In the course of seven or eight days we had brought our preparations near to a close.Meanwhile our friends had completed theirs, and becoming tired of Westport, they told us that they would set out in advance and wait at the crossing of the Kansas till we should come up.Accordingly R.and the muleteers went forward with the wagon and tent, while the captain and his brother, together with Sorel, and a trapper named Boisverd, who had joined them, followed with the band of horses.The commencement of the journey was ominous, for the captain was scarcely a mile from Westport, riding along in state at the head of his party, leading his intended buffalo horse by a rope, when a tremendous thunderstorm came on, and drenched them all to the skin.They hurried on to reach the place, about seven miles off, where R.was to have had the camp in readiness to receive them.But this prudent person, when he saw the storm approaching, had selected a sheltered glade in the woods, where he pitched his tent, and was sipping a comfortable cup of coffee, while the captain galloped for miles beyond through the rain to look for him.At length the storm cleared away, and the sharp-eyed trapper succeeded in discovering his tent: R.had by this time finished his coffee, and was seated on a buffalo robe smoking his pipe.The captain was one of the most easy-tempered men in existence, so he bore his ill-luck with great composure, shared the dregs of the coffee with his brother, and lay down to sleep in his wet clothes.
We ourselves had our share of the deluge.We were leading a pair of mules to Kansas when the storm broke.Such sharp and incessant flashes of lightning, such stunning and continuous thunder, I have never known before.The woods were completely obscured by the diagonal sheets of rain that fell with a heavy roar, and rose in spray from the ground; and the streams rose so rapidly that we could hardly ford them.At length, looming through the rain, we saw the log-house of Colonel Chick, who received us with his usual bland hospitality; while his wife, who, though a little soured and stiffened by too frequent attendance on camp-meetings, was not behind him in hospitable feeling, supplied us with the means of repairing our drenched and bedraggled condition.The storm, clearing away at about sunset, opened a noble prospect from the porch of the colonel's house, which stands upon a high hill.The sun streamed from the breaking clouds upon the swift and angry Missouri, and on the immense expanse of luxuriant forest that stretched from its banks back to the distant bluffs.
Returning on the next day to Westport, we received a message from the captain, who had ridden back to deliver it in person, but finding that we were in Kansas, had intrusted it with an acquaintance of his named Vogel, who kept a small grocery and liquor shop.Whisky by the way circulates more freely in Westport than is altogether safe in a place where every man carries a loaded pistol in his pocket.As we passed this establishment, we saw Vogel's broad German face and knavish-looking eyes thrust from his door.He said he had something to tell us, and invited us to take a dram.Neither his liquor nor his message was very palatable.The captain had returned to give us notice that R., who assumed the direction of his party, had determined upon another route from that agreed upon between us; and instead of taking the course of the traders, to pass northward by Fort Leavenworth, and follow the path marked out by the dragoons in their expedition of last summer.To adopt such a plan without consulting us, we looked upon as a very high-handed proceeding; but suppressing our dissatisfaction as well as we could, we made up our minds to join them at Fort Leavenworth, where they were to wait for us.
Accordingly, our preparation being now complete, we attempted one fine morning to commence our journey.The first step was an unfortunate one.No sooner were our animals put in harness, than the shaft mule reared and plunged, burst ropes and straps, and nearly flung the cart into the Missouri.Finding her wholly uncontrollable, we exchanged her for another, with which we were furnished by our friend Mr.Boone of Westport, a grandson of Daniel Boone, the pioneer.This foretaste of prairie experience was very soon followed by another.Westport was scarcely out of sight, when we encountered a deep muddy gully, of a species that afterward became but too familiar to us; and here for the space of an hour or more the car stuck fast.
