Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/239



Simpson was delayed more than a week in his design of becoming the leading bone freighter of that country. His wounded hand was making him pay for holding it so lightly at the start. That neglect had set up infection which required all Mrs. Ellison's experience to overcome. Then it began to heal as rapidly as it had grown alarmingly sore, and Tom found himself able to hold the lines again, ready for the great enterprise.

Mrs. Ellison was against the plan he and Waco had worked out for coupling two wagons in train to each team. It wouldn't work as well as one wagon with extra sideboards, she said. That would be all four horses could manage in the event of rain overtaking him on the road, something always likely at that season. He could pile two tons of bones on one of those old freight wagons, more if he could pull them, but two tons would be about all four horses could wiggle along with over those meandering prairie roads.

Tom deferred to her judgment, wisely. She was experienced in the transportation methods of that country, and could have given the homesteaders and greenhorns generally plenty of valuable advice if they had been wise enough to come to her. Accordingly, Tom built up the sides of the gallant old prairie argosy which he and Waco