One night after supper, Father got his gun. "It's my turn for guard duty," he said. "I don't much like the man who is on the beat with me, either. He went to sleep once when on guard. I'll have to do his job and mine too, very likely."

The wagons, of course, were corralled in a big circle with the horses inside. At intervals around the outside were stationed guards, each to watch over a certain section of the stockade formed by the wagons.

Father was slowly walking along his beat, his loaded gun in his hands that night, when something moving caught his eye. Hunched over like an Indian in a blanket, someone was slipping toward him. He shouted "Halt!" but the man moved on. Why he did not shoot, Father said he did not know, but even in the darkness something told him the man was not an Indian. A second time he spoke and the man straightened up and asked, "What is the matter?"

"Matter enough!" Father said. "Come with me." It was the man who had been put on guard duty near Father's beat. He had been walking in his sleep.

Father marched him through the camp to Mr. Daily's tent and roused Mr. Daily. "This man is not responsible, Mr. Daily," he said. "Don't put him on guard again. If he doesn't get the train into trouble, someone will kill him. He had a mighty close call this time." He told of his sleep-walking.

"We have plenty of men we can depend upon," Mr. Daily said, "I'll send you another man."

Though in a way traveling was not very pleasant those days, it was delightful to leave the Platte River and follow along the Sweetwater where the Oregon Trail now led us. This was one of the loveliest regions I ever saw. The road in places touched the edge of high cliffs, where far below the beautiful stream sparkled. In one place Father and I went to the rim of the cliff to look down at the river. Some men from the train were walking through the canyon, and very tiny they looked in the distance. As I ran along the cliff, happy in the beauty of the spot, right on the brink of the gorge I found something that frightened me.

"Father," I called, "someone has been killed here." Father looked at a pool of blood I had found. "No," he said, "it isn't as bad as it looks. Someone has killed an antelope." His explanations often made terrors seem commonplace.

So gradual had been the rise of land as we traveled westward that it was hard to realize that we were in the Rocky Mountains. When we went through South Pass, the greatest elevation we were to reach, the land did not seem high. The country was open, rolling prairies, but in the distance a few peaks showed their snowy heads. Otherwise we might still have been on the lowland plains.

At the Big Sandy River we camped in a beautiful spot, a grassy hollow left green by the waters of melted snows. Fresh grass, willows, flowers, such as we had not seen for many a day, grew in profusion along the stream banks. Overjoyed at the wonder of the lovely place, we children wandered far up the river. We had no thought of danger, though I wonder that we were not afraid. We had passed fresh graves since leaving Fort Laramie, graves that, so scouts told us, had been made by soldiers from the Fort - the graves of people killed by the Indians. Unheeding, careless of what might happen to us, we rambled on that evening until dusk was falling. We were to remember that walk and shiver, fearful to think of what might have happened.

The next morning, loath to leave the lovely spot, we forded the river which we children had waded so many times the evening before and went on. Not all of the Oregon Trail was a joy to travel. We were not soon to forget that camp ground; a tragedy was to make it memorable.

The following day a man passed us, riding west. The news he brought was one of those stories that chill the blood of the emigrant. A big train that was following us one day behind, a train of which we had heard frequent reports by the scouts along the trail, had camped in the same spot on the Big Sandy where we had been the previous night. The Indians had fallen upon them and massacred them. Of about three hundred people, the soldiers from the Ford had found two living. One of these, a young girl, had been left by the savages for dead, left lying on her face with an arrow in her back. The other, a boy of eight or ten, had crawled into the sagebrush and hidden from the Indians.

We were a serious-faced party after that, nor did we children stray far from camp again until we were far out of the Indian country. Why had our train escaped? Was our turn coming? Our camps were better guarded after that; a more careful lookout was maintained.

Day after day we passed graves freshly dug by the soldiers and weighted with stones to protect them from marauding animals. They were the graves of people killed by the Indians, mute evidence of the red man's anger. Day and night we dreaded an attack. Hastening on, however, we at length left the Sioux country and no attack had come. There had been no hint of trouble for us.

Why, though other trains had suffered so severely, did we escape attack? We wondered much. It seemed a guardian angel watched over us, and if he could be called an angel, I believe one did. The great Sioux Chief who had been so friendly at Fort Laramie was proving his friendship. Father had given him food when he was hungry, and later had taken him at his word, showing no fear. The lesser chiefs had seen him and his family and he had shaken our hands. Now, though other trains were attacked, each leaving its toll along the road, we were unmolested. It was well for us that we had "entertained royalty," when we gave our lunches to that wandering Sioux.