting thirty 

 dollars a month and his board, as a common teamster. He was 

 saving four-fifths of his wages and intended in a few months to 

 buy a good farm on the Red River among his countrymen, and 

 settle down as a Laird for the rest of his life. How many ten 

 thousands more of Scotch lads would follow his example if they 

 only knew how easy it would be for them." 



After leaving this point, we pushed on as fast as possible but 

 found when we stopped for dinner we were still thirty-three miles 

 from Oak Point, and, after some discussion, we decided to push 

 on again, which was a foolish move as it turned out later. When 

 we were about half way clouds formed and a heavy rain began to 

 fall and our horses were very much jaded by their long haul, and 

 owing to the heavy nature of the road our progress was very slow. 

 Shortly after, it grew dark and the darkness was so dense that 

 we could scarcely see the road and the teamster was unacquainted 

 with it in the dark, but a halt was called and Mr. Fleming, Dr. 



