Frequently in the summer the afternoon drive lasted until ten or eleven o'clock, especially if there was a moon. You cannot imagine a more impressive, weird, wild sight. The shadows, the rattle of the wagons, perhaps the scream of a night bird or a wild cat--maybe the zip of an arrow from a redskin's bow, or the report of a gun, all calculated to keep even the hardened bullwhacker on his mettle. And for this the bullwhacker got $75 to $100 a month and "grub." He usually spent his money at the end of his trip much after the habit of the sailor who rounds the Horn. In the cold weather the hardships were many. There were, remember, no bridges and the roads crossed numerous streams, all of which had to be forded; and there was but one way to cross, and that was to wade and guide a team. Usually the heavy freighting was done before December, but often it was necessary to fight through blizzards and zero weather. It was this kind of work that tried the soul of even the hardy bullwhacker, and not infrequently his hands, feet, ears or face were frozen. It was hard on the cattle, too, although it was almost always possible to find plenty of good feeding ground of buffalo grass, which grew in heavy bunches and was very sweet in its dry state, for the wind usually kept places bare. If not, the bulls would nose it out from under several inches of snow and manage to get something approaching a meal. Otherwise, they went hungry, for no feed of any kind was ever carried for them. Indians, usually, were too lazy to hunt the white man in winter, so there was seldom any trouble from this source after the first snowfall. But when the grass was green it was different, especially in the mountains or foothills. Redskins seldom fought a real battle in the open. To the bullwhacker he was nearly always an invisible foe, shooting his arrows or his gun from behind a rock, or from the top of a bluff, well out of range himself. When the Indians were known to be following an outfit it was common practice to keep a couple of horsemen outriders on each side of the train where possible. Frequently bull trains were obliged to corral and put up a fight, and usually the Indian lost. CHAPTER III HUNTON AND CLAY, BULL-TRAIN MAGNATES.