We were really making speed, too, which added to the excitement.

The ordinary bull team could do about fifteen miles a day.
Under Simpson's command his specially selected bulls were doing twenty-five, and doing it right along.
But one day, while we were nooning about one hundred and fifty miles on the way, one of the boys shouted: "Here come the mules!" Presently Stewart's train came shambling up, and a joyful lot the "mule skinners" were at what they believed their victory.
But it was a short-lived victory.

At the end of the next three hundred miles we found them, trying to cross the Platte, and making heavy work of it.

The grass fodder had told on the mules.

Supplies from other sources were now exhausted.