Life, Romance, Death--indeed they were busy in our little world! The space between the two semi-circles of wagons made a wide division; it was like the two sides of a street, each wagon a dwelling. One could hardly believe that in such a company, isolated from all the rest of mankind, such a separation could exist. Yet such a separation existed between "the wings." At times the members of the one side hardly knew what was happening among those of the other. But there were certain events, of course, that would form the link. As we proceed upon our way what changes come! I mean into the lives and hearts of many. But come there new joy, or come there new sorrow, the Pioneer must live the pioneer's life. There were always the labor, the privations, a certain kind of pleasure. There was left but little time in which to brood. Except, it may be, in the silent watches of the night. There was something remarkable, too, about the manner in which the cattle became imbued with the spirit of their driver. What individuality, for instance, there was among the cattle themselves, our own four yoke, I mean, it was modified by the driver. Tex and Mex, Spot and Jeff, how easy to distinguish their characters from that of either Tom and Jerry, or Lep and Dick. And yet as a body how quickly they reflected the mental condition of the one who drove them. Be he calm, be he dejected or peevish, and the cattle knew it at once. Here is a suggestion of a sometimes unpleasant duty--"The Night-Guard." His was a trust in which anxiety and danger were often combined. The picket on duty at the front of war is scarcely more important to the safety of the troops than was the Night-Guard to our Company. In those days of lawlessness in red man and white, constant vigil had to be kept. On the faithful performance of the Night-Guard's duty our safety depended. If we were not attacked, then the cattle might be driven away, and we might be left stranded, as it were, in the wilderness. Alone with his thoughts, this important one at his post, had ample opportunity for careful reflection. The youth of the writer released him from the duty of guard, and his father suffered from an accident--a foot partly crushed by one of the oxen--but as owners of cattle, as "Independents," we must do a share and a double task fell to the lot of an older brother. We had seen the disaster which came upon the Company preceding ours, and at Deer Creek we had also seen heaps of red and yet smoking embers, all that remained of the station there, and of the surrounding cabins. We knew that the Indians who had done both the acts of driving away the cattle and applying the torch, were, in all likelihood, watching upon the road for us. Our Captain never allowed an inexperienced man to occupy too important a post, but the "tenderfoot" could serve as aid.