Upon all sides beyond this business and energy the country stretched lone and uninhabited; a great waste of naked, hot, resplendent land blotched with white and red, showing not a green spot except the course of the Platte; with scorched, rusty hills rising above its fantastic surface, and, in the distance, bluish mountain ranges that appeared to float and waver in the sun-drenched air. The sounds from Benton--the hammering, the shouting, the babbling, the puffing of the locomotives--drifted faintly to us, merged into the cracking of whips and the oaths and songs by the wagon drivers along the road. Of our own little camp I took gradual stock. It, like the desert reaches, evinced little of feverishness, for while booted men busied themselves at tasks similar to mine, others lolled, spinning yarns and whittling; the several women, at wash-boards and at pots and pans and needles, worked contentedly in sun and shade; children played at makeshift games, dogs drowsed underneath the wagons, and outside our circle the mules and oxen grazed as best they might, their only vexation the blood-sucking flies. The flies were kin of Benton. Captain Adams loped away, as if to town. Others went in. While I was idle at last and rather enjoying the hot sun as I sat resting upon a convenient wagon-tongue Daniel hulked to me, still snapping his ox goad. "Haowdy?" he addressed again; and surveyed, eying every detail of my clothing. "Howdy?" said I. "Yu know me?" "Your name is Daniel, isn't it?" "No, 'tain't. It's Bonnie Bravo on the trail." "All right, sir," said I. "Whichever you prefer." "I 'laow we pull out this arternoon," he volunteered farther. "I'm agreeable," I responded. "The sooner the better, where I'm concerned." "I 'laow yu (and he pronounced it, nasally, yee-ou) been seein' the elephant in Benton an' it skinned yu." "I saw all of Benton I wish to see," I granted. "You've been there?" "I won four bits, an' then yu bet I quit," he greedily proclaimed. "I was too smart for 'em. I 'laow yu're a greenie, ain't yu?" "In some ways I am, in some ways I'm not." "I 'laow yu aim to go through with this train to Salt Lake, do yu?" "That's the engagement I've made with Mr. Jenks." "Don't feel too smart, yoreself, in them new clothes?" "No. They're all I have. They won't be new long." "Yu bet they won't. Ain't afeared of peterin' aout on the way, be yu? I 'laow yu're sickly." "I'll take my chances," I smiled, although he was irritating in the extreme. "It's four hunderd mile, an' twenty mile at a stretch withaout water. Most the water's pizen, too, from hyar to the mountings." "I'll have to drink what the rest drink, I suppose." "I 'laow the Injuns are like to get us. They're powerful bad in that thar desert. Ain't afeared o' Injuns, be yu?" "I'll have to take my chances on that, too, won't I?"