I was steering right into the wilderness; but there were far
islands of occupation--the heft of the earliest settlements strongly
southern in character--on each of the Iowa streams which I was to cross,
snuggled down in the wooded bottom lands on the Missouri, and even away
beyond at Salt Lake, and farther off in Oregon and California where the
folk-freshet broke on the Pacific--a wave of humanity dashing against a
reef of water.
Of course, I knew very little of these things as I sat there, ignorant
as I was, looking out over the grassy sea, in my prairie schooner, my
four cows panting from the climb, and with the yellow-haired young woman
beside me, who had been wished on me by the black-bearded man on leaving
the Illinois shore. Most of it I still had to spell out through age and
experience, and some reading. I only knew that I had been told that the
Ridge Road would take me to Monterey County, if the weather wasn't too
wet, and I didn't get drowned in a freshet at a ferry or slewed down and
permanently stuck fast somewhere with all my goods.
"Gee-up," I shouted to my cows, and cracked my blacksnake over their
backs; and they strained slowly into the yoke. The wagon began
chuck-chucking along into the unknown.
"Stop!" said my passenger. "I've got to wait here for my--for my
husband."
"I can't stop," said I, "till I get to timber and water."
"But I must wait," she pleaded. "He can't help but find us here, because
it's the only way to come; but if we go on we may miss him--and--and--
I've just got to stop.
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