resembled a tented city. All was then a pleasure trip--a picnic, as it
were. No sooner was camp struck than a place was cleared and dancing
began to the sound of the violin. Many of these young ladies were well
dressed--actually wore "store clothes!" But alas, and alack, I was
destined to see these same young ladies who started out so gay and
care-free, in tattered dresses, barefooted and dusty, walking and
driving the loose cattle. Too many excursions and pleasure jaunts had
reduced their horses to skeletons before the real trials of the journey
had fairly begun. But the women of '52 and '53 were not of the
namby-pamby sort. When the trials came they were brave and faced
privations and dangers with the same fortitude as their stronger
brothers.

At Fort Laramie we crossed the Platte river by fording. The stream, as I
remember it, was near a mile wide, but not waist deep. Thirty and forty
oxen were hitched to one wagon, to effect the crossing. But woe to the
hapless team that stalled in the treacherous quicksands. They must be
kept going, as it required but a short stop for the treacherous sands to
engulf team and wagon alike. Men wading on either side of the string of
oxen kept them moving, and soon all were safely on the north side of the
Platte river.

We soon began to see great herds of buffalo. In fact, at times the hills
were black with the heaving, rolling, bellowing mass, and no meal was
served for many days without fresh buffalo. As we wended our way up the
valley of the Platte one could look back for miles and miles on a line
of wagons, the sinuous line with vari-colored wagon covers resembling a
great serpent crawling and wriggling up the valley. Fortunately for "our
train" we were well in advance and thus escaped the sickness that later
dotted the valley of the Platte with graves.