Cow-Country | Page 4

so poor and the water so scarce, it seemed as though the heavy wagon,
loaded with a few household idols too dear to leave behind, a camp
outfit and the necessary clothing and bedding for a woman and two
children, was going to be a real handicap on the drive.
"Robert, if we had another wagon, I could drive it and make the load
less for these four oxen," she suggested when her husband came up. "A
lighter wagon, perhaps with one team of strong horses, or even with a
yoke of oxen, I could drive well enough, and relieve these poor brutes."
She pushed back her sun-bonnet and with it a mass of red-brown hair
that curled damply on her forehead, and smiled disarmingly. "Buddy
would be the happiest baby boy alive if I could let him drive now and
then!" she added humorously.
"Can't make a wagon and an extra yoke of oxen out of this cactus
patch," Bob Birnie grinned good humoredly. "Not even to tickle Buddy.
I'll see what I can do when we reach Olathe. But you won't have to take

a man's place and drive, Lassie." He took the cup of water she drew
from a keg and proffered- water was precious on the Staked Plains, that
season-and his eyes dwelt on her fondly while he drank. Then, giving
her hand a squeeze when he returned the cup, he rode back to scan the
herd for an animal big enough and well-conditioned enough to supplant
the worn-out ox.
"Aren't you thirsty, Frank Davis? I think a cup of water will do you
good," she called out to the cowboy, who had dismounted to tighten his
forward cinch in expectation of having to use his rope.
The cowboy dropped stirrup from saddle horn and came forward
stiff-leggedly, leading his horse. His sun-baked face, grimed with the
dust of the herd, was aglow with heat, and his eyes showed gratitude. A
cup of water from the hand of the boss's wife was worth a gallon from
the barrel slip- slopping along in the lurching chuck-wagon.
"How's the kids makin' out, Mis' Birnie?" Frank inquired politely when
he had swallowed the last drop and had wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand. "It's right warm and dusty t'day."
"They're asleep at last, thank goodness," she answered, glancing back at
a huddle of pink calico that showed just over the crest of a pile of
crumpled quilts. "Buddy has a hard time of it. He's all man in his
disposition, and all baby in size. He's been teasing to walk with the
niggers and help drive the drag. Is my husband calling?"
Her husband was, and Frank rode away at a leisurely trot. Haste had
little to do with trailing a herd, where eight miles was called a good
day's journey and six an average achievement. The fallen ox was
unyoked by the mellow-voiced but exasperated Ezra, and since he
would not rise, the three remaining oxen, urged by the gad and Ezra's
upbraiding, swung the wagon to one side and moved it a little farther
after the slow-moving herd, so that the exhausted animal could rest,
and the raw recruit be yoked in where he could do the least harm and
would the speediest learn a new lesson in discomfort. Mrs. Birnie
glanced again at the huddle of pink in the nest of quilts behind a
beloved chest of drawers in the wagon, and sighed with relief because
Buddy slept.
An ambitious man-child already was Buddy, accustomed to certain
phrases that, since he could toddle, had formed inevitable
accompaniment to his investigative footsteps. "L'k-out-dah!" he had for

a long time believed to be his name among the black folk of his world.
White folk had varied it slightly. He knew that "Run-to-mother-now"
meant that something he would delight in but must not watch was
going to take place. Spankings more or less official and not often
painful signified that big folks did not understand him and his activities,
or were cross about something. Now, mother did not want him to watch
the wild cow run and jump at the end of a rope until finally forced to
submit to the ox-yoke and help pull the wagon. Buddy loved to watch
them, but he understood that mother was afraid the wild cow might step
on him. Why she should want him to sleep when he was not sleepy he
had not yet discovered, and so disdained to give it serious
consideration.
"Not s'eepy," Buddy stated again emphatically as a sort of mental
dismissal of the command, and crawled carefully past Sister and lifted a
flap of the canvas cover. A button--the last button--popped off his pink
apron and the sleeves rumpled down over his hands. It felt all