hance of crossing is as good right
here as anywhere. I wanted to see your foreman, and if he'll help,
we'll bridge her. I've been down to see this other outfit, but they
ridicule the idea, though I think they'll come around all right. I
borrowed their axe, and to-morrow morning you'll see me with my outfit
cutting timber to bridge Big Boggy. That's right, boys; it's the only
thing to do. The trouble is I've only got eight men all told. I don't
aim to travel over eight or ten miles a day, so I don't need a big
outfit. You say your foreman's name is Flood? Well, if he don't return
before I go, some of you tell him that he's wasting good time looking
for a ford, for there ain't none."

In the conversation which followed, we learned that Slaughter was
driving for his brother Lum, a widely known cowman and drover, whom we
had seen in Dodge. He had started with the grass from north Texas, and
by the time he reached the Platte, many of his herd would be fit to
ship to market, and what were not would be in good demand as feeders
in the corn belt of eastern Nebraska. He asked if we had seen his herd
during the morning, and on hearing we had, got up and asked McCann to
let him see our axe. This he gave a critical examination, before he
mounted his horse to go, and on leaving said,--

"If your foreman don't want to help build a bridge, I want to borrow
that axe of yours. But you fellows talk to him. If any of you boys has
ever been over on the Chisholm trail, you will remember the bridge on
Rush Creek, south of the Washita River. I built that bridge in a day
with an outfit of ten men. Why, shucks! if these outfits would pull
together, we could cross to-morrow evening. Lots of these old foremen
don't like to listen to a cub like me, but, holy snakes! I've been
over the trail oftener than any of them. Why, when I wasn't big enough
to make a hand with the herd,--only ten years old,--in the days when
we drove to Abilene, they used to send me in the lead with an old
cylinder gun to shoot at the buffalo and scare them off the trail. And
I've made the trip every year since. So you tell Flood when he comes
in, that Pete Slaughter was here, and that he's going to build a
bridge, and would like to have him and his outfit help."

Had it not been for his youth and perpetual smile, we might have taken
young Slaughter more seriously, for both Quince Forrest and The Rebel
remembered the bridge on Rush Creek over on the Chisholm. Still there
w