waggons, watching the various groups engaged
at their work as unconcernedly as if they had been still in their little
farms among the settlements, instead of on the plains with months of
toilsome and dangerous journey before them. Some of the women cooked,
while others mended their clothes and those of their husbands and
children, while the men attended to the oxen, or made such repairs as
were needed to the waggons and harness.

As for the children, the life suited them admirably; to them it was a
continual picnic, without school or lessons. And yet they too had their
share of the work, for as soon as the waggons halted, all save the very
little ones started at once over the plain to search for the dried
buffalo dung, or, as it was called, chips, which formed the staple of
the fires; for wood was very scarce, and that in the neighbourhood of
the camping-grounds, which were always at a stream or water-hole, had
long since been cleared off by the travellers who had preceded them. The
chips afforded excellent fuel, burning with a fierce, steady glow, and
making a fire something like that afforded by well-dried peat. Another
source of fuel were the bones which lay in many places, scattered pretty
thickly. Sometimes these marked the spot where long before a party of
Indians had come upon a herd of buffalo, sometimes they were remains of
the cattle of caravans which had preceded them; these were often quite
fresh, the herds of coyotes stripping off the flesh of any animals that
fell by the way, and leaving nothing in the course of a day or two after
their death but the bare bones. Whenever the caravan came upon such a
skeleton upon the line of march, the men broke it up, and flung the
bones into one of the waggons for the night's fire.

Sometimes, as they got well on in their journey, they came to patches of
soap-weed, a vegetable of soft, pulpy nature, which grows to a
considerable height, and dies from the bottom, retaining its greenness
of appearance long after the stem has become brown and withered; it
burns freely, with a brilliant flame. The women of the party rejoiced
when a clump of soap-weed was discovered, and it was always the occasion
of a general wash, as by immersing some of it in water it had all the
properties of soap, except that it did not make the lather which
distinguishes the real article. But in places where the soap-weed was
not to be found, and chips were scarce, the hunters did their best to
supply