Oxen

Oxen are the expedition’s indispensable draft animals, selected for their ability to pull heavy loads while grazing along the road rather than requiring carried hay. Slow but serviceable, they turn the hunting party’s plans into a material undertaking: the wagon, provisions, water, and eventually the hides all depend on their strength. Their journey also makes visible the expedition’s vulnerability. On the dry plains, the animals must be watered carefully, and even the last muddy measure becomes a matter of managing thirst by the mouthful.

Place in the Expedition

When Miller explains what the expedition requires, he favors a wagon drawn by oxen over one pulled by mules. Mules need hay, he says, whereas oxen can feed as they travel and can pull heavy loads. Their slower pace suits the party, which has no reason to hurry. The choice is therefore practical rather than incidental: the animals offer a way to carry substantial provisions across a long route without hauling all their forage as well.

At dawn on August 25, the four men meet behind the stables beside the wagon, loaded with provisions for six weeks. A stable hand yokes the oxen to it by lantern light. Three men mount horses; the fourth climbs onto the wagon. The oxen’s movement against the yoke is audible in the dark before the party sets out. From the outset, the expedition is organized around two kinds of animal labor: horses for riding and oxen to move the heavy supply wagon.

Watering and Control

At the Smoky Hill River, the oxen cannot simply be released together to drink. Charley Hoge takes them down in pairs, tied together, because Miller warns that a crowd of animals could crush one another. The method makes their size and strength a management problem as well as an asset. While the oxen drink, the horses are allowed to graze; afterward, the men eat dried fruit and hard biscuits and rest while the animals feed.

The river stop also anticipates the water shortage ahead. Before leaving, Miller has the party gather every available container. He makes a broad, open reservoir from the large square tarp covering the provisions, holding it upright with green branches and shaping its rim with bent branches and leather straps. The vessel is about five feet across and four feet high. Using cooking pots, kettles, and a small wooden barrel, the men fill it three-quarters full, a task that takes nearly an hour. The oxen are thus part of a carefully staged departure from the last dependable water: their drinking must be balanced against the need to carry water onward.

The Plains Water Crisis

As the party crosses the arid ground, the oxen’s needs sharpen the limits of its supply. At one stop, Miller orders the men to fill their canteens before watering the animals, since little or no water will remain afterward. Fred Schneider drinks deeply and refills his canteen; the oxen are then brought to the tarp reservoir one by one. The horses drink only after the oxen have been watered, and Miller and Hoge gather what remains in the tarp’s folds into the wooden barrel.

The rationing becomes more severe when the remaining water is reduced to a small amount. After Schneider throws his empty canteen against the wagon and protests that the water is being wasted, Miller has Hoge bring the oxen forward individually. Miller dips a dirty handkerchief into the barrel and carefully wrings it above the opening so not a drop is lost. William Andrews and Schneider hold each animal by the horns while the cloth wets its mouth. The task takes almost an hour. Andrews struggles to keep hold of the oxen’s smooth, hot horns as his arms tremble; Schneider curses, but the men continue until every animal’s mouth has been moistened.

Miller judges that the oxen are not in such poor condition that they cannot last until night, pointing to the inch and a half of cloudy water left in the barrel. Schneider calls attention to how little water remains for eight oxen and three horses; Miller’s reply makes clear that the measure is intended to ease the animals’ tongues, not to satisfy their thirst. The scene shows the expedition’s dependence on close handling as much as on equipment. The oxen cannot be given enough water, but their condition must still be managed if the wagon is to continue across the plains.

Labor, Hunting, and Aftermath

Once the party reaches Bison Valley, the oxen’s role shifts from enduring the crossing to waiting for the return haul. As the hunt goes on, they become increasingly well-fed because they are inactive and the grass is good. William Andrews imagines the eventual loading of the hides and the oxen being yoked again to draw the wagon down the mountainside and back across the plains to Butcher’s Crossing. Their temporary idleness is therefore bound to the expedition’s central undertaking: the animals are being kept in readiness to transport the products of the hunt.

That work takes place against evidence of the scale of the killing. Miller recalls that Kansas once held vast numbers of bison, while later hunts yield only small herds; he points to the bones left across the prairie as a remnant of earlier slaughter. In the valley, too, the herd dwindles as the carcasses accumulate, and William Andrews understands that Miller will not leave while a bison remains alive. The oxen do not take part in the shooting, but their hauling capacity belongs to the same commercial expedition that turns animal lives into freight. By the time the railway is being laid, hunters are selling bison meat to the railway company and leaving the hides to rot. The oxen’s intended return with the skins thus sits within a trade whose uses and value are already changing.