I went to the wagon and got the sack. Uncle was badly scared and remarked that it was the most careless trick that he had ever done. There were some Mormons camped a short distance away and he said that if they had found the sack, that he would have been ruined.
While waiting at Cainsville, we finally received word from Jobe Spray that the Illinois party had crossed the river at St. Joe and had proceeded on west and that he would follow them, they having crossed the river two weeks before he got there. He had followed day and night and overtaken them about half way between St. Joe and Fort Kearney, which would be about 150 miles from St. Joe. After receiving the letter, we began to make arrangements to cross the Missouri River. The steam ferry boat had gone up the river after furs, so we had no way to get our stock and wagons across.
While waiting, a fur boat came down the river with three men. This boat was strictly a home made affair. It was built of rough sawed lumber and the bottom and sides were nailed onto the frame with several thicknesses of boards and caulked up with buffalo tallow to keep it from leaking too badly. We secured this boat to get us across.
The process of getting that old boat across the river was a difficult one and as it only could take sixteen cattle at a time, many trips had to be made. A round trip across the river, meant much labor, and was as follows:
After the cargo was put in the boat, it had to be hauled by ropes and pushed by pike poles up the river along the bank, until we were above an island which was in the middle of the river. Then we would cast off from the shore and by means of the oars, pulled for the opposite shore. The current, however, would take the boat in a diagonal direction so we would strike the lower end of the island. Then we would pull and push the old ark to the upper end of the island and again cast loose and finally reach the shore at a point much lower, being carried along with the current. In order to get back, we would drag the boat along the west shore to above the island again and cast off, reaching the lower end of the island. Dragging the boat along the shore to the upper end of the island and crossing, finally reach the east side below the camp. After two weeks of hard work, we managed to ferry all the stock and camp outfit across without serious accident.
CHAPTER II
ON THE WESTERN PLAINS—SOME OF OUR EXPERIENCES
When we reached the other side, we were in Indian territory, or what is now known as Nebraska, and a short distance north from where Omaha now is. At this place, uncle Joshua impressed on our minds the danger of an attack by the Indians and told us to make plenty of bullets and have our guns well loaded to protect ourselves. Up to this time, I had seen only two Indians. One of them was a squaw named Gripteth, on this side of the Wabash River in Warren County, Indiana. The other one I came upon lying in the grass south of Cainsville, wrapped up in a red blanket. The way uncle talked I thought that we would have to fight our way through. The imagination pictured out every bunch of grass or object in the distance as Indians, but coming closer, we found that we were always unnecessarily alarmed. The scare over meeting Indians gradually wore off, and when we came to the Indians, or rather, when they came to us, I was not as afraid of them as I was of the wolves.