The Surprise at Soldier Creek

Not until nearly six o'clock were all our company on the western side of the river, and then I supposed that we would immediately make camp; but to my surprise word was given for the train to move on, and we journeyed three miles more,' coming to the bank of Soldier Creek before darkness.

It was at this place that a most pleasant surprise awaited us. Colonel Russell's wife, who had walked ahead while our train was being ferried across the river, found quantities and quantities of wild strawberries near the camping place. As soon as we women and girls arrived, we set about gathering the berries, until each family had a good supply of the luscious fruit. Milk was not a poor substitute for cream to us who had been living upon corn bread and salt meat ever since we left the settlement of Independence.

During the next two days we traveled steadily onward, slowly, to be sure, but yet each step, as Ellen said again and again, was taking us nearer the end of the journey. In time I came to be impatient whenever a halt was called, so eager was I to have done with riding, for however comfortable a girl might make herself in one of the wagons, her limbs were certain to become cramped before night.

On the third day after crossing the Kansas River, the leaders of our company decided that a halt was needed in order to give the animals a rest. Their hoofs had become dry and cracked from traveling over the matted grass of last year, which covered the prairie even beneath the new crop, and it was necessary that something be done for them without delay.

I had been looking forward to a full day's halt, even though impatient when we were not moving forward, for Ellen and I had planned to wander as far from the encampment as we could, searching for flowers and wild peas, which grew there in great abundance, so we had been told.