e ter _us_ fer water! If we had bar'ls o' it, we'd pour
it out under yer nose afore we'd give ye a mouthful! Yer larnin' some
lessons this hyar trip, but yer larnin' 'em too late. Go 'bout yer
business an' think things over. We're comin' ter bad Injun country. If
ye got airy sense a-tall in yer chuckle head ye'll mebby have a chanct
ter show it."

Before noon on the third day, after crossing more broken country which
was cut up with many dry washes through which the wagons wallowed in
imminent danger of being wrecked, the caravan came to the Cimarron, and
found it dry. Cries of consternation broke out on all sides, and were
followed by dogmatic denials that it was the Cimarron. The arguments
waged hotly between those who were making their first trip and the more
experienced traders. Who ever heard of a dry river? This was only
another dry wash, wider and longer, but only a wash. The Cimarron lay
beyond.

Here ensued the most serious of all the disagreements, for a large
number of the members of the caravans scoffed when told that by
following the plain wagon tracks they would soon reach the lower spring
of the Cimarron. How could the spring be found when this was not the
Cimarron River at all? They knew that when Woodson had been elected at
Council Grove that he was not fitted to take charge of the caravan; that
his officers were incompetent, and now they were sure of it. Anyone with
sense could see that this was no river. If it were a river, then the
prairie-dog mounds they had just passed were mountains. Here was a
situation which needed more than tact, for if the doubting minority was
allowed to follow their inclinations they might find a terrible death at
the end of their wanderings. Dogmatic and pugnacious, almost hysterical
in their repeated determination to go on and find the river, they must
be saved, by force if necessary, from themselves. They would not listen
to the plea that they go on a few miles and let the spring prove them to
be wrong; there was no spring to be found in a few miles if it was
located on the Cimarron. Woodson and others argued, begged, and at last
threatened. They pointed out that they were familiar with every foot of
the trail from one end to the other; that they had made the journey year
after year, spring and fall; that here was the deeply cut trail,
pointing out the way to water, where other wagons had rolled before
them, following the plain and unequivocal tracks. The debate was grow