Monday morning. Cold, cloudy, and threatening more rain. Start about eight o'clock for the Keya Paha, Mr. N. with the Ross ladies ahead, while the walkers stay with our "span of brindles" to help push them up the hill, and I walk to relieve them of my weight.
But we have reached the table-land, and as I have made my impress in the sand and mud of this hill of science, I gladly resume my seat in the wagon with Mrs. Gilman, who is freezing with a blanket pinned on over her shawl. Boo! The wind blows cold, and it sprinkles and tries to snow, and soon I too am almost freezing with all my wraps on, my head well protected with fascinator, hat, and veil. How foolish I was to start on such a trip without good warm mittens. "Let's get back on the trunks, Mrs. G., and turn our backs to the wind." But that is not all sufficient and Mr. L. says he cannot wear his overcoat while walking and kindly offers it to me, and I right willingly crawl into it, and pull it up over my ears, and draw my hands up in the sleeves, and try hard to think I am warm. I can scarcely see out through all this bundling, but I must keep watch and see all I can of the country as I pass along. Yet, it is just the same all the way, with the only variation of, from level, to slightly undulating prairie land. Not a tree, bush, stump, or stone to be seen. Followed the old train road for several miles and then left it, and traveled north over an almost trackless prairie. During the day's travel we met but two parties, both of whom were colonists on their way to Long Pine to take claims in that neighborhood. Passed close to two log houses just being built, and two squads of tenters who peered out at us with their sunburnt faces looking as contented as though they were perfectly satisfied with their situation.
The oxen walked right along, although the load was heavy and the ground soft, and we kept up a steady line of march toward the Keya Paha, near where most of the colonists had selected their claims, and as we neared their lands, the country took on a better appearance.
The wind sweeps straight across, and the misting rain from clouds that look to be resting upon the earth, makes it a very gloomy outlook, and very disagreeable. Yet I would not acknowledge it. I was determined, if possible, to make the trip without taking cold. So Mrs. G. and I kept up the fun until we were too cold to laugh, and then began to ask: "How much farther do we have to go? When will we reach there?" Until we were ashamed to ask again, so sat quiet, wedged down between trunks and a plow, and asked no more questions.
"Oh, joy! Mrs. G., there's a house; and I do believe that is Mrs. Ross with Lizzie and Laura standing at the door. I'll just wave them a signal of distress, and they will be ready to receive us with open arms."
And soon we are safely landed at Mr. J. Newell's door, where a married brother lives. They gave us a kindly welcome, and a good warm dinner. After we had rested, Mr. N. took the ladies three miles farther on to the banks of the Keya Paha river, which is 18 miles from the Niobrara and 48 from Stuart, arriving there about four P.M.
Mr. and Mrs. John Kuhn, with whom the party expected to make their home until they could get their tents up, received us very kindly, making us feel quite at home.
Mrs. K. is postmistress of Brewer postoffice, and her table was well supplied with good reading matter. I took up a copy of "Our Continent" to read while I rested, and opened directly to a poem by H. A. Lavely:
"The sweetest songs are never sung;
The fairest pictures never hung;