Oxen Are Strong For Work By Carl E. Hayden With a brass band, the immigrants could have made much better time. For oxen, however heavily laden, step out to martial strains. The Beards of Teton Basin, Idaho, with 24 head broken to the yoke, have no trouble in street parades, even on hot days, because the music is always snappy. Minus a tune, oxen, whip or no whip, take their time. After all, they seem to think, tomor¬row will just be another day for lugging something big and creaky like a covered wagon. True, biting heel flies will have the same enlivening affect on pulling steers as thumping drums, but they come and go, making for a highly irregular gait, and are available only in season. TO PROVE the rule was the light, young yoke of oven broken by the late J. T. Beard of the Basin, grandfather of Henry, Dave, Tom, Joe, Dick and El¬mer Beard who have carried on as ox-masters. Without any kind of encouragement they would gladly trot all the way from the Beard ranch to Driggs, seven miles. And they'd do even better on the return trip. Most oxen, you see, ankle along a bit faster when headed for the old homestead where feed, shelter and rest await. Therein was part of the cause of the drag-alongness of the plains crossers. The farther the plodding oxen got from home the more they knew they'd never get back. The Beards, now being suc¬ceeded beside the yoke by a third generation represented by Micky, Bill and Sam, have used their oxen to plow, to skid logs, to move machinery, to pull bob¬sled loads of hay, as jacks-of-all- trades at a sawmill and in movies. Yokes of their oxen had prom¬inent parts in "The Big Trail," filmed in Arizona; "Bad Bascombe," done at Jackson Hole, Wyo., and others produced on Snake River in Idaho. The big beasts must be hard to handle before yelling crowds, flickering lights and grinding cameras? Not at all. The confusion cows them. So they pay strict attention to their master. People forget things they'd just as lief not have to remem¬ber. So it is with oxen. "You should work them every day," says Henry, "other¬wise they'll get onery." If you do let them go a spell, though, it doesn't take them long to remember all they'd prefer to forget, he adds. AS A FEATURE of the an¬nual Pioneer Day celebration, Beards' oxen have trudged along the main streets of Salt Lake City. They've been to Mon¬tana, to Colorado and other states. They don't mind travel¬ing, be it by rail or truck. Though more lumbersome, an ox has some advantages, as far as his owners are concerned, over a horse. He doesn't eat as much, has more endurance and greater weight. Weight is a factor in pulling. The average work horse weighs 1,600 pounds. Oxen will go to a ton. And another thing—they can be hitched in a jiffy. Just throw the yoke across their necks (not forgetting, of course, the throat encircling bows), and hook the log chain to the load. If the load is a wagon, the tongue merely slips through a ring on the hoof- ward side of the bow. IN CONTRAST a horse hitcher has collars, harnesses, bridles, reins, tugs, neck yokes and sin¬ gletrees necessitating a tubful or two of snaps, hooks and buckles. Compensating in part for all that mess of extra work, it must be conceded, is that a horse stays mobile longer. Dick, who rarely tells anyone his initials are R. S., or that he spent the first 17 years of his life (he's 70; looks 50) at Coalville, Utah, has a steed 30 years old that still likes to hit the collar. That's an exception, of course, but most oxen begin to shrink at 10 years, and are done in at 12. A few will stay sound until 17. Shrinking begins with the loss of front teeth. Horses have a full set of choppers, in case you've never had the pleasure of a nip, while oxen possess only uppers. So you can see the se¬riousness of the loss of bovine incisors. GOOD AND WELL, such beasts, but they're all work and no fun? Shucks. Sam, middle aged now, avers he's never had so much permeating pleasure since the age of 14 when he broke a pair of yearling steers to the sleigh and hauled his class¬mates to and from a country school. Such an experience is educa¬tional, too. You learn the near-steer may be heeding up front while signaling the off-ox dif¬ferently behind.