Getting an early breakfast, and catching up the horses, I was soon on my way to Sabula, which I reached at 2:30 P. M. The valley of the Mississippi looked good to me that morning as I drove down into it from the hills and, as I drove the wagon onto a barge, to be ferried over to Savanna from Sabula, I felt that I was nearly home.
Mr. Bradley, who had kept track of my progress, met me here at Savanna and stayed with the schooner, taking his old place in the galley until we got to Pecatonica. The weather in Illinois does not seem much better than in Iowa, but it did not rain Saturday or Sunday, and in these two days we drove through Mt. Carroll, Lanark, Shannon, and Freeport.
WE TURN KATE OUT TO PASTURE
Monday morning at Pecatonica Mr. Bradley took the train for Rockford and I drove in alone. When I reached Rockford it was raining hard and it was still raining when I left for Beloit, Wisconsin, the next morning.
I had spent the night with Mr. Bradley and his family, and we planned for him to come up to Beloit in the afternoon, on the train, and drive with me over to the farm. It is only fifty miles from here to the end of my journey, so I started out cheerfully through the rain and mud.
At Beloit, I met Bradley as planned, and we found a splendid place for a camp that night in the woods, about seven miles east of town. While we got supper the dogs put in the time running rabbits around a patch of brush just back of us, and it was quite a temptation to leave supper and go and shoot one, but we put it off until afterward, and then it was dark, and too late.
We had a typical camp here, and when we had turned the horses loose for the night and got everything in shape, we lighted our pipes and spent the evening discussing the trip. It was our last camp. To-morrow, if nothing unforeseen happened, we would reach our destination and the trip would be over.
It had been an especially interesting as well as enjoyable one to all concerned. The Doctor and Bob had enjoyed the desert end very much; Mr. Bradley the trip over the mountains; and to the boys (the two Normans), who had made the trip from Grand Junction to Nebraska, it was a new as well as novel experience. The total distance travelled had been 2,492 miles. Deducting the two weeks’ lay-off at Kearney, the trip had been made in four months and four days, or an average of twenty miles per day, which, considering we had the same horses all the way, we thought was creditable.
I was reminded again of how near I had come to my schedule when Bradley said, “To-morrow will be October fifth.” When I left Kearney I had planned to be at the farm by the fifth of October, and here I was almost certain to do it, in spite of all the setbacks I had encountered, in the way of rain and roads. This was only another instance of our good fortune during the whole trip. We had somehow managed to be at given places when we planned to be. We were very fortunate in not breaking down or getting lost, and in always having enough to eat and drink.