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The snow and sleet and rain which fell, as it appeared to them, without
intermission, made the road over the rich prairie soil as impassable as
one vast bog of heavy black mud. Sometimes they would fasten the horses
and oxen of four or five wagons to one, and attempt to get ahead in this
way, taking turns; but at the close of a day of hard toil for themselves
and their cattle, they would find themselves a quarter or a half a mile
from the place they left in the morning. The heavy rains raised all the
watercourses; the most trifling streams were impassable. Wood, fit for
bridging, was often not to be had, and in such cases the only resource
was to halt for the freshets to subside--a matter in the case of the
headwaters of the Chariton, for instance, of over three weeks' delay.
These were dreary waitings upon Providence. The most spirited and sturdy
murmured most at their forced inactivity. And even the women, whose
heroic spirits had been proof against the severest cold, confessed their
tempers fluctuated with the ceaseless variations of the barometer.


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