My father was the only one who had horses to his wagon.  The wagons went in single file, and as the train wound and curved I saw that the other wagons were drawn by oxen.  Three or four yoke of oxen strained and pulled weakly at each wagon, and beside them, in the deep sand, walked men with ox-goads, who prodded the unwilling beasts along.  On a curve I counted the wagons ahead and behind.  I knew that there were forty of them, including our own; for often I had counted them before.  And as I counted them now, as a child will to while away tedium, they were all there, forty of them, all canvas-topped, big and massive, crudely fashioned, pitching and lurching, grinding and jarring over sand and sage-brush and rock.

To right and left of us, scattered along the train, rode a dozen or fifteen men and youths on horses.  Across their pommels were long-barrelled rifles.  Whenever any of them drew near to our wagon I could see that their faces, under the dust, were drawn and anxious like my father’s.  And my father, like them, had a long-barrelled rifle close to hand as he drove.

Also, to one side, limped a score or more of foot-sore, yoke-galled, skeleton oxen, that ever paused to nip at the occasional tufts of withered grass, and that ever were prodded on by the tired-faced youths who herded them.  Sometimes one or another of these oxen would pause and low, and such lowing seemed as ominous as all else about me.

Far, far away I have a memory of having lived, a smaller lad, by the tree-lined banks of a stream.  And as the wagon jolts along, and I sway on the seat with my father, I continually return and dwell upon that pleasant water flowing between the trees.  I have a sense that for an interminable period I have lived in a wagon and travelled on, ever on, with this present company.

But strongest of all upon me is what is strong upon all the company, namely, a sense of drifting to doom.  Our way was like a funeral march.  Never did a laugh arise.  Never did I hear a happy tone of voice.  Neither peace nor ease marched with us.  The faces of the men and youths who outrode the train were grim, set, hopeless.  And as we toiled through the lurid dust of sunset often I scanned my father’s face in vain quest of some message of cheer.  I will not say that my father’s face, in all its dusty haggardness, was hopeless.  It was dogged, and oh! so grim and anxious, most anxious.

A thrill seemed to run along the train.  My father’s head went up.  So did mine.  And our horses raised their weary heads, scented the air with long-drawn snorts, and for the nonce pulled willingly.  The horses of the outriders quickened their pace.  And as for the herd of scarecrow oxen, it broke into a forthright gallop.  It was almost ludicrous.  The poor brutes were so clumsy in their weakness and haste.  They were galloping skeletons draped in mangy hide, and they out-distanced the boys who herded them.  But this was only for a time.  Then they fell back to a walk, a quick, eager, shambling, sore-footed walk; and they no longer were lured aside by the dry bunch-grass.