One day we saw a strange cavalcade moving across the prairie. While they were still too far away for us children to see the nature of the train, we were watching it excitedly. As they drew nearer we saw a long line of Indian ponies, little wiry half-wild beasts loaded with, well, what not?

"Moving day for sure," Father said."

"Where are they going? Why are they moving?" I asked.

"They are going to meet the buffalo herds as they come from the south," he explained, "And to follow them as they go north. They do that every year. They will follow them until they have meat to last most of the summer. In the fall they will meet them again and follow them toward the south."

We were watching a band of Pawnees moving, and a funny moving day it was. The long line of ponies, so long that we could never see them all at once, trailed over the plain. Bareback riders, their dirty blankets flapping, were herding the laden horses. Indian carry-alls, two long poles fastened one on either side of a pony, the long ends dragging on the ground behind, were loaded with valuables. Skins, tepees, lodge-poles, baskets and bundles of all descriptions, babies in their queer cradles, sick people in their beds, any too old or too young or too weak to sit on a horse, were loaded onto these queer vehicles, fastened in some way and dragged clattering and bouncing over the ground. Hanging in baskets slung on either side of a pony to balance were many children. Very funny they looked, too, peeping over the basket rims at us, but I suppose that we looked just as strange to them. We watched them delightedly as they trailed past, I was glad, however, that I was not a sick Indian.

After we reached the sand hills that bordered the Platte River, we camped one night at a place that the scout said was called Three Springs. Within one hundred yards of each other were three big pools of delicious water. It was a beautiful camping spot. The sandhills about the green valley floor were covered with what looked like flaming red and yellow flowers. As soon as the wagons stopped, we children, Robert, Florence and I, ran across the grassy meadow-like bottom to gather the flowers. When we reached them we found that they were not flowers but the thick, fleshy leaves of a plant that grew about a foot in height. The waxy leaves were beautiful from a distance, but not pretty to pick.

disappointed about our flowers, we ran on over the hills. The place was so lovely and the evening so pleasant that we wandered far. Though dusk was beginning to gather and coyotes were howling here and there, we played on. Knowing the coyote well, we had no thought of fear. Suddenly, however, another sound startled us. The long mournful howl of a big gray wolf wailed across the prairies. With one accord, play forgotten, we started for camp. We had wandered farther than we had thought. It seemed we ran for miles before we reached the wagons and felt safe once more. We had often been told not to go far away; such advice was not needed again for many a day.

At Three Springs was the first sutler's camp that we saw on the road. A brown circular tent housed a tiny store where provisions, medicines and liquors could be bought. The man had stopped following the army in the Civil War campaigns and with his little tent and wagon now catered to the emigrant trains. In his stock Father said he saw quantities of beads and other trinkets for trade with the Indians. We grew accustomed to seeing these little stores, but I don't think we ever had to buy anything from them.

Occasionally as we traveled we would overtake another train and travel with them for a day or two; then, as our train was a fast one, we would leave them behind. Again we would rest the horses for a day and do washing or other work we could not do well while traveling. At such times a train might overtake us. Gradually, however, we drew away from the other trains. We had started early in April that we might find the grass fresh for our horses, and the men were anxious to keep that advantage all the way to Oregon. Of course, numbers of trains were ahead of ours, but we always found good pasture. A pleasant thing about being early, too, was the absence of dust. We were free from the clouds that surrounded later trains and made breathing hard and camping unpleasant.