“Don’t you worry none, ma’am,” he added, addressing Taisie. “I’m going to take them two John boats somebody has left here and make a raft that’s safer than a bridge.” His process gave proof of the Texan’s strange distrust in all boats and confidence in all horses, although it showed no less the resourcefulness of the real explorer, crossing country with such means as lay at hand. It was no great matter to rope the two broad-horn scows together side and side, and to lay a pole platform across to receive the carts, which were run on by hand. Remained the question of propulsion, and none of these knew aught of sail or pole or oars. This meant falling back on the _vade mecum_—the horse, without which in his day the railroads and bridges might as well never have been. Nabours lashed his cart wheels fast to his craft, so that he could risk strain on them. Then he got a long pole, some thirty feet in length. All the time singing and whistling to himself, and vouchsafing no answer to any, he passed this across the body of the foremost cart and lashed it fast. The ends projected widely at each side. “I got a steamboat now,” said he to his followers, “but I ain’t got no side paddle wheels. Ride in there, you points—Dalhart, and you, Del—you’re side wheels. When you get under the ends, each of you reach up and tie yore saddle horn to the end of the pole. Then swim back yoreselfs. The horses couldn’t sink ef they wanted to, and I don’t reckon there’s only one way they can swim, and that’s acrost.” Theirs not to reason why, the two men obeyed, managing to get into the boat, which still lay aground, the side-wheel horses standing not over belly deep, each encouraged by its rider, who lay along the gunwale anxiously. But when at length the thing was put to the test by bodily pushing the clumsy contrivance into the current, the unique experiment proved a success. The horses, finding themselves carried off their feet, began to swim vigorously, their instinct or their intelligence leading them to head angling upstream. The result was that the craft, even thus heavily loaded, made astonishing headway; indeed, finding a landing just below the ford end established by the herd. With shouts and laughter the remaining men once more swam their horses over in the wake. The crossing, so novel that even Taisie forgot her fears, was made with expedition and in perfect safety. “It’s easy,” said Jim Nabours, modestly answering the compliments of his men. “Of course, ef ’twasn’t for the womenfolks we wouldn’t have to bother. A feller couldn’t keep house without a horse, could he? Ain’t nothing a horse and a rope can’t do. My horse swum me over twicet, and didn’t hardly wet the saddle to the tops of the rosaderos. There ain’t nothing safe as a horse, ma’am.