All that day we had not seen the sun, and as evening came on, the clouds grew heavier. A drizzle began which soon changed to a downpour. We had our first experience of a prairie schooner in the rain. I climbed back with Robert and Darius and, curled on the rolls of bedding, listened to the patter.
"Don't touch the wagon top," Father said' "The canvas will leak if you do, wherever you touch it." Of course I tried the experiment and filled my sleeve with water. I didn't try it a second time.
Splashing along over the swampy ground listening to the beat of the rain was fun, but I wondered what kind of camp we could make that night.
Suddenly our wagon stopped. I sprang up to discover the reason. Father jumped down over the wheel and went to a house by the roadside, one of the very few houses we saw after leaving Omaha. Presently he came back and announced that we were to stay at the house that night.
We drove into a big barn and from there ran to the house, thankful for the warm fire that greeted us and the good roof, the last one we were to have over our heads for over four long months.
The next day dawned bright and clear. After a good breakfast, we started on, glad of the sunshine. As we left the Missouri River the ground became less swampy. It lay about us, a vast flat grassy plain. Father and Uncle Isaac, anxious to find the grass unspoiled for the horses, wanted to travel rapidly at first to leave the cattle trains behind.
After lunch that day Florence and I ran on ahead of the wagons. The road lay before us, a single straight track through thick, high grass. Something moving caught my eye. "Look!" I gasped, pointing in horror to the road ahead. Snakes were no novelty to me, but such a snake! Its head was in the grass on one side of the road and its tail in the grass on the other. All Florence saw was a quivering in the grass; she had not looked quickly enough. I caught her hand and we raced back to the wagons.
"What's the trouble?" Uncle Isaac called as we ran to him.
"I saw a snake," I told him. "It was longer than the road is wide."
He laughed and pulled us up over the wheel. "Seeing things a bit, I fancy," he said. "We'll get used to these little creatures before we reach Oregon."
"It wasn't little," I said indignantly. "Wait till you see its track." When we reached the spot, he climbed out and looked at the track a moment, whistled softly and said: "I'll give it up. I think I'd have run myself." It was a day or two before I really enjoyed walking again.