They had now been two months on the road, and both horses and individuals were feeling the strain.
The horses were stiff, thin and lame, the cow a mere bag of bones, and the children cross and fretful.
Mrs. Peniman had lost her round curves and pretty complexion, and her husband's beard had grown long, and he was so brown and sinewy that his friends in Ohio would scarcely have known him.
They were all heartily tired of the weary crawling and jolting of the wagons across the barren prairies, and rose with aching heads and dragging limbs and moved wearily about the business of getting under way again without enthusiasm.
The day came up, as do so many days upon the western prairies, with a cloudless sky, blue as amethyst, and a sun that rode triumphant in a blazing chariot from rim to rim of a blistering world.
At noon the teams were so exhausted that the travelers were obliged to stop and unhitch them, leading them into the shade of the wagons to relieve them for a while from the rays of the broiling sun.
As the hot afternoon sun climbed into the heavens the very prairies seemed to drowse and sleep. Over their heads a few buzzards flapped lazily, and before them the gauzy heat-waves rose from the ground shimmering and dancing while the slow, monotonous klop, klop, klop of the horses' feet was the only sound to be heard.
Inside the wagons David and Mary had fallen asleep, Ruth and Nina, with their heads upon their sun-browned arms, had passed away into dreamland, Sam read, Lige dozed, Joe was nodding over his book, and even Mr. Peniman was drowsing.
Only Mrs. Peniman, sitting upon the front seat of the wagon, with her chin in her hands, and her eyes fixed on the distant horizon, was awake.
Thoughts were too busy in the aching head under the faded sunbonnet to let her sleep.