Once I loved such a life; and when, a year before, I was in Arkansas, during the greatest heat, it was for me as in paradise. But now, when I remembered that in the wagon my beloved wife, instead of sleeping, was trembling about me, and ruining her health with anxiety, I wished all the Indians and bears and cougars in the lowest pit, and desired from my soul to secure as soon as possible the peace of that being so fragile, so delicate, and so worshipped, that I wished to bear her forever in my arms.
A great weight fell from my heart when, after three weeks of such crossings, I saw at last the waters of a river white as if traced out with chalk; this stream is called now Republican River, but at that time it had no name in English. Broad belts of dark willows, stretching like a mourning trail along the white waters, could afford us fuel in plenty; and though that kind of willow crackles in the fire, and shoots sparks with great noise, still it burns better than wet buffalo dung. I appointed at this place another rest of two days, because the rocks, scattered here and there by the banks of the river, indicated the proximity of a hilly country, difficult to cross, lying on both sides of the back of the Rocky Mountains. We were already on a considerable elevation above the sea, as could be known by the cold nights.
That inequality between day and night temperature troubled us greatly. Some people, among others old Smith, caught fevers, and had to go to their wagons. The seeds of the disease had clung to them, probably, at the unwholesome banks of the Missouri, and hardship caused the outbreak. The nearness of the mountains, however, gave hope of a speedy recovery; meanwhile, my wife nursed them with a devotion innate to gentle hearts only.
But she grew thin herself. More than once, when I woke in the morning, my first look fell on her beautiful face, and my heart beat uneasily at its pallor and the blue half circles under her eyes. It would happen that while I was looking at her in that way she would wake, smile at me, and fall asleep again. Then I felt that I would have given half my health of oak if we were in California; but California was still far, far away.
After two days we started again, and coming to the Republican River at noon, were soon moving along the fork of the White Man toward the southern fork of the Platte, lying for the most part in Colorado. The country became more mountainous at every step, and we were really in the canyon along the banks of which rose up in the distance higher and higher granite cliffs, now standing alone, now stretching out continuously like walls, now closing more narrowly, now opening out on both sides. Wood was not lacking, for all the cracks and crannies of the cliffs were covered with dwarf pine and dwarf oak as well. Here and there springs were heard; along the rocky walls scampered the wolverine. The air was cool, pure, wholesome. After a week the fever ceased. But the mules and horses, forced to eat food in which heather predominated, instead of the juicy grass of Nebraska, grew thinner and thinner, and groaned more loudly as they pulled up the mountains our well filled and weighty wagons.