This display of the angry elements was making a broadening sweep onward directly towards where we were. The air turned black and murky, and was vibrant with electric tension. Flocks of buzzards flew low to the earth about us, as if to be ready for the carrion of the impending catastrophe. The fear instinct of the brute seized the cattle, and they hovered together, bellowing, distraught with apprehension of evil.
The whirlpool of atmospheric chaos grew more intense and rapidly larger as it approached. Globules of water began to "spat! spat!" on the ground, here and there, as the storm-cloud opened its batteries of liquid balls. There was only such protection as the wagons afforded. Whatever preparation we could make must be effected at once.
Knowing that if the cattle should take fright and run, it would be better that they leave the wagons, I dropped the wagon-tongue to which I was hitching a team, and called to a boy who was hooking up the next wagon, telling him not to do so. He had, however, already attached to that wagon the team consisting of three yoke of oxen.
The big drops of water were in a moment followed by hailstones, at first very large and scattering, striking the ground each with a vicious thud—a subdued "whack"; growing more frequent and presently mingled with lesser ones; until, in the shortest moment, there was a cloud-burst of hail and rain pouring upon us, a storm such as none of us had ever witnessed.
The oxen, chained together in strings of three and four pairs, pelted by the hail, were mutinous and altogether uncontrollable. My own string, having turned crosswise of the front end of the wagon, were pushing it backward, down the hillside. The team in charge of the boy, being attached to their wagon and heading away from the storm, were turning the wagon over. Knowing that the boy's mother was in the "schooner," on a sick bed, I left my wagon and ran to that. As the oxen, in trying to shield themselves from the hail, were forcing the front wheels around under the wagon-box, I was fortunate enough to get a shoulder under one corner of the box and exert sufficient force to prevent the wagon upsetting. All this took little more than a minute. The storm passed away as suddenly as it had come. Then I saw the wagon which was my special charge lying on its side, at the bottom of the slope; the bows of the cover fitting snugly into a sort of natural gutter, with a swift current of muddy water and hailstones flowing through the cover, as if it were a sluice-pipe. Everything in the wagon was topsy-turvy; and, half buried in the heap were two little girls, who had been riding in the vehicle. They were more frightened than hurt, but complained loudly at being placed in a cold-storage of hailstones.
The Author—Twenty years after
Meantime, the sun beamed again, clear and hot, and we saw the storm-cloud pursuing its course over the plain to the southeast, leaving in its wake a wet path a few rods wide.
The other men had their hands full in caring for endangered members of the party and the equipment. The loose stock had stampeded and were far away, with some of the mounted men in desperate pursuit. They eventually brought the cattle to a halt, about five miles away, where the wagons overtook them when it was time to make camp.
Continuous travel over rough ground and through deep sand, and ascending steep mountains, proved too great a strain for the endurance of some outfits. From time to time we were obliged to witness instances of extreme privation and hardship, usually the result of inadequate preparation for the arduous journey. Some started with only enough oxen to carry them in case all should remain serviceable; and carried provisions for no more than the shortest limit of time estimated; so that the mishap of losing an ox or two, or any delay, worked a calamity. Some trains started so late, or were so much delayed, that they were compelled to negotiate passage of the higher mountains after the time when enormous snow-drifts had to be encountered; further delay resulting, with exhaustion of strength and depletion of supplies, in consequence of which many members of some trains failed to reach their destination. A notable experience of this kind was that of the Donner party, in 1846.