Pinocchio mounted and the wagon started on its way.
The donkeys galloped, the wagon rolled on smoothly, the boys slept (Lamp-Wick snored like a dormouse) and the little, fat driver sang sleepily between his teeth.
Now he sprang up, huddling on his clothes and as he did so calling to the Kaffirs who slept beneath the wagons. Presently they awoke from the stupor which already was beginning to overcome them, and crept out, shivering with cold and wrapped from head to foot in blankets.
Loose the oxen from the trek-tows and drive them in between the wagons; they will give them some shelter." And lighting a lantern he sprang out into the snow.
The ordinary mode of transportation in these great inland expeditions of the fur traders is on mules and pack-horses; but Captain Bonneville substituted wagons. Though he was to travel through a trackless wilderness, yet the greater part of his route would lie across open plains, destitute of forests, and where wheel carriages can pass in every direction.
The wagons, also, would be more easily defended, and might form a kind of fortification in case of attack in the open prairies.
It meant more strange men who handled baggage, as it meant in New York, where, from railroad baggage-room to express
wagon he was exchanged, for ever a crated prisoner and dispatched to one, Harris Collins, on Long Island.
Indeed, he went so fast that Aunt Em had hard work to catch her breath, and Uncle Henry held fast to the seat of the red wagon.
They now bade good-bye to the Professor, and thanking him for his kind reception mounted again into the red wagon and continued their journey.
I'd back 'em to out-pull any team of their weight I ever seen.--Say, how'd they look hooked up to that wagon of ourn?"
"Just hitch 'em up to our wagon in your mind an' look at the outfit.
It was Martin who guided them to the creek, Martin who decided just where to locate their camp, Martin who, early the next morning, unloaded the wagon and made a temporary tent from its cover, and Martin who set forth on a saddleless horse in search of Peter Mall.
The seed deal was arranged, and Martin made the trip six times back and forth, for the wagon could hold only fifty bushels.
And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who had evidently been drinking.
As often happens, the horses of a convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole crowd had to wait.
