38 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



and divide the load and team among others. This was only 

 adding more trouble, only to be remedied when an empty 

 train was met, when we made exchanges both of wagons and 

 oxen. 



In the journey to Salt Lake we averaged about eight miles 

 a day, which would have been more had we not lost much 

 time by desertions and bad roads at the start. The drivers, on 

 account of so much moving back and forth to keep the lazy 

 oxen up to their work, traveled half as much farther. The 

 free cattle were soon broken down and left dead on the road, 

 or to recuperate in the "calf yard," so that many left behind 

 were lazy and cunning. These would only work when the 

 driver was at their sides, urging them with word and whip. 



The oxen were badly used generally. The poor beasts 

 seemed to have a human sense of wrong, and I have seen 

 their sorrowful eyes full of tears under abuse. The old drivers 

 were skilled in the use of their whips — some with lashes over 

 five yards long — and took delight in marking the backs of 

 their cattle ; while others, who were not so accomplished, 

 jDounded and kicked them without mercy, and even more 

 cruelly used them. To call these semblances of humanity 

 brutes, would be a libel on the four-footed race. To make the 

 exhausted oxen pull, some of these drivers would not stop 

 short of breaking a tail, staving in a rib, or even gouging out 

 an eye. I grew sick at their heartless doings, but was power- 

 less to avert them. The thousands of carcasses of oxen which 

 lined our trail showed how hard was their usage. 



The road for awhile is good, and we are making two miles 

 an hour. On account of the miry places we keep away from 

 the Platte, which, with its many islands, is plainly visible on 

 one side, while on the other is a maze of sand hills. At last 

 we come to a " slough," or swampy creek, and here trouble 

 begins. The wheels sink to their hubs, the team stalls, and 



