But the master of the frontier school wore out several armfuls of hazel switches in a vain effort to interest me in the "three R's." I kept thinking of my short but adventurous past.

And as soon as another opportunity offered to return to it I seized it eagerly.
That spring my former boss, Lew Simpson, was busily organizing a "lightning bull team" for his employers, Russell, Majors & Waddell.
Albert Sidney Johnston's soldiers, then moving West, needed supplies, and needed them in a hurry.

Thus far the mule was the reindeer of draft animals, and mule trains were forming to hurry the needful supplies to the soldiers.
But Simpson had great faith in the bull.

A picked bull train, he allowed, could beat a mule train all hollow on a long haul.

All he wanted was a chance to prove it.
His employers gave him the chance.