he. I rode on until sundown and looked out for my wolf, but did not see him. The trail turned to the right and went down into a deep alkali basin. I rode down into it and decided that I would pull into camp for the night, as I was very much worn out. I went down to the edge of the lake, pulled off my saddle and made my bed down on my stake rope so I would not lose my horse. The moon was just coming up over the hill.

I threw a load in my gun and placed it by my side, with my head on my saddle, and dropped off to sleep. About nine o'clock the old wolf's howls woke me up. I looked up and saw him sitting about twenty feet from my head just between me and the moon. I turned over right easy, slipped my gun over the cantle of my saddle and let him have one ball. He never kicked. I grabbed my rope, went to him, cut him open and used my hands for a cup and drank his old blood. It helped me in a way, but did not satisfy as water would. I went down to the lake and washed up, went back to bed and thought I would get a good sleep and rest that night, but found later I had no rest coming.

I was nearly asleep when something awakened me. I raised up and grabbed my gun, and saw that it was a herd of elk, so I took a shot or two at them. As soon as I shot they stampeded and ran off, but kept coming back. About twelve o'clock I got up, put my saddle on my horse and rode until daylight. I was so tired, I thought I would lay down and sleep awhile. Riding that night I must have passed the second water lake. After sleeping a little while I got up and broke camp and rode until twelve o'clock, when I stopped for noon that day. That being my third day out, I thought I would walk around, and the first thing I saw was an old dead horse's bones. I wondered what a dead horse's bones were doing away out there, so I began to look around some more and what should I see but the bones of a man.

sure then that some man had undertaken to cross the

plains and had perished, so I told old Red Bird (my horse) that we had better go down the trail and we pulled out.

That evening about four o'clock, as I was walking and leading my horse, I saw a very high sand hill right on the edge of the old trail. I walked on to the top of the sand hill and there I could see cottonwood trees just ahead of me. I sat down under my horse about a half an hour. I could see cattle everywhere in the valley, and I saw a bunch of horses about a mile from me. I looked down toward the trees about four miles and saw a man headed for the bunch of horses. I didn't know whether he was an Indian or not. He was in a gallop and as he came nearer to the horses I pulled my gun and shot one time. He stopped a bit and started off again. Then I made two shots and he stopped again a few minutes. By that time he had begun to round up the horses, so I shot three times. He quit his horses and came to me in a run. When he got up within thirty of forty feet of me he spoke to me and called me by my name and said, "Sam you are the biggest fool I ever saw." I couldn't say a word for my mouth was so full of tongue, but I knew him. He shook hands and told me to get up behind him and we would go to camp. He took his rope and tied it around my waist to keep me from falling off, for I was very weak. Then he struck a gallop and we were at camp in a very few minutes. He tied his horse and said, "Now, Sam, we will go down to the spring and get a drink of water."

Just under the hill about twenty steps was the finest sight I ever saw in my life. He took down his old tin cup and said, "Now, Sam, I am going to be the doctor." I was trying all the time to get in the spring, but was so weak he could hold me back with one hand. He would dip up just a teaspoonful of the water in the cup and say, "Throw your head back," and he poured it on my tongue. After a while he increased it until I got my fill

and my tongue went down. When I got enough water then I was hungry. I could have eaten a piece of that fat dog if I'd had it.

My friend's name was Jack Woods, an old cowboy that worked on the Bosler ranch. Jack and I had been up the trail from Ogallala to the Dakotas many times before that.

Jack said, "Now, Sam, we will go up to the house and get something to eat. I killed a fat heifer calf yesterday and have plenty of bread cooked, so you come in and lay down and I will start a fire quickly and cook some steak and we will eat some supper." Before he could get it cooked, I could stand it no longer, so I slipped out, went around behind the house where he had the calf hanging, took out my pocket knife and went to work eating the raw meat, trying to satisfy my appetite. After fifteen or twenty minutes Jack came around hunting me and said, "Sam, I always thought you were crazy, now I know it. Come on to supper." I went in the house and ate a hearty supper.

After finishing supper, I never was so sleepy in my life. Jack said, "Sam, lay down on my bed and go to sleep and I will go out and get your horse and treat him to water and oats." He got on his horse and struck a gallop for the sand hills, where my poor old horse was standing starving to death.

Next morning Jack told me that a man by the name of Lumm once undertook to cross those plains from the Niobrara River to the head of the Little Blue over that same Indian trail. Jack said, "He and his horse's bones are laying out on the plains now. Perhaps you saw them as you came along." I told him I saw the bones of a man and the horse, but didn't remember how far back it was. It seemed about 25 miles.

I remained there five days and every morning while I was there, Jack and I would get on our horses and go out in the valley and round up the horses he was taking

care of, rope out the worst outlaw horse he had in the bunch and take the kink out of his back. The five days I was there I rode four and five horses every day.

On October 29th I saddled my horse and told Jack I was going to Texas. He gave me a little lunch, and I bid him good-bye and headed for the North Platte.

I reached Bosler's Ranch at 12:20 o'clock, had dinner, gave the boss a note from Jack Woods, fed my horse, rested one hour, saddled up, bade the boys good-bye and headed for Ogallala on the South Platte, forty miles below.

I reached Ogallala that night at 9:30 o'clock, put my horse in the livery stable, went up to the Leach Hotel and there I met Mr. Dillon, the owner of the Niobrara Ranch, sold my horse to him for $80, purchased a new suit, got a shave and haircut, bought my ticket to Texas, and left that night at 11:30 o'clock for Kansas City.

On November 6th I landed in Austin, Texas, thirty miles from my home, and took the stage the next morning for Lockhart. That was where my best girl lived, and when I got there I was happy.

This was the end of a perfect trip from Nebraska on the South Platte to Red Cloud Agency, North Dakota.

FIRST CAMP MEETING IN GRAYSON COUNTY

From "Fruits and Flowers," by Z. N. Morrell

At the end of the conference year, 1847, the Rev. Mr. Brown, assisted by the Presiding Elder, Rev. Mr. Custer, held a camp meeting at Warren, in Grayson. County. Rev. Mr. Duncan, a missionary from the Indian Territory, also assisted in the meeting. A camp meeting in those days was a most important event, and anticipated with intense interest by the settlers far and near. Different motives actuated people to attend camp meetings, and the same rule will apply to all such occasions of later date. Some go out of courtesy, to see and be seen, others regard it as a season of rest and diversion,

while many embrace the occasion to gossip, exchange news, see the latest fashions, and make new acquaintances. A few, a chosen few, anticipate the event in God's natural temples, the leafy groves; they feel the "outpourings of the spirit," or experience the magical change of heart, granted through the efficacy of prayer to those who earnestly seek the Divine blessing. But we will go as spectators, mere lookers-on, and take a bird's-eye view of this panorama in the midst of nature. We first see a large shed covered with brush and limbs of trees; this is to shelter the large audience; while heavy boards or logs are to serve as seats. Another slab upheld by stakes driven in the ground and covered by a bearskin is the pulpit; a number of chairs, some split bottom and some covered with rawhide, the hair left on, are for the stewards and ministers expected to be present. The "mourner's bench" has not been forgotten, nor has the straw which is scattered around with a liberal hand. Little brush shanties have been erected all around in convenient places for the camps, and soon the occupants began to arrive. They came "afoot and horseback," riding single or double. On carts and wagons are loaded bedding, cooking utensils and children. Dogs have not been invited, but they come anyway, and make themselves too familiar for comfort, and are all sizes and breeds, from the long-eared deerhound to the common cur. The camp ground begins to assume the appearance of a picnic on a large scale; horses neigh as the newcomers arrive, babies cry, children shout and play and a hum of good-natured conversation, inquiries and greetings all combine to make a vivid and realistic picture in its setting of living green. I said something about fashions, but it was a far-fetched allusion. I wonder if our forefathers and mothers in their coonskin caps and slat sunbonnets worried about the "latest styles" or in their primitive simplicity ever imagined that succeeding generations would lose sight of their humble origin, forget