And Bull Whacker Joel could. A heavy thing was that whip; the lash, of braided buffalo hide, was eighteen feet long and thick like a snake in the middle. It had a cracker of buck-skin, six inches long, split at the end; and a hickory stock eighteen inches long. Joel said it cost eighteen dollars in Leavenworth. Flicking it forward, from where it trailed on the ground, he landed the tip wherever he wished. With the cracker he picked up small objects at the full extent of the lash; he snipped the tips from the sage and cut blossoms; and how he “popped”! “He’s a boss bull-whip slinger,” laughed Charley, approvingly. “You’ll never see a better one to pick flies off the lead team.” “I’ve seen others,” uttered Yank, who somehow appeared to have a grudge against the train. “These fancy tricks will do for show, but give me the man who can spot a bull twenty feet off an’ take a piece of hide out with the cracker. I don’t want no fancy fly-killer in my train. Bull whips are made for business.” “You don’t want bull whackers; you want butchers,” retorted Joel, contemptuously. “Here, Dave, try your luck. Give him room, boys.” Dave tried, but the long lash on the short handle proved a queer thing to handle. It persisted in flying crooked or falling short, and several times he almost hanged himself or narrowly escaped losing an ear. However, before he surrendered the whip to Joel he had got the knack of popping it; that was something. “Hurray!” encouraged Joel. “We’ll make a bull whacker of you before the end of this trip. You’ll be able to pop a whip with the best of us.” Davy scarcely expected this skill; but he was resolved to do so well that he could show Billy Cody. XVI YANK RAISES TROUBLE The bull train plodded on and on, day by day, across the rolling prairies, whose soil, black, made blackish dust. One day was much like another. The principal excitement was the passing of the stages. The Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company had changed from the Smoky Hill route to Denver, and were running on the famous Platte trail now: by the Government road from Leavenworth to the Platte at Fort Kearney, thence up the Platte and the South Platte――the same road that the bull train was taking. Regularly once a day the stage from the east and the stage from the west passed the train, which, like everything else, drew aside at the sign of the well-known dust ahead or behind, and with wave of whip and shout of voice greeted the flight of the four mules and the heavy coach. At gallop or brisk trot the stage swept by――the driver scarcely deigning a glance at bull whackers――and disappeared in its own cloud.