some
clothes. We've been in town long enough, and we've got the price, but
it's been such a busy afternoon with us that we simply haven't had the
time."

Straw took our part, and Flood giving in, we entered a general
outfitting store, from which we emerged within a quarter of an hour,
wearing cheap new suits, the color of which we never knew until the
next day. Then bidding Straw a hearty farewell, we rode for the North
Platte, on which the herd would encamp. As we scaled the bluffs, we
halted for our last glimpse of the lights of Ogalalla, and The Rebel
remarked, "Boys, I've traveled some in my life, but that little hole
back there could give Natchez-under-the-hill cards and spades, and
then outhold her as a tough town."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NORTH PLATTE

It was now July. We had taken on new supplies at Ogalalla, and a week
afterwards the herd was snailing along the North Platte on its way to
the land of the Blackfeet. It was always hard to get a herd past a
supply point. We had the same trouble when we passed Dodge. Our long
hours in the saddle, coupled with the monotony of our work, made these
supply points of such interest to us that they were like oases in
desert lands to devotees on pilgrimage to some consecrated shrine. We
could have spent a week in Ogalalla and enjoyed our visit every
blessed moment of the time. But now, a week later, most of the
headaches had disappeared and we had settled down to our daily work.

At Horse Creek, the last stream of water before entering Wyoming, a
lad who cut the trail at that point for some cattle companies, after
trimming us up, rode along for half a day through their range, and
told us of an accident which happened about a week before. The horse
of some peeler, working with one of Shanghai Pierce's herds, acted up
one morning, and fell backward with him so that his gun accidentally
discharged. The outfit lay over a day and gave him as decent a burial
as they could. We would find the new-made grave ahead on Squaw Creek,
beyond the crossing, to the right hand side in a clump of cottonwoods.
The next day, while watering the herd at this creek, we all rode over
and looked at the grave. The outfit had fixed things up quite nicely.
They had built a square pen of rough cottonwood logs around the grave,
and had marked the head and foot with a big flat stone, edged up,
heaping up quite a mound of stones to keep the animals away. In a tree
his name was cut--sounded natural,