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About twenty miles a day were covered now, regularly, and during the days Davy learned considerable about a “bull train” on the plains. He learned that he was lucky to ride instead of walk; nearly everybody with a bull train walked. However, this train was travelling almost empty, back from Fort Laramie, on the North Platte River in western Nebraska (for Nebraska Territory extended to the middle of present Wyoming), to Fort Leavenworth in eastern Kansas Territory. It was accompanied by a lot of government employes, who did not work for the train, and these rode if they could furnish their own mules. Lew Simpson, the wagon boss, and George Woods, the assistant wagon boss, Billy the extra hand, and the herder, rode, because that was the custom; all the other employes walked.

The oxen or “bulls” (as they were called) were guided by voice and whip. The whip, though, rarely touched them hard; just a flick of the lash at one side or the other of the leading span was enough. A sharp “Gee up!” or a “Whoa, haw, Buck!” and a motion of the lash, did the business. Some of the oxen seemed to be very wise.