Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/128

118 felt in our success, by cherished friends whose hearts we believe are following us here.

We left Watertown Wednesday morning, and my family reached here Sunday, and I on Monday—65 miles—after wading through 40 miles of mud almost to the wagon axle. At the Fort, the first night, one of my cows made her escape, and I did not overtake her until I had got back within 8½ miles of Watertown. I then hurried on and overtook my family at night at Milton, in mizzling rain and sozzling mud. Although the cow had traveled 55 miles since 7 o'clock of the day before, and without rest and with little food, she was again missing in the morning. I found too that my coat while drying was burnt up, and making a rush for my hat, that too was gone—and with my blessings on the landlord, house, cow and mud, and things generally I put back on the road, missing, the cow at 5 miles, and again going within 8^2 miles of Watertown. Supposing her to have been stolen, as she in fact had been, I returned and found her after 45 miles more of literal wading in the mud.

The next day, Saturday, the last of the frost came out, and the roads were the next thing to utterly impassable. At Janesville I navigated 7 miles of road that was in neither wagoning nor boating condition. North of that place, over the low prairies, the surface is too even and the fences too continuous for either the water or traveler to escape. The fate of both is the same—to go right down through. At almost every step I sunk to my ankles, and was thankful for my flat feet that kept me from going down deeper while my poor cow went down to her knees. And over that whole way, I met not a single man, woman or child, from whom to get even the cold comfort that it was 4 miles through. And I assure you it was far from comforting, when I had made that 4 miles to Janesville it was then 8 miles farther and worse!

At Milton, for the first time in Wisconsin, I heard the demoniac, hyena yell of the "train"—so fiercely significant that it neither stays nor turns save of its own will—bating of