50 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



after eating, but they sometimes seemed endowed with the 

 demon of unrest, and wasted their strength with senseless 

 wanderings, and thus, sleepy and tired as we were, brought 

 us additional hardships. 



But there were times when a halo of sentiment covered the 

 surroundings. This was in the small hours of the night, and 

 when the oxen, tired and with their hunger satisfied, lay down 

 in groups around us. The full moon which was high overhead 

 showed the broad island-dotted Platte with its divided channels 

 sparkling in its soft light. From the shore the plain broadened 

 till it met the far-off hills, beyond w^hich there w^as no trace 

 of civilization, no animal life for hundreds of miles, but of 

 Indians and wild beasts. Dimly gleaming from the prairie 

 was our corral, its circle of sheeted wagons showing like a 

 patriarchal encampment of far away times. The sounds we 

 heard w^ere hushed, the lowing of distant buffaloes, the howl- 

 ing of wolves, the barking of their coyote brethern, or the 

 voices of predatory night birds, coming to us wierdly and faintly. 

 Now and then came a deep sigh from one of the reclining herd, 

 as he, perhaps, thought of the wrongs inflicted on him the 

 previous day. The surroundings induced meditation, and my 

 thoughts would revert to my far-away home and the loved 

 ones there ; and I wondered how I ever came to lead such a 

 life among people like my associates, whose ways were so 

 uncongenial and generally repulsive. 



M}^ reclining position, the hushed, far-awa}^ sounds, the pro- 

 pinquity of so much sleep as was massed in the somnolent 

 beasts about me, the influences of night, one or all, would 

 make me drowsy in spite of the responsibility resting upon 

 me, when I would instinctively arouse with a start to find 

 the late quiescent herd in commotion, and stringing across the 

 plain in the wake of some mischief making leader. The rest 

 of the night guard had been caught napping, and then would 

 be trouble till dawn keeping the cattle together. 



