Meanwhile my broken wheel had completely collapsed. Having a kit of tools with me, I set about shaping spokes out of the oak wood gathered several days before. While I was doing this others of the men rode a number of miles in search of fuel with which to make a fire to set the tire. It was nearly night and in a drizzling rain when we came to the line of the reservation. A trooper, sitting on his horse, informed us that we would have to keep off of the reservation or else go clear through if once we started. This meant three or four miles' further ride through the darkness and rain, and so we camped right there, without supper or even fire to make some coffee. We hitched up in the morning and drove into the Fort, where we were very kindly treated by the commanding officer, whose name, I think, was McArthur. He tendered us a large room with tables, pen and ink, paper and "envelope paper," where we wrote the first letters home from Nebraska, which, I believe, were all received with much joy. The greater part of the troops were absent from the Fort on a scout.
After buying a few things we had forgotten to bring with us and getting rested, we moved on our journey again, going up on the south side of the Platte River.
Before leaving this region I want to speak of the marvelous beauty of the Platte River islands, a magnificent view of which could be had from the bluffs. Looking out upon the long stretch of river either way were islands and islands of every size whatever, from three feet in diameter to those which contained miles of area, resting here and there in the most artistic disregard of position and relation to each other, the small and the great alike wearing its own mantle of sheerest willow-green. There are comparatively few of these island beauty spots in the whole wide world. When the Maker of the universe gathered up his emeralds and then dropped them with careless hand upon a few of earth's waters. He wrought nowhere a more beautiful effect than in the Platte islands of Nebraska. It was well that at this point we had an extra amount of kindness tendered us and so much unusual beauty to look upon, for a great sorrow was about to come upon us.
Just as we were leaving the Little Blue, thirty-three miles back, one of our party, Robert Nelson, became ill, and in spite of the best nursing and treatment that the company could give he rapidly grew worse, and it soon became evident that his disease was cholera, which was already quite prevalent thereabout. Mrs. Wadsworth, that most excellent woman, gave to him her special care, taking him into the tent occupied by herself and husband, which, in fact, was the only tent in the outfit. It was Lew Wallace who once said that "God couldn't be everywhere, and so He made mothers." Our captain's wife was a true mother to the sick boy, but she couldn't save him. At 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon, May 27th, about sixty miles beyond Kearney, his soul passed on, and we were bowed under our first bereavement. We dug his grave in the sand a little way off the trail. We wrapped his blanket about him and sewed it, and at sunrise Monday morning laid him to rest. The end-gate from my wagon had been shaped into a grave-board and, with his name cut upon it, was planted to mark his resting-place. It was a sorrowful little company that performed these last services for one who was beloved by all.
Just before dying, Robert had requested that his grave might be covered with willow branches, and so a comrade and myself rode our horses out to one of the islands and brought in big bunches of willows and tucked them about him, as he had desired.
Truly our prairies have been a stage upon which much more of tragedy than of comedy has been enacted.