The wagon-bosses were frequently rough, overbearing men, who not only
went armed, but who often treated their drivers tyrannically. They not
only cowed the boys with abusive language, but with frequent threats
of whipping, or shooting, which they sometimes fulfilled.
Father never carried arms about his person in any of his trips across
the plains. But there was something in his quiet, determined manner
that enabled him to rule even the most headstrong of the wild young
fellows who usually drove the freighting teams. He was once traveling
along, for a short time, in company with a train much larger than his
own, whose wagon-boss was a big, burly, swaggering fellow, who was
drunk much of the time. Each train was driving along behind it such
oxen as were unfit for work, and some of the other cattle became
accidentally mixed with father's drove. The boss, who was already
partially drunk, had ridden on to a ranch to get more whisky. Father
called on his own boys, and the boys of the other train--on the plains
the drivers were often called boys, even though they were middle aged
men--to help separate them.
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