What should I do--abandon the work? No. But I could not go on with one ox. So a horse team was hired to take us to the next town, Gothenburg, thirteen miles distant. The lone ox was led behind the wagon. Again I hired a horse team to haul the wagon to Lexington. At Lexington I thought the loss of the ox could be repaired by buying a pair of heavy cows and breaking them in to work, so I purchased two out of a band of two hundred cattle. "Why, yes, of course they will work," I said, in reply to a bystander's question. "I have seen whole teams of cows on the Plains in '52. Yes, we will soon have a team," I declared with all the confidence in the world, "only we can't go very far in a day with a raw team, especially in this hot weather." But one cow would not go at all! We could neither lead her nor drive her. Put her in the yoke, and she would stand stock still, just like a stubborn mule. Hitch the yoke by a strong rope behind the wagon with a horse team to pull, and she would brace her feet and actually slide along, but would not lift a foot. I never saw such a brute before, and hope I never shall again. I have broken wild, fighting, kicking steers to the yoke and enjoyed the sport, but from a sullen, tame cow, deliver me! "Won't you take her back and give me another?" I asked the seller. "Yes, I will give you that red cow,"--one I had rejected as unfit,--"but not one of the others." "What is this cow worth to you?" "Thirty dollars." So I dropped ten dollars, having paid forty for the first cow. Besides, I had lost the better part of a day and experienced a good deal of vexation. If I could only have had Twist back again! The fact gradually became apparent that the loss of that fine ox was almost irreparable. I could not get track of an ox anywhere, nor even of a steer large enough to mate the Dave ox. Besides, Dave always was a fool. Twist would watch my every motion, and mind by the wave of the hand, but Dave never minded anything except to shirk hard work. Twist seemed to love his work and would go freely all day. It was brought home to me more forcibly than ever that in the loss of the Twist ox I had almost lost the whole team. When I drove out from Lexington behind a hired horse team that day, with the Dave ox tagging on behind and sometimes pulling on his halter, and with an unbroken cow in leading, it may easily be guessed that the pride of anticipated success died out, and deep discouragement seized upon me. I had two yokes, one a heavy ox yoke, the other a light cow's yoke; but the cow, I thought, could not be worked alongside the ox in the ox yoke, nor the ox with the cow in the cow yoke. I was without a team, but with a double encumbrance. Yes, the ox has passed, for in all Nebraska I was unable to find even one yoke.