Free Hard Gold by Avi

watching the prairie dogs. Almost comical the way they sit up, keep watch, and scurry about in their great big towns.
    June 4
    This day I saw buffalo, a herd of them, a herd so immense it was impossible to count their numbers—a brown ocean flooding over the prairie, rolling slowly with ponderous magnitude. Our captain, Mr. Boxler, took pains to warn us we must do nothing to rile them, lest they stampede and trample our train to dust.
    June 6
    We saw antelope, and they were beautiful. Lizzy loved to watch them run. “I’d like to run like that,” she mused.
    “Get some bloomers,” I advised.
    June 7
    The land we passed over, though mostly flat, had many a sandy bluff, with mostly good water to be found and enough grass for our cattle to graze at the end of a day. I saw some trees—cottonwood, I supposed—but not too many. Wood being scarce, I was regularly sent out to secure buffalo chips—dried buffalo manure—to burn. Though it didn’t provide much heat, it fired enough to cook our food.
    The collecting of the chips was something the wagon train’s children were sent to do. After a day cooped up in the wagons or walking through the dust, they found it a joy to run and screech. But there was always fear that a little one would wander into the tall prairie grass and be lost forever.
    Lizzy, released by her mother, and I, by Mr. Bunderly, were very happy to walk free and collect chips, too. Happily, buffalo were many, and chips not difficult find.
    One day we came upon a large, sick buffalo. It was quite alone in its suffering. I’d not seen one up close before. It was huge, most likely six feet tall, with shaggy brown fur, a mane, a beard under its chin, and a long tail with a tuft of hair at the end. Its head was truly gigantic, with short, sharp black horns, and it had a hump on its shoulders that suggested great power and strength. One of our train supposed it might weigh a ton.
    Mr. Armon shot it dead. The meat was shared, and that, I will admit, was good for a change.
    June 8–11
    Our endless walking continued. At times I wondered if anyone had ever walked so far! Then I recalled that those who were going to Salt Lake, Oregon, and California were going even farther!
    Once, as I was walking, thinking I know not what, Lizzy came along and walked by my side.
    She did not speak. Nor did I. Then I heard a great sigh, and sensed her shoulders shaking.
    “Lizzy!” I said, turning toward her.
    I saw what I had never seen before: tears upon her cheeks.
    “What is it?” I cried.
    “Oh, Early, will we ever, ever get there?” she sobbed.
    “We will,” I said, though I too had begun to doubt.
    But what choice was there? You either put one foot in front of your other foot, or you would be left behind.
    So it was that at last we reached Fort Kearny, a place meant to protect those that passed by. But it was there that Mr. Mawr tried to murder me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

    Stampede!
    June 12, 1859
    F ORT KEARNY lies on the south side of the Platte River, set back perhaps half a mile, not far from what they called Grand Island. It’s an island—Mr. Boxler informed me—fifty miles long!
    The fort was built on a slight rise of ground, the only height thereabouts, which gives a long view of the prairie. From it, to the north, we saw a great dark herd of buffalo.
    The fort was nothing to speak of: some frame houses, big and small, as well as a few sod houses, all set around a forlorn parade ground. In its center was a flagpole from which hung a wind-tattered flag of thirty-three stars. Two troops of foot soldiers were stationed there.

    Fort Kearny was only a little more than ten years old in 1859.
It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.
    We remained at the fort for two days, along with other trains. In some there was considerable sickness: dysentery and cholera. Bad water was blamed. Folks from other trains spoke of contaminated food. At this point, a fair number of people gave up and headed back toward the states. Some of