A DAY ON THE PLAINS. 45 



Then there was " Phil " — last name never heard of — one of 

 the " extras," whose highest ambition was to be a wagon-master 

 some day. He was a good ox-driver, and could release a 

 " stuck " team with skill. '' Phil " called whip " hoop," and 

 was a great hand to sit around the campfire of the elite mess, 

 that is where the officials fed, and tell about his day's 

 experience ; how he made a certain team " get up and haul," 

 and he would ask the wagon-master if he " minded " how a 

 certain " ofF-wheeler " buckled down to it when he began to skin 

 him with his " hoop," and the action of certain other cattle 

 when under his leathern stimulant. Then there was Johnson, 

 a big, fine looking fellow, who was the wheelwright of the 

 train, and " Kaintuck," and " Yank," a New Yorker. I will 

 also name "Missouri Bill" as about the greatest swearer I 

 ever heard. If I could imagined he read, I would class 

 " Tristram Shandy " among his perusals, for his maledictus sit 

 included nearly every part of the poor ox under dissection, the 

 " melt " being his particular objective point. When his team 

 got fast he would stamp and rave and swear until, if there was 

 a possibility of his bluing the air, his oaths would have 

 furnished the indigo. All swearers are fools, but he seemed 

 the king of them. Yet, 'for all, when in his cool moments he 

 was a good sort of a chap. Then there was Fisher, a lazy fel- 

 low, with a face in a chronic state of grime. He was harm- 

 less, so that whenever a coward wanted to show his mettle, he 

 would provoke him to a retort and then kick him. 



Fisher had once lived among the Pottowattomies, where he 

 had been, in a measure, adopted by the tribe. He would often 

 sit around the campfire and commence to narrate some of his 

 experience of Indian life, but he was so lazy that his snoring 

 voice, which was a soporific of itself, would cease in the middle 

 of a story through sheer weariness of the vocal cliords. Still 

 we would be so nearly put to sleep ourselves, that we would 

 hardly notice the cessation. There was another fellow, a 



