When the emigrants reached Nebraska, they were in the "buffalo country," and great herds of big, shaggy, brown or black buffaloes were feeding on the grassy plains. The animals were larger than oxen, and the Indians depended upon the flesh for food and the thick, warm skins for robes or blankets. The emigrants shot thousands of buffalo cows and calves, and what meat could not be eaten at once was cut into long strips and hung in the sun or over the fire to dry. This was called "jerking" the meat. On jerked buffalo or venison and flour pancakes many emigrants lived all the way across. Game was so plenty and so easy to shoot, that by stopping a few days, a good stock of meat could be laid in while the oxen were resting. So they travelled through Nebraska, and for weeks and weeks saw nothing but long grass waving in the summer winds, and yellow sunflowers—miles and miles of sunflowers. Polly grew very tired of the hot sun blazing down on the close-covered wagon, and of the dust raised by the long wagon-train.
About this time she remembers that her father bought her a little Indian pony, and from that happy day the child rode beside the wagon, and could keep out of the dusty trail, or ride a little way off on the prairie, if she liked. The pony carried double very well, so a small sister or brother was often lifted on behind for a ride. One night the Indians, who were always prowling round and coming as near the wagon-train as they dared, frightened the horses and got away with ten of them. All the women and children cried, Polly says, for they were afraid the redskins would come back and kill them. In the morning Polly's father and some of the men found the Indians' trail and tracked them to a wooded cañon. The hungry thieves had killed one horse and were so busy feasting on it that the white men surprised them and shot all the Indians but two or three. The lost horses and Polly's pony whinnied to their masters from a thicket, where they were tied, and were taken back to camp.
On and on over the great plains of Wyoming the wagons carried these emigrants. Many found the trip grow tiresome, while the oxen and mules would often lie down in their traces and refuse to go any farther. A few days' rest, and the rich bunch-grass to crop soon set the stock all right, and the white-topped wagons crawled ahead again. Soon the emigrants saw blue, hazy mountains, far off at first, then nearer and nearer, till at last their road led through a pass between the peaks.
Then Polly remembers riding through Utah, with its queer red cliffs and high rocks carved in strange shapes by winds and weather; the stretches of sandy desert; and beyond those, grassy meadows and streams fringed with green willows. After a while Great Salt Lake lay sparkling in the sun and looking cool and blue. All around it were alkali deserts or wide plains, hot and dusty and white with salt or soda. The "prairie schooners," with their covers faded and burnt by the sun, went very slowly over these desert wastes, Polly thought, and Nevada, with its dusty gray sage-brush land on either side of the road, seemed not much better.
"Papa's little woman" had her hands full now; for her mother was so ill she seldom left the wagon. All the cooking fell to Polly's share, and then she would ride along for hours with a little sister on her lap and fat brother "Bub" behind her on the saddle-blanket, so that her mother might rest and be quiet.
But soon the clear green Truckee River ran foaming and fretting beside the road, and off in the west rose the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Then the people began to laugh and to sing, for they knew that California, the land of gold, was almost in sight and that their weary journey was nearly ended.
| UPPER SACRAMENTO RIVER.
Click photo to see full-sized. |
And one day they said joyfully to each other, "We are in California at last;" and it was a happy company that travelled down through the pines of the mountain sides and the oak trees of the foot-hills. Many emigrants left the train when they got to the great Sacramento River valley, and settled here and there to farming. Polly's father with others kept on to the gold-diggings and camped there. He built a log-cabin soon, for it was almost winter and time for the rains, and Polly says she was glad to have a house at last. They finally took up farming land near what is now Stockton, as gold-mining did not pay.
Mrs. Davis, who is straight and strong, and still a hard worker, says her five months' trip across the plains was almost like a long picnic after all, for she has forgotten many of the trying and disagreeable things.