Before railroads were built in the country west of the Missouri River there was, nevertheless, considerable doing in the transportation line. And even after the Union Pacific was built from Omaha to Ogden to connect with the Central Pacific, which carried the rails to the Golden Gate, most of the transportation of the then great Wild West, in the mountains, on the plains and the "Great American Desert," was done by ox-teams. These were run in trains of from ten to fifty or sixty teams, the teams consisting usually of from five to seven yokes of oxen and lead and trail wagons built for the purpose.

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.

The average person outside of Texas and the southwest and some of the western states has a mental picture, perhaps, of the Texas steer of the long-horn variety. Those who lived thirty or forty years ago, even in the East, remember him as a member of the quadruped family consisting largely of horn, for it was not an infrequent thing to see him in a cattle car on a sidetrack. He was, as a matter of fact, also entitled to a reputation for his legs, for they were unusually long. His body, too, was slim, and he never was fat for the reason that while free to roam the ranges at will he devoted most of his time to using his horns in goring his mates and neglected to eat. He raced about from place to place, whereas, if he had no horns he would have been a peaceful animal and consequently much more valuable for the market.

The old-time Texas steer often was as fleet-footed as a Kentucky racehorse of the thoroughbred variety, and it took a good horse to catch him when he made up his mind to run.

Nevertheless, thousands of these Texas steers were broken to yoke, and used in overland transportation; and once broken they were good workers, even though their horns were always in the way, and the cause of a great deal of trouble in a herd.

While I have no authority for the statement, I believe practical dehorning began with the bullwhackers of the plains, for they frequently bored holes in the horns which in a few weeks caused the horns to drop off. Then it was noted that if the dehorned cattle were kept separate from those with horns, the dehorned ones, even when working hard every day, took on flesh and were better workers. Finally nearly all the work-oxen were dehorned, and they were as meek and quiet as lambs.

The whacker always began his orders to his bulls in a low tone, increasing it as the necessity for action presented itself, and ending in a string of oaths that would make an old-time Mississippi steamboat mate ashamed of his reputation. Frequently teams were stalled on a high hill or in the sand, when it would be necessary to gee the team of seven yokes at an almost right angle, with chains between each yoke slackened and with "wheelers" filling their yokes. Then the whacker would walk out half way to his leaders and soothingly coax them to come haw—toward him—on a trot, until all the chains between the other yokes were tightened. By this time, however, Mr. Whacker was back to his wheelers, perhaps punching the near one in the ribs, and then throwing his eighteen or twenty foot lash over the backs of any of the yokes that were not clawing the sand properly. In this way the men often worked for days at a time, making sometimes only a few rods by each repetition of the operation. Then again, the wagon boss would order a doubling-up process and two whackers and fourteen yokes of oxen would work on one pair of wagons, taking them along perhaps a mile, and then returning, repeat the process until the bad road was left behind.

This was transportation in the old days, and "trains" of this kind first hauled the heavy traffic from Leavenworth and Nebraska City to the Pacific and intermediate settlements in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. After the Union Pacific was built this bullwhacker transportation increased, especially in the country between Utah and the Missouri River, in both directions away from the railroad, for the government had a line of forts on the North Platte River and Indian Agencies were established in Western Nebraska, Wyoming and what is now South Dakota.

Two of these agencies, Red Cloud, on White River, and Spotted Tail, forty miles to the north, were big traffic points. Train loads of bacon, flour, sugar and other things were hauled to these agencies on government contract, the provisions being in payment to the Sioux and other tribes for the land they occupied near the North Platte River. Along the Platte there were forts—two famous in their day—Fort Laramie at the junction of the Platte and Laramie Rivers, and Fort Fetterman, one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, on the Platte at Lapariel Creek. Soldiers here depended upon the "bull outfits" for their provisions, nearly all being hauled in over mountain range and plain by contractors.

Those were wild and woolly days, and the man who lived the life of out-of-doors was a rugged, devil-may-care, hungry, healthy, happy fellow. He knew how to face a freezing blizzard, or a baking sun without flinching; he knew how to take care of himself with a minimum of discomfort under the most adverse circumstances. He was afraid of nothing. It wouldn't do otherwise. He was there, usually beyond the arm of any law other than ordinances made and provided by himself and companions and enforced by the same law-givers. Stealing was a worse crime than life-taking. There never was an excuse for the first, but nearly always one could be trumped up for the latter. To take a man's horse was worse than cold-blooded murder; to rob him of his gun or his blankets was equally as bad a crime. But if he had been cheated in a game of "freeze out," or called a name that reflected upon his origin it was not uncommon for him to become judge and executioner then and there.

So men who engaged in this early day transportation of food and fodder for soldiers and their mounts and for the followers of Sitting Bull, Old Red Cloud and other chiefs, were careful in their social intercourse, and when the harsh word was passed, as frequently was the case, it was no uncommon thing for men to settle their score with pistols; and the winner in these duels seldom, if ever, was punished. But a cold-blooded murder—a wanton killing—was never tolerated. In a fight with pistols it was always considered that the man who did the killing was justified.

Unlike the present day fliers, bull trains did not run on schedules, although there was a pretense of regularity about the day's routine, and it was about as follows:

At break of day the night herder who had been out with the bulls all night—it is always daybreak to him whether three o'clock or five—drives his herd into the corral, usually singing some refrain of his own composition, but always having for its motive the same that animates the pestiferous alarm clock set by a master to disturb the slumber of a tired servant. However, a half hour before the herder appears the cook and his helper, both bullwhackers, doing their turn of a week, have been on the job with the coffee and bacon, and as soon as the herder sounds his first note, the cook takes up the song, which is perhaps:

And then, and it is always so, some of the lively stock, as it approaches the corral, takes the notion that there is some nice sweet buffalo bunch grass to the rear that looks better than a day's work, and there is a bolt often approaching a stampede. Curses? You never heard the like, for the wagon boss and an assistant are already in their saddles helping the herder. If you tried to sleep just a minute longer it would be impossible, therefore you roll out from your bed on the ground, fold up your blankets, tie them with a strap and throw them on your trail wagon.

Coffee and bacon are swallowed in haste, and if you are like the majority, you grab a piece of bacon and a chunk of bread, bang them together into a huge sandwich and put them in the jockey box of your wagon for a lunch at eight or nine o'clock.

Yoking and stringing out the oxen is the next operation, and a short one in a well regulated outfit. Twenty minutes, usually, from the time the bulls are driven in, the lead team is moving, and when the "outfit," as every train is called, is well under way, the lead wagon is perhaps a half mile from the last one, which is the mess wagon, containing the provisions, cooking utensils, levers for raising a load of four or five tons, the iron jacks, extra tires, coils of rope, pulleys, wheels, extra spokes, bars of iron, and almost always a small forge—a regular wrecking outfit.

In hot summer weather on fair roads a bull train would make four or five miles before the sun was high enough to burn—usually nine o'clock. Then, if the camp was to be a "wet" one—at a creek, river or spring—there would be a "layover" until four o'clock in the afternoon, during which time the boys could sleep under a wagon, wash their clothes, or if in a creek or river bottom, shoulder a gun and look for moccasin, lodge pole or bear tracks.

All day long, however, the men who were on the cook trick would make bread in Dutch ovens. And let me tell you, no bull outfit ever stopped for a long mid-day rest without putting on a huge kettle of beans, for the army or white bean was the staple food in those days; and there was always, on these long mid-day stops, plenty of soup.

Perhaps one of the boys in his meanderings up or down the creek would bag a deer. If he wandered out upon the plain he was sure of an antelope, if he was a good shot. The deer kept to the trees along the rivers and the hills, while the antelopes' territory was the open plain, hard to get at unless the plain were rolling, and the hunter could be in the right place as regards the wind.

Sometimes there were poker games, usually freeze-out, which the men played with plug tobacco cut up into small cubes. Others would spend their time braiding whips or mending clothing.

The bullwhacker's whip not only made a tenderfoot open his eyes with wonder, but it usually shocked him. It was something he had never seen before, and if he had been told that a man of ordinary strength would be able to wield it he would have been decidedly incredulous.

Differing from a cowboy's or herder's whip, the bullwhip lash was attached to a stalk of hickory or white ash three feet long upon which the whacker could firmly plant both hands. The lash at the butt, which was attached to the stick by a soft strip of buckskin, formed in a loop or swivel, frequently was more than an inch thick. These lashes were from eighteen to more than twenty feet long and were graduated in thickness from this great bulk to the tip, which was the thickness of a lead pencil. The number of strands in a bullwhip were also graduated. At the butt there were as many strands as the maker—usually the bullwhacker—could weave, often fourteen. At the tip, this number was reduced to six. The top, and down to six or eight feet from the end, the whip was made of leather, often old boot tops. The rest was of tough buckskin or elkskin. But on the very tip of the whip—the business end—was a "popper" of buckskin cut in the shape of a long V, the bottom end of the V running into a strand which was braided into the tip.

The bullwhacker, when using this instrument, first threw it out before him upon the ground; then by the use of all his strength he swung it in over his head, to the right, often whirling it several times before he let it go upon the back of the bull he wanted to reach.

To the man who never saw this operation before, there was a shock, for as the whip landed on the bull the popper made a roar like the report of a cannon.

As a matter of fact the bull was uninjured, unless the bullwhacker was careless and allowed his popper to strike a tender spot, the nose, an eye or the belly.

It was almost a crime for a bullwhacker to cut a bull and draw the blood, and he seldom did it unless his popper had been wet and then dried. The spot usually aimed for was the hip, and bulls that had been in service any length of time had a spot on the rump that was hairless, resembling the head of a drum. But the spot was tough. The noise of the popper, however, was what startled the team and caused it to "dig in."

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.