For the first few weeks we traveled in regular order.  The lead wagon for one day dropped to the rear and the next in line took the lead and so on.  This practice was soon abandoned for everyone saw that it was not workable.  The faster horses and the slow moving oxen made steady, even progress impossible.

     The first break in our lines came at the crossing of the Little Blue.

     John Ford had a light wagon that was drawn by horses.  A mile or two before we came to the river, we passed where his wagon had drawn to the side of the road and someone rode on ahead to call Beedy's mother back to her.  The long wagon train passed by and the wagons in turn, forded the shallow stream.

     The land on the opposite bank was quite low and inclined to be swampy, but we stopped there and made camp in spite of the fact that a storm was brewing.  Tents were put up, campfires built and everything made ready for the night.

     By that time the rain was falling in sheets.  Within two or three hours the Little Blue was a swirling muddy treacherous stream that carried beyond its own banks and was beginning to seep into the low places around our camp.  It was just about dark when we heard a call from the opposite bank.  It was John Ford and his family.  Beedy's father called to him to stay where he was, to make camp there and wait until daylight.  "Beedy won't do it." came the reply. "She is afraid of  Indians." There may not have been an Indian within a hundred miles, but to the pioneer woman, they were always a menace. "Beedy says cross if we have to swim."  So John Ford drove into the flood.  In a moment his horses were swimming.  Several of our men, slipping off their boots and heavier clothing, had gone into the stream to be ready in case of disaster, and it was well  that they did, for the light wagon rocked perilously in the current.  They held and steadied it the best they could.  The stream was not wide and fortunately the wagon box was tight enough for the short voyage.

     So in a few minutes, Beedy and John and Beedy's mother and Beedy's son Tillman were safe with the rest of us.  Safe but not dry; none of us were dry.  Beedy's son Tillman was at that time about an hour old.

     All that night it rained, rained fearfully hard and without stopping.  The water washed under our  tents and drove us out of them.  Some took refuge in the wagons, others piled up their ox-yokes and made their beds on them.  Our boys stayed in the water, saying they could get no wetter than they already were.

     It was a sloppy looking picture that daylight revealed everything that we had was muddy and wet.  Some of the wagons had mired so deeply in the soft, loamy soil that several yoke of oxen were needed to pull them to higher ground.  It was not cold and no one seemed especially put out about it, though we had to move our camp and lose several days in drying out our clothes and bedding.  It taught our leaders a lesson.  By this time we were beyond the outposts of civilization and I saw my first Indians.  It was at the crossing of a stream.  I cannot now recall the name of it, but it does not really matter.  The Indians belonged to the Kaw tribe and there were a great many of them.