Crossing The Prairies

Two Days Later

   The river we crossed was the Platte River, we are in the North Platte Valley now. The water too dirty to drink, and the mud and quick sand made it unsafe to cross, that's why we traveled beside it for so long.
   Cassie's family, the Anderson's, wagon had an accident on the Windlass Hill. While heading down the other side it was so steep that at the top of the hill everyone unhitched their teams and lead them safely down the hill. The families would walk down at a safe distance from their wagon to lighten the load. Then we'd chain the wheels up to keep them from turning, some of the men cut small trees and tied them behind each wagon to create some drag. Then they'd lower the wagon down with ropes and pulleys. It took many hours to get them all down.
   The Anderson's wagons front axle hit a stump which caused the smaller rope to snap. The wagon flipped over many times the rest of the way down. At the bottom the only thing they could save was their clothes, blankets, and a few tools which were all found many feet away from the path the wagon went down the hill. Thankfully no one was in the wagon and no one was hurt.
   Mr. Homer and his wife invited the family to share their wagon and supplies for the rest of the way. The Campbell family will also share with them since they have four girls and now have no wagon to carry them in.
In the 'wagon camp' group behind us their were two more wagons that were 'stumped'. Some folks in their group have kindly agreed to doubled up with them.
   Gideon has been hanging out with Hattie and I more and more since Wade has been unconscious. Yesterday Hattie, Gideon, a couple other boys, and myself were racing though some water, when Gideon saw Hattie and I struggling to manage much more than a slow walk through the waist high water in our dresses, he forgot the race and doubled back for us. When he reached us, he put an arm around each of us and helped pull us though the water. Though his checks grew quite red when Hattie and I began to ring out the water from our skirts, he kindly turned away after seeing our bare legs.
   Thankfully that incident didn't scare him away from the two of us, this evening when the fiddlers began to play he came straight over to where we were sitting and asked me, "May I kindly have this dance miss?" I turned to Hattie and with one look asked if she minded.
   She leaned over and whispered in my ear "He's Handsome." I gently squeezed her hand before telling Gideon I would be happy to dance with him, but only one dance, my watch on Wade was coming up soon.
   When the dance ended he walked me back to the log Hattie was sitting on saying, "Thank ya miss for the dance." and with another bow and extended hand he asked Hattie, "Might you care to join me on this dance miss?" It was her turn to blush, she nodded and they took their spot amongst the dancers and when the song started, so did they.

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