Читать книгу Philip of Texas - Otis James - Страница 18

John and Zeba managed to get along with the cattle very well; but the drivers of the mule teams were not so skillful in handling the animals as father had expected, and the result was that he found it necessary to take the place of one or the other nearly all the time, thus leaving mother alone.

Sometimes I led the procession; at other times I trudged on in the rear where the dust was thickest, running first on one side of the road and then on the other, to keep the sheep from straying, and succeeded in holding them to the true course only by the aid of my dog, who had more sound common sense in that shaggy body of his than the brightest lad I have ever come across. Gyp was a willing worker, and a cheery companion at all times. He would run here and there regardless of the heat, and when the sheep were partly straightened up as they should be, come back panting, his red tongue lolling out, and looking up at me with a world of love in his big brown eyes, as if to ask why I was so solemn, or why I could not find, as he did, some sport in thus driving a flock of silly sheep to Texas.

During the journey we halted wherever night over-took us, sometimes camping in the open and finding our beds in one of the wagons, or again herding our cattle in the stable yard of a tavern.

As for food, we got it as best we could. When fortune favored us and we came upon a tavern, we had enough to satisfy our hunger, and in very many places as good as we could have had at the old home in Bolivar County. At other times we ate from the store of provisions we carried, cooking the food by the roadside, while the sheep and the cattle, too tired to stray very far after so many miles of plodding, fed eagerly on whatever grass they were lucky enough to find.

Gyp was my bedfellow, whether I slept in one of the wagons or at a tavern, and before we had crossed the Red River I found myself treating him as I would have treated a lad of my own age, and time and time again I thought to myself that he understood all I said to him.