Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/425

Rh and not one of them had ever been on the plains before, and, of course, not one of them had ever seen a hostile Indian.

They then proceeded to elect the five men to transact the business with us, after which Jim turned to me and said: "Now make your proposition." I suggested that as he was the oldest, he should go ahead and make the bargain, whereupon he said: "All right. Gentlemen, I will make you an offer; if you see fit to accept it all right, and if not there is no harm done. We will scout for you for six dollars per day from here to the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and you board us and herd our horses with yours. We must have charge of the entire train, and we want at least two or three days in which to organize and drill before leaving this camp, and after the lapse of five days if this community is not satisfied with our work, we will quit, and not charge you a cent for what we shall have done at that time, and if our work is satisfactory we will expect our money every Saturday night, for it is the money we are after and not the glory. Now, gentlemen, take the matter under consideration and give us an answer to-morrow morning after breakfast."

On the following morning one of the men from the train came to the Fort very early to inform us that they had decided to accept our proposition.

We told him to go back to camp and have all the teams hitched up and we would be down after breakfast and put in a few hours drilling the teamsters.

We numbered the wagons by putting the figures on the end-gates of the wagons, telling each teamster to