of the wagon bed. The lid of the trunk was very slick and rose several inches above the foregate. The day was warm and the oxen were walking slowly. George Beale was drowsy and in some way I got hold of the ox whip, which had a stock about five feet long, and a lash six or seven feet long. Feeling now the importance of my position as teamster, I swung the whip around and then forward with all my strength to make it pop over the oxen's backs. But the effort to jerk it back pulled me forward and I slid off the trunk, over the foregate of the wagon, and fell down between the oxen's heels, and the front wheels of the wagon, one of which ran over the small of my back. I tried to escape the hind wheel, but it rolled over my legs. I now saw the team just behind and only a few feet away, approaching me, and made several vain attempts to get on to my feet. The man driving this team was walking and, seeing me, stepped quickly forward and, picking me up, put me into a wagon. I am not now able to say whether he put me into his wagon or the one I had fallen out of. I was badly hurt and soon became very thirsty and felt very uncomfortable. It was in the afternoon, and I waited anxiously for the train to go into camp. But I think I suffered more mental than physical pain, for I had disobeyed mother and got hurt by it, and I feared that I was so badly hurt that I would not he able to conceal the fact, and mother would find out all about the accident. The disobedience did not seem to trouble me much until the danger of exposure stared me in the face, and this is not saying much for my honesty.
The train went into camp soon after sunset, I think. The place was fresh and grassy. The wagon I was in seems to have been one of the hindmost, for several wagons were already there and people were busy at their evening camp chores when we arrived. I saw mother on her knees, or sitting down, sorting some things from some baggage that had been taken out of the wagon. She was only a few yards from where our wagon stopped, and I kept an eye on her, resolving at the same time to behave myself in such a way that she would not suspect that anything unusual had happened to me in consequence of my disobedience, which probably she was already aware of. As soon as the driver had taken the team from the wagon, he lifted me out and put me down by a forewheel, to which I
