trying situations philosophically, and were ever ready to enjoy the
novelties of intervening hours of calm and sunshine.

The staid and elderly matrons spent most of their time in their wagons,
knitting or patching designs for quilts. The younger ones and the girls
passed theirs in the saddle. They would scatter in groups over the
plains to investigate distant objects, then race back, and with song
and banter join husband and brother, driving the loose cattle in the
rear. The wild, free spirit of the plain often prompted them to invite
us little ones to seats behind them, and away we would canter with the
breeze playing through our hair and giving a ruddy glow to our cheeks.

Mr. Edwin Bryant, Mr. and Mrs. Thornton, and my mother were
enthusiastic searchers for botanical and geological specimens. They
delved into the ground, turning over stones and scraping out the
crevices, and zealously penetrated the woods to gather mosses, roots,
and flowering plants. Of the rare floral specimens and perishable
tints, my mother made pencil and water-color studies, having in view
the book she was preparing for publication.

On ascending the bluff overlooking the Big Blue, early on the afternoon
of the twenty-sixth of May, we found the river booming, and the water
still rising. Driftwood and good sized logs were floating by on a
current so strong that all hope of fording it vanished even before its
depth was measured. We encamped on the slope of the prairie, near a
timber of cottonwood, oak, beech, and sycamore trees, where a clear
brook rushed over its stony bed to join the Big Blue. Captain Russell,
with my father and other sub-leaders, examined the river banks for
marks of a ford.