These wagons were called prairie schooners, because they were supplied
with canvas coverings. The first of these, made in St. Louis, were
called "Murphys," and were provided with iron axles. Later many of them
were made in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Kenosha, Wis., the latter known
as the Bain. The Schuttler and the Bain wagons were almost as big and
substantial as a box car and were well painted and put together to stand
hard knocks on mountain "breaknecks" or in Bad Land sands.
The lead wagon would carry an average of 6,500 pounds, while the
trailer--fastened to the lead by a short tongue--had a capacity of
perhaps two tons. In a sandy place or on a mountain road, the
bullwhacker (teamster) would slacken his team, pull a coupling pin from
an iron half-circle arrangement on the axle of his lead wagon, drop his
trailer to one side of the road and proceed to the top of the hill, if
in the mountains, or to an "island" of hard ground in the desert, unhook
his wheelers and go back for the trailer. Sometimes a "bull outfit"
would spend a whole day doing this. Lead wagons were parked one at a
time and the trailers brought on later and hooked up. These parkings
were in the shape of an oval, called a corral, a narrow opening being
left only at each end.
Inside this corral, when it came time to yoke up, the cattle were driven
in by the herders, if the camp had been for over night or a long mid-day
stop. Then the bullwhackers, carrying the heavy piñon yokes over their
left shoulders, hickory bows in their right hands and iron or wooden
pins with leather strip fastened to them in their mouths, would seek out
their teams, yoking them together and leading them to their wagons.
When a "whacker" had his "wheelers," or pole oxen, in place, he would
bring on his "pointers," and the rest, including the leaders. The
wheelers were always the heavyweights, old and trained, and able to hold
back the load or their unruly teammates until the whackers could throw
on a brake or "rough lock," the last named a log chain fastened at one
end to the wagon, thrown through the wheel spokes in such a way as to be
between the ground and the wheel on the "near rear hind wheel" of the
lead wagon.
New cattle just being trained to yoke were always put in the center of
the team, where they were easily managed with the assistance of the
"leaders," which were always light weights and most always long-horns
from Texas--long horns, long legs and bodies, thin as a razorback hog.
These leaders were always the best broken oxen, and would respond to the
low-spoken word of "haw" or "gee," especially if the word were uttered
in the peculiar musical tone of the whacker which cannot be described in
print, not only because it is impossible to convey sound in that manner
but because the language that goes with the music--the request to gee or
haw--would not be pleasant reading. Alone, the leaders would trot like
horses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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