late and the whole day's operations
were thrown out of step. Finally after all the stampeded animals had
been rounded up and the morning meal was out of the way, and things done
at the last minute which should have been done the day before,
preparations were started to get under way. Mules and horses broke loose
and had to be chased and brought back; animals balked and kicked and
helped to turn the camp into a scene of noisy confusion. Several parties
found that they had neglected to cut spare axles and forthwith sallied
off to get them. Others frantically looked for articles they had
misplaced or loaned, one wagon being entirely unpacked to find a coffee
pot and a frying pan which someone else later discovered at the edge of
the creek where they had been dropped after they had been washed, their
owner having left them to get a shot at a squirrel he thought he saw.
The forehanded and wiser members of the caravan took advantage of the
delay and turmoil to cut an extra supply of firewood against a future
need, add to their store of picket stakes and also to fill their water
casks to keep them swelled tight beyond question, against the time when
the much dreaded dry stretch should be reached.

At last from the captain's camp the well-known summons of "Catch up!"
was heard, and passed on from group to group along the creek. Those who
had not yet hitched up their teams, almost at every case old hands at
the game who were wise enough to let their animals graze until the last
minute, now exultantly drove in their teams and filled the little valley
with the rattle of chains, the clicking of yokes, the braying of
indignant mules, and their own vociferations. Soon a teamster yelled
"All's set!" and answering shouts rolled up and down the divisions. At
the shouted command of "Stretch out!" whips cracked, harness creaked,
chains rattled and wagons squeaked as the shouting drivers straightened
out their teams. "Fall in!" came next, and the teams were urged into the
agreed-upon order, the noses of the leaders of one team close to the
tailboard of the wagon ahead. The second and third divisions, falling in
behind the first and fourth, made two strings rolling up the long
western slope of the valley toward the high prairie at its crest.

Songs, jokes, exultant shouts ran along the trains as the valley was
left behind, for now the caravan truly was embarked on the journey, and
every mile covered put civilization that much farther in the