If you want to know what mad adventure Bud found himself launched upon,

just read a few extracts from the diary which Cash Markham, being a

methodical sort of person, kept faithfully from day to day, until he cut

his thumb on a can of tomatoes which he had been cutting open with his

knife. Alter that Bud kept the diary for him, jotting down the main

happenings of the day. When Cash's thumb healed so that he could hold a

pencil with some comfort, Bud thankfully relinquished the task. He hated

to write, anyway, and it seemed to him that Cash ought to trust his

memory a little more than he did.

I shall skip a good many days, of course--though the diary did not, I

assure you.

First, there was the outfit. When they had outfitted at Needles for the

real trip, Cash set down the names of all living things in this wise: Outfit, Cassius B. Markham, Bud Moore, Daddy a bull terrier, bay horse,

Mars, Pete a sorrel, Ed a burro, Swayback a jinny, Maude a jack, Cora

another jinny, Billy a riding burro & Sways colt & Maude colt a white

mean looking little devil.

Sat. Apr. 1.

Up at 7:30. Snowing and blowing 3 ft. of snow on ground. Managed to get

breakfast & returned to bed. Fed Monte & Peter our cornmeal, poor things

half frozen. Made a fire in tent at 1:30 & cooked a meal. Much smoke,

ripped hole in back of tent. Three burros in sight weathering fairly

well. No sign of let up everything under snow & wind a gale. Making out

fairly well under adverse conditions. Worst weather we have experienced.

Apr. 2.

Up at 7 A.M. Fine & sunny snow going fast. Fixed up tent & cleaned up

generally. Alkali flat a lake, can't cross till it dries. Stock some

scattered, brought them all together.

Apr. 3.

Up 7 A.M. Clear & bright. Snow going fast. All creeks flowing. Fine

sunny day.

Apr. 4.

Up 6 A.M. Clear & bright. Went up on divide, met 3 punchers who said

road impassable. Saw 2 trains stalled away across alkali flat. Very

boggy and moist.

Apr.5.

Up 5 A.M. Clear & bright. Start out, on Monte & Pete at 6. Animals

traveled well, did not appear tired. Feed fine all over. Plenty water

everywhere.

Not much like Bud's auto stage, was it? But the very novelty of it, the

harking back to old plains days, appealed to him and sent him forward

from dull hardship to duller discomfort, and kept the quirk at the

corners of his lips and the twinkle in his eyes. Bud liked to travel

this way, though it took them all day long to cover as much distance as

he had been wont to slide behind him in an hour. He liked it--this slow,

monotonous journeying across the lean land which Cash had traversed

years ago, where the stark, black pinnacles and rough knobs of rock

might be hiding Indians with good eyesight and a vindictive temperament.

Cash told him many things out of his past, while they poked along,

driving the packed burros before them. Things which he never had set

down in his diary--things which he did not tell to any one save his few

friends.




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