When we came to consider how the party should proceed, I advised the over-mountain trip. But I cautioned them to expect some snow and much hard work.
"How long will it take?" they asked.
"About three weeks."
This brought disappointment; they had thought they were about through with the journey.
"You came to stay with us, didn't you?"
"I want to; but what about my wife and the two babies, at the island?"
Father said some one must go and look after them. So Oliver was sent ahead, while I was to take his place and help the immigrants through the Natchess Pass.
In our train were fifty or more head of stock, seven wagons, and seventeen people. We made the trip across the divide in twenty-two days without serious mishap or loss. This was good time, considering the difficulties that beset our way at every step. Every man literally "put his shoulder to the wheel." We were compelled often to take hold of the wheels to boost the wagons over the logs or to ease them down steep places. Our force was divided into three groups,—one man to each wagon to drive; four to act as wheelmen; father and the women, on foot or horseback, to drive the stock. God bless the women folks of the Plains! Nobler, braver, more uncomplaining souls were never known. I have often thought that some one ought to write a just tribute to their valor and patience, a book of their heroic deeds.
One day we encountered a newly fallen tree, cocked up on its own upturned roots, four feet from the ground. Go around it we could not; to cut it out with our dulled, flimsy saw seemed an endless task.
"Dig down, boys," said father, and in short order every available shovel was out of the wagons. Very soon the way was open fully four feet deep, and oxen and wagons passed under the obstruction.