Father continued to preach, however, much of the time that winter. That part of his farm that was improved was rented for five years, and he had no money to improve the rest. The renter proved an indifferent farmer, and the rent scarcely sufficed to pay the taxes and winter the cattle. So father entered the only paying business, that of freighting, as he relates in Chap XXXI. Perhaps some may think from reading that chapter that he only took one trip, but he crossed the plains five times. He first went in the spring of 1862, in Bro. Butcher's train, taking George, who was only ten years old, along to drive one of his teams, because he could not afford to hire a driver. It was a hard, monotonous life, driving all day and camping at night through all weather; but the hardest part of it was that men and boys all had to take their turn standing guard over their cattle at night. After Bro. Butcher was taken sick on that first trip, father acted as his boss, and on all his later trips he went as wagon-boss of some large train owned by Atchison freighters, also taking along two teams of his own. The wagon-bosses were frequently rough, overbearing men, who not only went armed, but who often treated their drivers tyrannically. They not only cowed the boys with abusive language, but with frequent threats of whipping, or shooting, which they sometimes fulfilled. Father never carried arms about his person in any of his trips across the plains. But there was something in his quiet, determined manner that enabled him to rule even the most headstrong of the wild young fellows who usually drove the freighting teams. He was once traveling along, for a short time, in company with a train much larger than his own, whose wagon-boss was a big, burly, swaggering fellow, who was drunk much of the time. Each train was driving along behind it such oxen as were unfit for work, and some of the other cattle became accidentally mixed with father's drove. The boss, who was already partially drunk, had ridden on to a ranch to get more whisky. Father called on his own boys, and the boys of the other train--on the plains the drivers were often called boys, even though they were middle aged men--to help separate them. But those of the other train refused to help. They tried in vain to separate them, until they were tired out. As they neared the ranch father walked up to the well to get a drink, and there sat the drunken boss on his horse. When he saw father, he exclaimed, with a great oath, "---- ---- ----, what you driving my cattle off for?" "I asked your boys to help separate them," replied father, "but they refused, and I and my boys have worried ourselves out at it. If you will order your boys to help we will try again." "---- ---- you, go back and get them cattle out, or I'll send you to ---- !" Father looked him steadily in the face, and said quietly, "I would like to see the irons you would do it with."