It was a most dismal night, and for the first time since leaving their homes these people, who were setting their faces toward the Oregon country, had a fair taste of what hardships awaited them. So furious was the wind that the rain found entrance to every camp and beneath each wagon cover, until beds and bedding were saturated. Welcome indeed was the morning to my mother and me, for our tent stood in a tiny pond when the day broke, and we waded out to a higher bit of ground, where the gentle summer breeze, now that the storm had cleared away, might dry our water-soaked clothing. Without waiting for breakfast I saddled Napoleon, calling upon the men to follow me, and within four hours we had rounded up and brought into camp the missing animals. Then came a hasty meal, and I gave the word to break camp, whereupon John Mitchell reminded me that we were to take in a store of oak and hickory timber for future needs; but I insisted that we push on a short distance, knowing that this wooded country extended ten or twelve miles farther westward, where I hoped to find higher ground, so we might be able to camp with some comfort. DIFFICULT TRAVELING The trail was heavy. The rain had so softened the ground that the wagon wheels sank several inches into it, and many times before nightfall we were forced to hew trees and cut large quantities of brush, in order to fill up the depressions in the way where the water stood deep and the bottom was much like a bog. Again and again we found it necessary to double up the teams in order to haul the heavy wagons over the spongy soil, and after we had traveled eight miles with more labor than on the previous day we had expended in going twice that distance, we decided to encamp. [Illustration] We were on reasonably high ground, or, in other words, we were not in a quagmire, and after camp had been made I counted that we would spend the following day in getting as much hickory and oak timber as we might need when we came to the mountain ranges, where axletrees, wagon tops, and even the wheels themselves, were likely to be splintered because of the roughness of the way. Next morning while the men were hewing trees and shaping them roughly into such forms as might come convenient, the women took advantage of the opportunity to churn, and at noon we had fresh butter on our bread, which was indeed a luxury. We were yet eating slowly in order the better to enjoy the butter, when we saw in the distance, coming toward us, what appeared to be a large body of soldiers and emigrants. COLONEL KEARNY'S DRAGOONS [Illustration] Among the foremost of the horsemen who came up and halted near us, was Colonel Stephen W. Kearny who, with three hundred dragoons, nineteen wagons drawn by mules, fifty head of cattle, and twenty-five sheep, was making the first military campaign into the Far West, in order properly to impress the Indians with the strength and power of the Great Father at Washington.