Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/78

 than the glum old fellow, who used only the power that nature gave him.

“I can’t catch a glimpse of them,” remarked the lad when the circuit was completed, and he lowered his instrument.

“Hooh! ye needn’t tell me that; if the varmints was to be seed I’d seed ’em.”

The six lumbering wagons were drawn up in a circle, the space inside being about a hundred feet across. In the center of this a fire was kindled from the driftwood brought from the bank of the Platte, where all the animals were allowed to drink, after which a number of vessels were filled and brought to camp. While the water was roiled and not specially attractive in appearance, no one felt any objection to it. As one of the men remarked, it “beat a raging thirst all hollow.”

Over the fire several of the women busied themselves boiling coffee and cooking venison from the game that was shot that morning. As has been intimated, the company carried a reserve of food, in the form of bread and jerked beef, but it was not thought prudent to draw upon it until no choice was left. There was an abundance of sugar, salt and various spices, and enough tea and coffee to