and Cal. Those youngsters, wise
in the ways of the plains, were filled with sad surprise over the
incompetence of it all.

"But thar ain't no manner of _use_ in it!" cried Old. "They are
just bullin' at it plumb regardless! They ain't handled their cattle
right! They ain't picked their route right--why, the old Mormon trail
down by the Carson Sink is better'n that death-trap across the Humboldt.
And cut-offs! What license they all got chasin' every fool cut-off
reported in? Most of 'em is all right fer pack-trains and all wrong fer
wagons! Oh, Lord!"

"They don't know," said I, "poor devils, they don't know. They were
raised on farms and in the cities."

Johnny had said nothing. His handsome face looked very sombre in the
firelight.

"Jim," said he, "we're due for a trip to-night; but I want you to
promise me one thing--just keep these people here, and feed them up
until we get back. Tell them I've got a job for them. Will you do it?"

I tried to pump Johnny as to his intentions, but could get nothing out
of him; and so promised blindly. About two o'clock I was roused from my
sleep by a soft moving about. Thrusting my head from the tent I made out
the dim figures of our horsemen, mounted, and moving quietly away down
the trail.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE PRISONERS

I had no great difficulty in persuading the immigrants to rest over.

"To tell you the truth," the narrator confided to me, "I don't know
where we're going. We have no money. We've got to get work somehow. I
don't know now why we came."

His name, he told me, was George Woodruff; he had been a lawyer in a
small Pennsylvania town; his total possessions were now represented by
the remains of his ox team, his wagon, and the blankets in which he
slept. The other man was his brother Albert, and the woman his
sister-in-law.

"We started with four wagons and a fine fit-out of supplies," he told
me--"food enough to last two years. This is what we have left. The
cattle aren't in bad shape now though; and they are extra fine stock.
Perhaps I can sell them for a little."

Two days passed. We arose the morning of the third to find that the oxen
had strayed away during the night. Deciding they could not have wandered
far, I went to my gold washing as usual, leaving Woodruff and his
brother to hunt them up. About ten o'clock they came to my claim very
much troubled.

"We can't find them anywhere," they told me, "and it doesn't seem
natural that they sho