Wintering Over in Wyoming Territory

The wagon master of the train of fifty wagons on the Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley in Oregon territory tried to reason with Eleanor Watkins.

"Ma'am, I've seen my share of men who've been torn up by a bear, and Jacob's as bad as any of them. He'd have already been dead if Mr. Ames and Mr. Riley hadn't heard the ruckus and shot that bear. He ain't gonna live 'til mornin', and there ain't nothin' you or anybody else can do to change that. You'd best make him comfortable as you can and wait.

"I'll keep the wagon train here overnight so's you'll have some men to bury him, but we're movin' on at noon. If you want to stay, you'll be stayin' on your own. I ain't gonna risk the lives of forty-nine other families waitin' on one man to die."

Eleanor looked up and her voice was angry.

"Who's going to lead this wagon train? You?"

The wagon master nodded.

"Yes, Ma'am. I've been over this trail three other times. I might not know of any new shortcuts Jacob knew about but I'll get us there. We can't wait, though. If we do, the mountain passes will be four feet deep in snow by the time we get there. "

Eleanor tried to control her voice, but her anger won out.

"Then you go on and leave Mr. Ridgley to me. If he dies, I'll bury him by myself and then catch up with you. I've come this far by myself and the trail is easy to follow. If he doesn't... well, I don't know what I'll do, but I won't just sit here and watch this man die."

The wagon master shook his head and then rode to the front of the train of wagons and to the man the wagon train had elected as their leader. He had to tell Mr. Roberts that they couldn't wait or the rest of the wagon train would be in danger.

Mr. Roberts would have to explain that to the other people, but the wagon master didn't think that would present much of a problem. Most of the other people in the wagon train thought Eleanor should have stopped once her husband had died. There were still a few settlements along the trail there where she could have stayed.

She hadn't though, and people wondered if losing her husband had caused Eleanor to loose her mind. No sane woman would even think of driving a team of oxen by herself, much less drive them all the way to Oregon.

There was also the fact that Eleanor didn't have even one child even though she was twenty-two and had been married for two years. That just wasn't right. A woman's place in life was to care for her home and husband and to give him sons to help in the fields. The only reason they could figure out was that there was something wrong with Eleanor.

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Eleanor climbed up into her wagon where the men had put Jacob. While she knew the wagon master was probably right, she couldn't just leave Jacob to die. She'd already lost a husband because of what she personally considered to be a foolish trip to a supposed promised land. She wasn't about to watch another man die right in front of her without trying to help him as best she knew how.

As Eleanor used her scissors to carefully cut away the thin buckskin shirt the man wore, and shook her head. Why did men have to be like her dead husband and go off searching for something better than they already had? She'd been happy on the eighty acre Illinois farm she'd inherited from her father. She'd thought William would be happy there too. He'd been raised on a farm and he'd seemed happy at first. He talked about clearing another acre or two of trees that were on the farm and said he'd need more land to farm once they had children.

Eleanor had been happy keeping house, fixing meals, and tending her garden. In her rare spare moments she'd dreamed about children. She wanted a boy first to help her husband, William, but if her first was a little girl, they'd try again. She wasn't concerned about how many children they had. Her aunt had had three boys and two girls. Eleanor figured she could do as well.

That plan ended in October of 1850. William had gone to the nearby town of Jacksonville to have the miller grind a bushel of corn into corn meal. When he came home, he told Eleanor about a new law that the President had signed.

"Eleanor, I wrote it all down so I wouldn't forget. The new law is the Donation Land Claim Act and it let's anybody go to Oregon and claim three hundred and twenty acres of land free of charge. The wife of a married couple can get another three hundred and twenty acres.

"Well, that's if they can get to Oregon by the first of December. We couldn't do that, but after the first of December, the land is still free. A man can only get a hundred and sixty acres then and his wife can only get another hundred and sixty but it's still a really good opportunity.

"Can you imagine owning three hundred and twenty acres? I only own eighty here and I can only farm about fifty when you take out the trees and where the house and barn are. I'm doing all right on eighty acres, but with three hundred and twenty... well, I couldn't farm all that by myself, but I wouldn't have to at first. The only requirement is that I build a house and that we farm there for four years. After that, the land will be mine, free and clear.

"This is something I can't pass up. I'm going to sell the farm and go to Oregon."

Eleanor had thought about telling William that the only reason he had eighty acres to farm was because she'd inherited it from her father. She didn't say anything though. Once a woman married, any property she owned became her husband's property. She didn't have any say in whether he sold it or not. She also didn't have any say about if she wanted to go to Oregon. A wife went where her husband went.

The trip William was planning also put a temporary pause to Eleanor's plan for a family. They had been careful to not start a family until William had done some improvements to the farm. He was finished with the new barn and a new hog pen now, and his herd of hogs had grown to twenty.

Now, she'd have to wait longer. William said they would start for Independence, Missouri probably in April of the next year so they would arrive in early June. The trip to Oregon would take about six months and the only things they could take with them was what would fit in their farm wagon.

William finished out the harvest season in 1850 and then started getting ready. He went over their wagon and fixed anything that looked weak. He also made sure the harness for his two horses was in good shape. The horses would get them from the farm to Independence, Missouri. He'd sell the horses once they crossed the river into Kansas City and use the money to buy four oxen.

Eleanor spent that fall drying any vegetables from her garden that would dry and putting them up in sacks she sewed from cheap cotton cloth she bought at the general store in Jacksonville. Her potatoes and carrots were buried in sand and stored in the root cellar Eleanor's father had made twenty years before. William took ten bushels of corn to the mill to have it ground, and sold the rest of his corn crop to the miller. He also brought back a hundred pounds of flour, a hundred pounds of sugar, fifty pounds of coffee, and twenty pounds of salt.

When winter brought colder days, William, along with two neighbors, slaughtered six hogs. Two of those hogs went to the neighbors who helped. The other four were cut into hams and bacon, and the rest was ground into sausage. After seasoning, the ground pork was put into casings made from the hog's intestines.

Over that winter, the hams and bacon were covered in salt and sugar to dry them out and then hung in the smoke house to cure into meat that would last through the trip to Oregon. The fat from the hogs was rendered into lard, and after smoking, the sausages were packed in wood boxes and then covered with melted lard.

The melted lard sealed the sausages from air and helped them keep longer. The sausages wouldn't last as long as the hams and bacon, but would be good at the start of the trip and let Eleanor save the hams and bacon for when the sausages were gone. The lard would be good for at least six months and would be used for cooking.

By the first of May, William had sold the farm and all the remaining animals except for the team of horses and their milk cow, Bess. Eleanor had to wipe a tear from her eyes after she climbed up on the wagon seat and took a last look at the house where she'd been born and raised, and the house where she'd hoped to start a family.

She cried a few more tears when the wagon trundled past the big oak tree with the two heavy wooden crosses. It didn't seem right to leave her mother and father all alone under that oak tree, but she had no choice.

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William had been excited at the prospect of making the trip. It wasn't just because of the land he'd get in Oregon. He was also concerned because of what was happening in the Missouri and Kansas.

Illinois wasn't a slave state, though there were a few farms that did have slaves. Illinois residents were mostly decided that slavery should be abolished, and a few had taken measures into their own hands.

One such local farmer was Michael Huffaker. Mr. Huffaker did employ Negroes on his farm, but they were all freemen and not slaves. Rumor had it that the Huffaker farm also welcomed slaves who had escaped from the southern states. It was easy for them to stay at the Huffaker farm along their journey to the northern states and then to Canada. They just mingled with Mr. Huffaker's workers and didn't look out of place.

There were also rumors of men hired by the slave owners in Missouri and Tennessee to track down those escaped slaves and take them back to their owners. While William had no first hand knowledge of this happening, a traveling salesman who had called at the general store in Jacksonville spoke of another such place that harbored escaped slaves. According to the salesman, the men had found the escaped slaves in a barn on the farm and had put them all in chains. To punish the owner of the farm, they had hung the man from a tree outside his front door.

William had no intention of getting mixed up in anything like that, but he might not have a choice. Congress had passed the Fugitive Slave Law. That law made it mandatory that free states had to assist in the capture of escaped slaves and also granted immunity to the slave catchers. If they came to his farm and asked if he knew where there were escaped slaves, he'd have to tell them about the Huffaker farm.

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It was late afternoon on May 4th, 1851 when William led the team and wagon onto the steam ferry across the Illinois River at Griggsville. He and Eleanor spent the night on a grassy patch next to the road from Griggsville to Hannibal, Missouri.

They started at daylight the next morning and reached the ferry across the Mississippi at about three that afternoon. After William climbed up into the wagon seat and started the team moving, he turned to Eleanor.

"Well, we're in Missouri now. It'll take us another week to get to Independence. We'll take another ferry across the Kansas River to Kansas City. That's where we'll start out for Oregon."

William had gone on and on telling Eleanor what she'd heard all winter back in Jacksonville.

"I hate having to sell the horses, but oxen can pull longer than horses without resting and they only need grass instead of grain. I can buy more horses in Oregon, and after we get there we can butcher and eat the oxen."

"You'll have to be careful to not waste any food. We probably have enough to last, but if you go wasting it, we'll run out and have to buy more. I have some money left, but prices will get higher as we travel further from Kansas City."

"You brought your sewing things like I told you, didn't you? There won't be any place to get needles and thread until we get to Oregon so if we tear any clothes, you'll have to fix them."

"When we stop for the night, I'll have to take the yokes off the oxen and drive them and Bess out to the grazing spot the wagon master picks. You'll have to build the fire and start supper. In the morning, I'll have to go get the oxen and hitch them up while you restart the fire and make breakfast. You won't have long because I've heard that wagon masters start a wagon train rolling as soon as the sun comes up. I'll milk Bess while you're making our breakfast."

Most of what Eleanor heard told her that she was going to do the same things she'd have done on the farm in Illinois. She was just going to have to work harder and faster for the six months it took to get from Kansas City to Oregon.

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It took two weeks to get a wagon train assembled in a field outside Kansas City. Part of that time was for people who hadn't brought oxen to buy them and then learn how to hitch and drive them. It was during that time that Eleanor had met Jacob Ridgley.

Jacob wasn't a very impressive man. He was tall and slim and didn't look like he'd be very strong. He wore buckskin clothes that looked like they were too big and they were stained with sweat. He had a short, dark brown scraggly beard, and his dark brown hair hung down almost to his shoulders. The hat he wore was made from more buckskin and looked like a bowler hat with a really wide brim. Instead of heavy boots, he wore leather moccasins. To Eleanor, he looked like a man who didn't care much about how he looked or smelled.

One thing he obviously did care about was teaching the men on the wagon train how to get the sometimes stubborn oxen to stand still while the yoke was placed over their necks and then to stand still while they were hooked to the wagon with chains. He carried a short whip, but Eleanor had never seen him actually hit an ox with the whip. He'd just speak to the ox and gently tap the ox on the neck or shoulder.

It had taken William a week to learn how to do that, and another week before he could direct the oxen with just the words, "giddup", "gee", "haw", and "whoa" so the oxen did what he wanted.

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The first week once the wagon train got started was pretty chaotic. Even though most of the men had learned how to handle their teams of oxen, the oxen hadn't learned how to pull together. The wagon master and Mr. Ridgley rode up and down the line of wagons helping the men keep the oxen moving. It did get better after a few days, and by the time the wagons stopped for supper on Saturday night, the oxen had figured it out. The wagon train settled down into a slow, but regular pace that kept the wagon wheels rolling from just after sunrise to just before sunset.

That slow pace was not only because the oxen were slow. It was necessary for two reasons.

The wagon master had said that until they crossed the open plains of Kansas and Nebraska, the only wood they'd find would be along rivers and streams. In order to cook their food, each wagon would have to pick up what he called buffalo chips. Eleanor didn't know what buffalo chips were until William showed her one.

It looked like the same thick puddle of manure their cows had left in the pasture on the farm. They were dried through by the sun, but they still smelled. Eleanor gritted her teeth and started picking them up and putting them in a burlap sack.

That meant she had to walk instead of riding in the wagon seat, but after half an hour of riding, she knew walking was easier. While many wagons had already traveled the same route, the surface was still riddled with holes and bumps. Farm wagons had no springs except for on the seat, so every bump and hole jostled the wagon and also anyone sitting on the seat or inside the wagon.

That first day, she'd started walking in her light shoes. Mr. Ridgley had ridden his horse up beside her and then stopped.

"Mrs. Watkins, I'd take those shoes off if I was you. You'll wear them through in a week on this rough ground. Be easier walkin' in your bare feet too."

Eleanor had taken his advice and after that walked barefoot. It was a little painful for couple days, but after that, it was actually easier than walking in shoes. In her bare feet she could feel the ground under her and quickly adjust if she felt unsteady. She made a mental note to thank Mr. Ridgley the next time he rode by.

Eleanor noticed another thing about Mr. Ridgley after the first day on the trail. When he rode past a woman walking beside a wagon, he'd always touch his hat and say, "Ma'am, looks like you're doin' all right. Just keep it up and we'll be in Oregon before you know it."

Mr. Ridgley might not be all that good looking, but he seemed to care about the people in the wagon train. That caring made Eleanor feel a little safer. That was a feeling she'd lost about William. Once he'd decided to go to Oregon, he was always telling her what he was going to do instead of what they were going to do. It was like he didn't remember that she was along.

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Eleanor had been through a few river and stream crossings on the way to Kansas City, but there were always bridges or a ferry if the water was too deep or flowed to fast. Crossing the Kansas was about the same because a steam ferry carried the wagons across. It was only because the Kansas was so wide that she feared the crossing a little.

Crossing the Platte was an entirely different matter. The wagon master called a meeting when they stopped on the south bank to explain what they had to do.

"The Platte is wide, but not very deep so we'll let the oxen pull the wagons across. The only thing you men need to watch for is there are always sand bars that aren't straight and can change in even a day. Your oxen will be pulling your wagon over what seems like two feet of water with a solid bottom, and then they'll step off in a channel that's four feet deep. So we don't lose a wagon, we'll take a couple of our spare oxen over first and then run a rope from their yoke back to the first wagon to cross. If we don't find a drop-off, we'll cross the rest of you on the same path. If we do, we'll use the rope and cross one wagon at a time."

Half the wagons had no trouble crossing. Then it was William's turn. He started the oxen into the water with Eleanor sitting on the wagon seat. Eleanor was holding on to the wagon seat with all she had when she heard men on the other bank yelling. She looked up and saw they were waving their arms to direct William to drive their wagon more to the east.

Eleanor didn't understand until the off ox of the lead team stumbled as he stepped off into deeper water and his head went under. The second pair of oxen had stopped and were holding both the lead team and the wagon in place while the near ox struggled to keep from being pulled down after the off ox. The heads of the lead team began to wave back and forth and up and down as that team began lurching first one way and then the other as the off ox tried to regain his footing.

Eleanor looked for William and saw him wading in water up to his armpits toward the oxen. She screamed at him to come back, but either he didn't hear her or he thought he could pull the oxen back into shallower water.

When he reached the lead team, he grabbed for the yoke on the near ox and tried to pull that ox back upstream. In half a second, the ox threw his head to the side and one of his horns struck William on the head. William's hand slipped from the yoke as the ox lurched again and pushed William under the water with his head.

Eleanor held on to the front wagon bow and stood up. She thought William would probably stand up again, but he didn't. She thought she saw something floating downstream, but couldn't tell if it was William or just the way the muddy water was churning because of the struggles of the oxen.

She'd stepped up on the wagon seat to see better when the wagon master rode his horse up to the wagon pulling a heavy rope behind him.

"You just sit tight, Ma'am. Mr. Ridgley is riding downstream to get your husband. I'll tie this rope to your team and we'll pull you the rest of the way across."

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The rest of the wagons were across the Platte by late afternoon. The wagon master said they'd stop there for the night and wait for Mr. Ridgley and Eleanor's husband to get back. He asked two of the men to unyoke her oxen and take them and her milk cow to the grazing area.

The rest of the women started building fires and cooking supper, but Eleanor just sat on the wagon seat and watched for Mr. Ridgley and her husband. She told herself that William was a strong man and the water wasn't very deep so he'd be all right. He'd come back with Mr. Ridgley, they'd eat a late supper, and then go to bed in the wagon. The next morning, they'd start out again.

In one little corner of her mind though was this tiny little voice that told her William was dead. As the sun slowly sank toward the horizon and turned the few clouds orange and purple, that little voice became louder until it was screaming in her head.

William was dead. What was to happen to her now? She couldn't turn around and go back to Jacksonville. There was no farm in Jacksonville to go back to. Even if there was, she couldn't run a farm by herself. Most men there wouldn't want a widow for a wife. They wanted to be the first man with a woman. She'd grow old living in a tiny little house and taking in sewing to make enough money to live on, just like the widow Hendrickson had back in Jacksonville.

Eleanor felt tears streaming down her cheeks. Why had William decided to leave everything that had made a good life for them and go to the unknown in Oregon? He said he'd get more land, but they didn't need more land. The farm in Jacksonville could have supported a pretty large family if William had just cleared a few more trees and raised a few more hogs.

She hadn't needed anything else in her life except for children. William had taken that all away by making this trip. At the time, Eleanor thought he was thinking about making a better future for them, but now that future was gone, swallowed up by the muddy water of the Platte River.

Eleanor wiped her eyes then and shook her head. She was a grown, married woman but she was acting like a sixteen-year-old girl whose beau had decided on another girl. Mr. Ridgley would come back with William and tomorrow, they'd start for Oregon again.

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It was almost dark when Eleanor saw Mr. Ridgley riding up to her wagon. He was sitting on his horse's rump with something draped over the saddle. He slid off the horse and then walked over to Eleanor.

He took off his hat and then frowned at Eleanor.

"Mrs. Watkins, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this. I found your husband stuck up against a tree root on the north bank, but there was nothing I could do. I think when the ox hit him, it must have knocked him out and he drowned before he came to. I brought him back so you can bury him, and I'll get enough men together tomorrow to do that."

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The funeral was short because the wagon master said they needed to be on the move. The one preacher in the group said a few words before the six men lowered William into the shallow grave they'd dug beside the wagon ruts of the trail. After filling the grave with dirt and tamping the mound tight, Mr. Jenkins, a carpenter drove a rough wood cross at the head of the grave. He'd carved, "William Watkins, 1851" into the cross board.

The rest of the people sang "Rock of Ages" before returning to their wagons. Soon, Eleanor was left by herself standing over William's grave. She was startled from her thoughts by Mr. Ridgley's voice.

"Mrs. Watkins, Ma'am, you can't stay here like you might be thinkin'. Water's no good because of all the mud. I'll hitch up your oxen and find a man who can drive them for you. There's several boys 'bout sixteen who can do that."

To Eleanor, Mr. Ridgley was telling her she wasn't capable of going on by herself. She didn't quite understand why the words came out of her mouth, but they did before she could think about what she was saying.

"Mr. Ridgley, I appreciate your offer. I'm not strong enough to yoke my oxen, but I watched you teach my husband and I've watched him since Kansas City. William wouldn't want me to stop. If you'll hitch my oxen to my wagon, I'll drive them the rest of the way to Oregon."

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And so it went, from the crossing of the Platte to Independence Rock. Mr. Ridgley would hitch Eleanor's oxen to her wagon every morning and unhitch them every night. He asked for nothing in return, but after the first week, Eleanor began frying four extra slices of bacon and making two extra corn cakes every morning.

The first morning when she offered the plate to Mr. Ridgley he smiled.

"Ma'am, I don't need a woman to cook for me, but thank you."

Eleanor smiled.

"Mr. Ridgley, you look thin as a rail and some good cooking would fill you out. You eat this and then come for supper after you take care of my oxen. I'm fixing ham and sweet potatoes."

"Ma'am, I don't want to take food from you that you'll need later on."

Eleanor waved her hand.

"Mr. Ridgley, I have enough ham, bacon, and other things to last me all the way to Oregon and back to Kansas City. Now, because of what you're doing for me, I won't take no for an answer."

After that, Mr. Ridgley ate the breakfast Eleanor fixed and ate supper with her, though he ate quickly and didn't talk much. Eleanor didn't mind that he didn't talk. It was just comforting to know he thought enough of her to be there.

She decided he also thought enough of her to ride back to her wagon a few times a day to see how she was doing. He'd ride up, get off his horse, and walk beside her as she guided her oxen through the ruts in the dirt. She couldn't figure out any other reason why he'd do that because driving the oxen was easy.

By the time William drowned, the oxen had understood that they had to follow the wagon in front of them. Once in a while, they'd try to take the wagon around a rock sticking up from the dirt, but all it took was a slight tap and a few words and they be back to slowly walking along the trail. Other than all the tedious walking over the flat prairie and picking up buffalo chips, she wasn't all that tired at the end of the day.

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It was when they started into the foothills of the mountains that things got a little harder. The trail led through valleys between the ridges, but there was always a slope that had to be climbed to the gap between those ridges and then another slope that had to be descended down the other side.

That meant the oxen had to pull hard going up the slope and that required some urging. Going back down required chaining the wagon wheels so they wouldn't turn. The oxen could pull the wagon but they had no way to stop it from running over them and the wagon brakes weren't strong enough to hold the wagon on a slope. Chaining the wheels to the wagon axle so they slid over the ground slowed the wagon enough the oxen didn't have to do much except keep moving.

Just like he hitched and unhitched her oxen, Mr. Ridgley would chain the wheels on Eleanor's wagon and then take off the chains once the wagon was on level ground again.

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Eleanor was surprised one afternoon when Mr. Ridgley hadn't come by. She hadn't needed him for anything, but she wondered if he'd lost interest in her. Late that afternoon, she learned that he hadn't. He came riding up to her wagon with the carcass of a deer on his lap.

He smiled at her, the first time she'd ever seen him smile.

"Ma'am, we're in good huntin' country now so I thought maybe you could use a change of meat. When we stop, I'll skin this doe out and cut off a hindquarter for you. There's a couple other wagons that are running short and I'll give the rest to them."

After that, Mr. Ridgley hunted every day and always brought something back for the wagon train, and he always gave some to Eleanor first.

It was one of those hunting trips that had resulted in Mr. Ridgley being attacked by a bear and Eleanor refusing to leave him.

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That day, two of the men had been hunting with Mr. Ridgley and had heard the deep growl of a bear followed by a gunshot and then a man screaming in pain. They'd rushed toward the screaming and had found a large bear on top of Mr. Ridgley and trying to bite his head. Mr. Ridgley was on his stomach with his arms over his head so the black bear was biting at his arms.

Mr. Winings had shot the bear and killed it. When they rolled the bear off Mr. Ridgley they expected the worst. There was blood everywhere, Mr. Ridgley's arms were bitten down to the bone in several places and he wasn't moving. Believing he was dead, they rolled him over. He'd gasped then and his eyes opened for a few seconds.

Mr. Winings ran back to the wagon train for help. Mr. James stayed with Mr. Ridgley.

When Eleanor heard what had happened, she watched for the men. When they came carrying Mr. Ridgley across the saddle of the wagon master's horse, and dragging the carcass of the bear behind another, she told them to take Mr. Ridgley and put him in her wagon.

The wagon master shook his head.

"Mrs. Watkins, Ma'am, there's nothin' anybody can do for Jacob now except let him die in peace. It would have been merciful if that bear had killed him quick. If you try to do anythin', you'll just make him hurt more and he'll die anyway."

Her husband's drowning flashed through Eleanor's mind then. She'd been powerless to do anything to save her husband. She wasn't powerless now. After the wagon master said he was leaving with the wagon train the next day, Eleanor made up her mind.

"Mr. Johnson, as long as Mr. Ridgley is alive, I won't leave him. Put him in my wagon. Then you do what you have to do, but I am staying with Mr. Ridgley until he can travel again or until he dies. After all he's done for me, I can't just do nothing and watch him die."

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As Eleanor cut away Mr. Ridgley's buckskin shirt, she started seeing how badly he was hurt. His shirtfront had what looked like cuts and quite a bit of blood had soaked through the buckskin. When she gently peeled the buckskin away she saw the reason. There were several cuts on his chest, the deepest of them in two groups of five. Eleanor figured the bear had clawed Mr. Ridgley to knock him down.

Eleanor slit the sleeves of the shirt then, and caught her breath when she saw the deep bite marks on both of Mr. Ridgley's arms. In a couple places she thought she could see white bones at the bottom of the bite mark.

Eleanor sat back to think about what she should do. Her mother had always washed out a cut with soap and water, put a little honey on the cut and then wrapped it in a bandage made from cotton cloth.

Eleanor got her stew pot, filled it from the water barrel on her wagon, and then sat it on the coals from that morning's fire. It took her a little time because she hadn't intended to use it until they got to Oregon, but she found the big jar of honey she'd bought at the general store in Jacksonville.

When the water in her pot was warm but not hot, she carried it to the wagon. After she went inside beside where Mr. Ridgley lay, she decided she needed more light. She went back out climbed to the ground and untied the rope that held the canvas wagon top at the front bow, pulled the canvas back to the second bow and then tied it off. After she'd done the same with the canvas on the other side, she climbed back up and knelt beside the man.

He hadn't moved, but Eleanor could see that he was still breathing. She found her bar of soap and a wash cloth, dipped the cloth into he warm water and began washing away the dirt and blood from Mr. Ridgley's arms and chest.

Eleanor saw his face contort when she lifted his right arm to get to the backside, and tried to reassure him.

"Mr. Ridgley, I don't know if you can hear me or not, but I'm trying to make you well again. It might hurt, but that's only because I'm doing what I have to do."

As carefully as she could, Eleanor washed the skin around the bite marks and then tried to get her cloth as deep into them as she could. They began to bleed again, but Eleanor remembered something else her mother had told her.

"On a deep cut, you let it bleed for a while. The blood will wash out any dirt you can't get to."

Eleanor let the bite marks bleed, but kept cleaning the blood away. When the blood coming out was just dark red, she got one of her husband's cotton shirts and cut it into strips with her scissors. Then she spooned out some of the honey and used the spoon to smear it over all the bite marks on his right arm. She finished that arm by wrapping it with the strips she'd cut from the shirt.

She did his left arm next and was happy that it didn't look as badly bitten. When she finished that arm, she began washing the dirt and blood from his chest.

Eleanor quickly realized she had a bigger with Mr. Ridgley's chest. The deep cuts on his skin and muscle didn't want to close up after she washed them. They were just open bleeding cuts. She wasn't sure what to do until she remembered what the doctor in Jacksonville had done when her father cut his leg with an axe.

Eleanor got a needle and spool of thread from her sewing box and took a deep breath.

"Mr. Ridgley, I've never sewed up a person before but these cuts have to stay closed if they're going to heal right. Try to hold still if you can."

Eleanor put some honey on the first cut, ran her needle and thread through the honey on her fingers, and then pushed the needle through the skin on one side of the cut. Mr. Ridgley moaned a little but then relaxed. Eleanor stopped and waited until he breathed in again.

"Well, I guess I haven't killed you. You just passed out. I'll do this as fast as I can."

Eleanor stitched up the ten cuts on Mr. Ridgley's chest and then sat back to think. The stitches and the honey had stopped most of the bleeding, but he needed a bandage to keep the honey in place. She needed to sit him up in order to wrap the bandages around his chest.

Eleanor's first thought when she tried to pull Mr. Ridgley up was that he was heavier than he looked. She managed to get him into a mostly sitting position and then moved around behind him so she could rest his head on her shoulder. It took half an hour before she had his chest wrapped with more strips of the cotton shirt, but when she finished, he was still breathing. She'd also felt his heart thumping away against her breasts.

Eleanor carefully eased him back down and then looked at his face and head. All she saw were a few bite marks and two long gashes. She trimmed the hair around them with her scissors so she could wash them and then just dabbed honey on the bite marks. She sewed the long gashes together. The last thing she did was to put a blanket over him because her mother had always told her to keep a sick person warm.

Eleanor made her supper from some ham slices before putting out her fire and tying the canvas wagon cover back over the first bow. Then she went inside and lay down beside Mr. Ridgley. Staying with him was the only way she knew to make sure he wouldn't die during the night.

}|{

Jacob woke up because he felt something cold on his lips. A second later he felt water running down the side of his face. Then he heard a woman's voice.

"Mr. Ridgley, you need to drink this so open your mouth."

Without thinking Jacob opened his mouth and felt a little water on his tongue. He swallowed that and then opened his mouth again. He kept doing that until the water stopped. Then, he opened his eyes.

Eleanor was looking at him and she was smiling.

"You had me worried there until you finally opened your mouth. I was worried that you'd die of thirst."

Jacob tried to speak, but when he inhaled, pain shot from his chest to his brain, and all he got out was a whispered, "Where?"

Eleanor smiled again.

"You're in my wagon. You were hurt bad, but I wouldn't let them leave you to die. Need some more water?"

Jacob nodded and discovered his head hurt too. When Mrs. Watkins put the cup to his lips again, he drank until the cup was dry. Then, he tried to speak again.

"Who left?"

Eleanor frowned.

"The wagon train. They left yesterday morning."

Jacob tried to push himself up, but the pain in his arms forced him to lie back down.

Eleanor frowned again and touched him on the cheek.

"You just lay there. I don't want you to start bleeding again."

Jacob closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened. If he'd been bleeding and the way it hurt just to move meant he'd been hurt pretty bad. The last thing he remembered was stalking through the trees in search of a deer for meat.

After some more thought, he remembered finding the half-eaten carcass of a doe partly covered with brush, and then the roar of a bear. He remembered shooting at a black shape running toward him. After that, everything was just a blank.

He opened his eyes then.

"Bear?"

Eleanor nodded.

"When the two men you were hunting with heard you scream, they ran up and killed the bear, but not before the bear had slashed your chest and bitten you on your arms and head."

Jacob felt some spit returning to his mouth, enough he could talk a little more.

"They brought me here?"

Eleanor smiled.

"They thought you were dead, but you weren't so they brought you back to the wagon train. The wagon master said you were going to die that night so he'd keep the wagon train here until morning so they could bury you, but he had to move on after that.

"I wasn't going to just watch you die. I told them to put you in my wagon and I'd take care of you. You didn't die, so I'm glad I did."

"You let them go after you knew I was alive?"

"I didn't have a say in that. The wagon master said if they didn't leave, they wouldn't get over the mountains before it snowed. I didn't want to be the cause of the rest of the people getting stuck in the snow in the mountains. I said I was staying with you. If you died, I'd bury you and then catch up to them. I'll still do that when you feel like you can travel again.

"Now, you go back to sleep. I'll fix us something to eat in a little while."

}|{

Jacob woke up again and it was still daylight. He carefully raised his head and looked at his feet. The sun should have been shining through the front of the wagon and on the tops of his feet, but it was shining through the back opening of the wagon cover. He knew then that it was morning so he must have slept through the night.

Rising to a sitting position hurt a lot, but he didn't have a choice. He had to get out of the wagon.

Jacob had groaned as he rolled to his hands and knees and groaned again when he put first one hand and then the other on the back of the wagon seat. He was trying to stand up when Eleanor climbed up into the wagon bed.

"Mr. Ridgley, you shouldn't be trying to get up yet."

He lifted his head so he could see her face.

"I have to get out of this wagon."

Eleanor frowned, but then smiled a little.

"Oh... you need to... Maybe you're doing better than I thought. I'll help you."

It was hard for Eleanor to help him stand. Jacob was taller than she was and she was afraid if she grabbed his arms she open up the bites. She tried a few ways, and then said, "Put your hands on my shoulders and use your legs to push yourself up."

Once Jacob was standing, she asked if he thought he could step over the wagon seat and Jacob nodded. By putting some of his weight on Eleanor's shoulders and lifting one leg at a time, Jacob put both feet of the floor of the wagon bed and then stood up.

Eleanor smiled.

"You turn around and hold on to the wagon seat. I'll climb down and help you get down."

Climbing down from the wagon was a challenge to how much pain Jacob could stand. Eleanor had guided his right foot to the top of the front wheel, and he eased himself down until he was holding his weight on that foot. After shifting his hands to the side of the wagon, Jacob lifted his left foot and waited until Eleanor had guided it over the wagon hub.

"Mr. Ridgley, if you step down real slow now, you'll feel the wagon hub under your left foot. After that, it's just one more step to the ground."

That step was pure agony because Jacob had to use the muscles in both arms and in his chest. When he felt his foot on the wagon hub, he stopped to catch his breath. A minute later, he lifted his right foot from the top of the wagon wheel, and used his aching arm and chest muscles to lower his right foot to the ground.

Eleanor put her hands on his waist then.

"I'll keep you from falling while you grab the wagon wheel."

Jacob took a deep breath, moved one hand at a time from the side of the wagon to the wagon wheel, then eased himself down until both feet were on the ground.

The pain in his face told Eleanor he still needed her help.

"Mr. Ridgley, put your arm over my shoulder and I'll help you walk."

}|{

Eleanor walked Jacob about ten feet from the rear of the wagon and then said he should yell when he was ready to come back. Jacob watched her walk around the wagon.

A few minutes later, he pulled up his buckskin trousers and was going to call for Eleanor, but then realized walking hadn't made his legs hurt. The only things that hurt were his right arm on Eleanor's shoulder and the way that walking that way had pulled on his chest. He started walking back to the wagon.

Jacob was half way there when he realized a second thing. He was too weak to do much walking. He stopped and waited until he didn't feel dizzy, and then walked the rest of the way back to the wagon.

Eleanor heard him and turned to see Jacob holding on to the rear wheel of the wagon.

She frowned.

"Mr. Ridgley, I told you I would help you back. Why didn't you call for me?"

"My legs didn't hurt before so I figured I could walk by myself. I hadn't counted on being so weak though."

Eleanor frowned.

"Well, you're weak because you haven't eaten anything for three days."

"Three days? How long did I sleep?"

"Well, half of the day they brought you back, and then two more days. You didn't even wake up when I changed your bandages and made sure you were still sewed up."

Jacob let go of the wagon wheel and slowly walked over to Eleanor.

"I need you to tell me what's been happening for those three days."

Eleanor smiled.

"I'll do that after I fix you something to eat."

}|{

Jacob hadn't felt hungry until he smelled the slice of ham frying and he was really hungry once Eleanor sliced a potato and put the slices in with the ham. While she was waiting for the potatoes to fry, Eleanor dipped a cup of water from the water barrel on the side of the wagon and brought it to Jacob.

"You need to keep drinking water now that you're awake. You lost a lot of blood and the water will help you get it back."

She handed him the cup and then went to stir the potatoes. When she was satisfied, she scooped the potatoes and the slice of ham onto a plate and brought it to Jacob. After she filled his water cup again, she sat down on the grass beside him.

"Well, what do you want to know?"

Jacob was in the middle of chewing a bite of ham and swallowed before he answered her.

"You said you told the wagon master you were going to stay with me until I died or got well. Why would you do that?"

Eleanor frowned.

"When I lost my husband there wasn't anything I could do to help him. I thought about what I was going to do. I couldn't go back to Jacksonville by myself and I couldn't go on to Oregon by myself. You said you'd help me get to Oregon so I decided that's what I was going to do.

"When that bear hurt you, I was back in the same place I was when my husband drowned except you were still alive. After everything you've done for me, I couldn't just let you die. That's what would have happened if I'd gone on with the wagon train. You were hurt too much to travel.

"If I stayed here to take care of you there was a chance I could still get to Oregon and I'd be helping the man who had helped me more than he had to. I decided to stay. When you get well, we'd start for Oregon again."

Jacob took a drink of water.

"What would you have done if I had died?"

Eleanor shrugged.

"I didn't think about that because I wasn't going to let you die."

Jacob winced when he lifted another piece of ham to his mouth, but then smiled.

"What did you mean when you said you needed to make sure I was still sewed up?"

Eleanor looked at her lap.

"You had some cuts on your chest and head that wouldn't stay closed so the honey kept running out. I needed a way to keep them closed so I used a needle and thread to sew them up like I would have sewn a torn shirt."

Jacob wrinkled his brow.

"You put honey on my cuts? Where did you get that idea?"

Eleanor shrugged.

"It's what my mother always did. She said the honey makes a cut heal faster. Why"

Jacob smiled.

"The Arapaho use honey for the same reason."

It was Eleanor's turn to ask a question then.

"What does Arapaho mean?"

Jacob swallowed the last slice of potato and then took a drink of water.

"The Arapaho are Indians who live in this part of the country. They use wild honey from hives they find in hollow trees and sometimes trade deer and buffalo hides for jars of honey at Fort John."

"How do you know that?"

Jacob shrugged.

"I was raised in an Arapaho village."

Eleanor wanted to know more, but Mr. Ridgley looked really tired. She smiled.

"You can tell me more tomorrow. Right now, let's get you back into bed in the wagon."

}|{

For the next week, Eleanor was worried about Jacob. He seemed fine when he woke up though he always groaned in pain when she helped him out of the wagon. He walked by himself out into the trees and then came back for breakfast. In the afternoon, he made the same walk and then came back to eat what she'd cooked.

What worried her was that just walking a short way from the wagon and back and then eating seemed to exhaust him. It was obvious because he'd asked her to bring a blanket and put it under the wagon so he could sleep there during the day.

Still though, he was alive and getting better. He didn't complain about his arms and chest hurting as much and the cuts on his head had almost healed. The bite marks and cuts on his chest were still red and a little bruised looking, but they seemed to be healing too. Eleanor had stopped putting a bandage on them after that first week. Her mother had told her that fresh air was the best medicine to heal a cut. Instead, Eleanor gave Jacob one of her husband's shirts to wear.

By the end of that week, Jacob had started staying sitting up after he ate. Eleanor thought that would be a good time to find out more about him. After breakfast that morning, she poured Jacob another cup of coffee and then smiled.

"You said you were raised by Arapahos. How can that be? I thought all Indians killed all the white people they saw to keep them from taking their land."

Jacob shook his head.

"There's something about Indians that white men don't or won't understand. Each tribe has set hunting grounds, but they don't think they own the land or the animals on that land. They believe the land and everything on it belongs to the Great Spirit. If another tribe started hunting on their hunting grounds, they'd fight to get them back. If not, the tribes live in peace with each other.

"Indians didn't mind the wagon trains passing through at first because they didn't stop on their hunting grounds. They didn't start killing white folks until those folks started building farms and settlements on their hunting grounds. I can't really blame them. What would you do if somebody just walked onto your farm, built a cabin, and started farming the land you'd farmed for as long as anybody could remember?

"Before that, Indians and white men got along. My father started a trading post between Fort Laramie and South Pass. He traded blankets, glass beads, knives, and axes to the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Shoshone for buffalo hides, deer hides, and fisher and martin furs.

"I was born in that trading post so I was around Indians from the first breath I took. Both my father and mother had some Arapaho they considered to be their friends and as it turned out, that was good for me. During the winter of 1830, my mother and father both got sick with something. The healer of Chief Little Fawn's tribe did what he knew how to do, but they both died. Chief Little Fawn thought enough of my father that he took me to raise as one of his sons.

"I was about four at the time, so I don't really remember my father and mother. I only know what Chief Little Fawn and his wife, Small Dove, told me. I grew up like any Arapaho boy would grow up. I learned to ride a horse when I was five, and I was hunting buffalo calves by the time I was twelve."

Eleanor was pretty shocked at Jacob's story. She'd been told that Indians always killed any white person they saw.

"Mr. Ridgley, I believe what you just told me, but why would an Indian have saved a white boy?"

Jacob frowned.

"See, you're just like all the rest. Indians are different and you don't understand them so you think they must all be savages. Indians are no different than white people. They don't have farms but they don't have to. They know how to live off what the land provides. The men hunt and protect the women and children. The women know where, when and which berries and other plants to pick for food. The healers understand a lot about what makes people sick and know what plants can make them better. As I remember the doctors on other wagon trains I've guided to Oregon, they're no better than an Arapaho healer. The sick people they tried to treat still died."

Eleanor shook her head.

"That's not what I'm saying, Mr. Ridgley. I just asked why an Indian chief would take in a four year old boy to raise."

Jacob smiled.

"For the same reason you decided to stay with me. No Indian wants to watch another person die when they could have helped as long as that person treated them the same way. My father was always fair with the Arapaho and they respected him for that. When he died, Chief Little Fawn wasn't about to abandon the son of a man he respected and called a friend."

Eleanor said she was sorry for thinking like she had, and then asked Jacob how he started guiding wagon trains.

Jacob frowned.

"I was an Arapaho by my raising up, but I was still white. When people started exploring the Arapaho hunting grounds, some of the younger members of Chief Little Fawn's tribe accused him of letting me stay so I could help the white man drive the Arapaho from their hunting grounds. I thought of Chief Little Fawn the same as if he was my real father and I didn't want him to lose face with the tribe. I left our village and headed out to the mountains north of here.

"What I'd intended to do was build a cabin, find a wife, and keep away from what I was sure would end up being a war between the whites and the Arapaho. The whites had started building settlements and the Arapaho weren't about to give up their way of life.

"That lasted until one winter when I was hunting and found a wagon train stranded by snow in the South Pass. The same wagon master of your wagon train was leading it but he got started too late. He asked me if I could get his wagon train off the South Pass and down to the flatlands.

"I couldn't just leave them there to die, so I did what I could. Most of them made it down from South Pass and wintered over until spring. Then, I led them to Oregon.

"I was started back to my cabin when the wagon master asked me if I'd guide the next wagon train. He said he'd pay me in gold, and I wanted some things for my cabin that I couldn't make. That was three years ago. I'd still have been guiding your wagon train to Oregon if I hadn't missed seeing that doe that bear had cached. Don't know what I was thinking about, but any ten year old Arapaho boy would have seen it and backed away. Instead, I went to look at it.

"It wasn't the bear's fault. Bears protect their food and that bear thought I was going to take it. If the other men hadn't killed that bear when they did, I'd have been dead."

Eleanor smiled.

"Well, they did and you didn't die because I wouldn't let you die. All we have to do now is get you well enough to go on to Oregon."

Jacob frowned and shook his head.

"I'm not strong enough to hitch your oxen yet even if you help me. I don't know how long it's going to take until I am. If we have to stay here much more than another week, we'll make it over South Pass, but not much further. By the time we get to the other mountains, the passes will be snowed shut.

"We might have a chance if we left the wagon and oxen here and both rode my horse, but we'd have to leave in at least another two weeks."

Eleanor hung her head.

"Your horse isn't here. The wagon master said you were going to die so he gave your horse to Mr. Winings, the man who killed the bear. Mr. James, the other man, got your rifle. The Brainard's had just had a baby and needed milk. I couldn't drink all the milk Bess had, so I gave them my milk cow. All I have left is the four oxen."

Jacob didn't say anything for a while then because he was trying to keep his temper in check. That horse had been his Arapaho father's last gift before he rode off on his own. Jacob couldn't really blame the wagon master for doing that given the circumstances, but it still enraged him that the horse was gone.

Jacob frowned after he'd cooled down some.

"I guess that's why I haven't seen him. That means I have to be strong enough to walk all day before we leave here."

"Couldn't you ride in the wagon?"

Jacob smiled.

"If I wanted to get my innards shaken out I could. Now that I'm still alive I think I'll try not to do that."

Eleanor was starting to understand how bad their situation was.

"Can't we just wait here for the next wagon train?"

"There won't be another wagon train until next spring unless they started a week behind us. If they had, they'd be here by now. I didn't hear of another starting before next spring because it's getting too late in the year."

"Then what do we do... just stay here and wait to die?"

Jacob smiled a little.

"No, we're not going to wait to die. My cabin is about a day and a half travel from here by horse, so maybe two with oxen. If it's still standing since I checked it on my way back from the last wagon train, we could winter over there. It's not a very big cabin, but it'll do for two if you want to come along. That depends on you."

"It sounds like what we should do. Why did you say it depends on me?"

"Well, I don't know if you'll want to live with me that long."

Eleanor smiled.

"Of all the men around here, you're the one I'd pick to live with over a winter."

Jacob chuckled.

"I'm the only man around here."

Eleanor smiled again.

"Yes you are, so that makes my choice easier, doesn't it?"

}|{

After another week, Jacob thought he was well enough to yoke the oxen. Eleanor did help him though. She also looked at his chest and head and when she was satisfied, she used her scissors to clip the thread and pulled out each stitch. Jacob had flinched a little but the cuts didn't open and they didn't start to bleed.

Once everything was ready, Jacob pointed to the north.

"We'll go north until we find Pine Creek and then follow it upstream. There'll be grass and water for the oxen and the creek valley will make for easier traveling. We should get to the start of the mountain where my cabin is tonight so we'll stay the night there. Tomorrow, we'll go see if my cabin is still standing."

"What if it isn't?"

"Don't worry so much about things that haven't happened yet. It'll be there. We might have to sweep out some spiders but it'll be there. Now, unless you want to spend the night without trees and water, we need to be moving."

As Eleanor drove the oxen, she was watching Jacob. He'd seemed strong enough to lift the yokes on the oxen and then chain them to the wagon, but that hadn't taken long. What she was watching for was if he started to stumble like he was really tired.

Eleanor told herself she was worried because Mr. Ridgley was her only hope of surviving long enough to get to Oregon, but in her mind was this nagging little wisp of a thought that she was beginning to like the man.

While he'd groaned a little when he hurt, he'd never complained about hurting. He'd also never said he was too tired to do anything. All he'd said was the simple statement that he'd have to be strong enough to yoke the oxen before they could go anywhere.

William had been that way before he decided they should go to Oregon. Once he'd decided though, he'd had a thousand complaints about everything from the size of their farm to how the miller had raised the price for milling corn into cornmeal. He'd always end his complaint by promising her it wouldn't be like that in Oregon.

Mr. Ridgley had said they'd need to spend the winter in his cabin if they were to survive, but he hadn't promised her anything except that she was welcome if she wanted to come with him.

Eleanor hadn't believed anything William had said about how good it would be in Oregon because she'd considered the trip to be just more work for her without any clear benefit except for more land that they couldn't farm by themselves. They'd have to start over with building a house and plowing up land that had never been plowed before.

When William had drowned, she'd had little choice but to keep going and hope for the best. What that "best" had turned out to be was being stranded with a badly injured man by herself and with little hope of going anywhere. Mr. Ridgley had changed that by offering her a way out of a situation over which she had no control.

Eleanor said, "Gee" and tapped the near ox on his shoulder and then smiled.

She couldn't honestly say that she'd loved William. She'd married him because her mother said he was a good man who would give her children. Her father said William was a good farmer so she'd never want for anything a reasonable person should want.

Eleanor also couldn't say that she felt anything for Mr. Ridgley except gratitude for taking her to his cabin where she'd be safe for the winter, but she knew she liked the big man with a scraggly beard and long hair more than she'd liked William.

}|{

The second day at about noon, Jacob pointed to a valley between two foothills.

"That's where my cabin is, about two miles further on. We should be there in an hour or so."

Eleanor looked at the valley.

"I don't see any trail. Will the oxen and the wagon make it?"

"I think so. When I cut the trees for my cabin, I cut a lot of them from the start of this valley. Nobody's been up here but me for about three years so it's just overgrown. We'll make it."

"What about you, Mr. Ridgley. You walked all day yesterday. Aren't you tired?"

Jacob smiled.

"That's another thing white people don't understand about Indians. Indian boys learn to run for hours without getting too tired to fight. When I left the village, I could run for ten miles before I had to stop and rest. Walking isn't tiring at all now that my arms and chest don't hurt."

}|{

An hour later and after dodging a few tree stumps with the wagon, Eleanor saw the cabin in the distance. She also saw the biggest river she'd ever seen.

"We don't have to cross this river, do we?"

Jacob chuckled.

"No, and it's not a river. It's a lake. It has fish and the water is clean. That's one of the reasons I put my cabin here.

"There's another reason too. I killed my first deer in this valley. That's an important step in an Arapaho boy's life. I was ten and got that deer before most of the other boys my age. When I left the tribe I remembered this place and decided this is where I'd build my cabin.

"After I built the cabin, I built a fence that runs from the side of the valley and down to the lake. Behind the cabin are a lot of trees and then you come to the end of the valley. That area is big enough to grow more grass than six horses could eat in a year. Your oxen will have enough to eat and water to drink.

"Like I said, the cabin isn't very big. I made it big enough for two people, but it's probably not as big and as nice as the house you're used to."

Eleanor smiled.

"Mr. Ridgley, for almost four months my house has been a covered farm wagon. Anything would be better than that. Let's keep going so you can show me."

}|{

When Eleanor stopped the oxen in front of the cabin, all she could do was stare. When she was growing up in lllinois, all there was to see was flat prairie dotted here and there with trees along the streams and rivers. For all the time she'd walked along the trail, most of what she'd seen was basically the same, just flat prairie with no trees except along a stream of a river.

Here, and with a woman's eye for the beautiful, she saw stately green pines beside and behind the cabin, lush green grass behind it, and the blue water of the lake. Surrounding all that were the snow-capped peaks of the mountains.

Jacob saw her staring.

"I take it you don't like it?"

Eleanor looked at Jacob and smiled.

"This has to be the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my entire life. It's like the pictures I saw in my schoolbooks, except it has colors instead of just being black and white."

Jacob took her hand.

"Let me show you the cabin."

When Eleanor walked inside the cabin, it was too dark to see much. She asked Jacob if he had a lantern. Jacob went back outside and a few seconds later the cabin was flooded with light coming through a glass window on the south wall of the cabin. A few seconds later, light beamed through a window on the west side and then through a window on the east side. Jacob came back inside then.

"I didn't put in any windows the first year, but the second year I rode to Fort Laramie and bought these. They're not very big, but they do let in some light. I made shutters for them so animals wouldn't break them and get inside while I was gone."

With the light coming through the windows, Eleanor was able to see what was inside the cabin. In the center of the west wall was a stone fireplace with a hearth made of stones and with a fireplace crane attached to the hearth and the side of the fireplace. Beside that was a small table and two rough chairs. On the other side of the fireplace were two rough-hewn shelves.

On the south side was the door and on each side were pegs about four feet off the dirt floor. On the east side was a bed made from slender logs. The north side was bare except for another door and a large box made from rough-hewn boards.

Eleanor turned to Jacob then and smiled.

"Mr. Ridgley, after living all those months in my wagon this cabin will do me just fine. If you'll take care of the oxen, I'll start bringing in food from the wagon and then build a fire so I can cook supper for us."

}|{

The food that night was no different than Eleanor had cooked on the trail, but it made her happy to have a fire to cook on inside. When cooking outside, she'd always had to contend with bits of grass from the buffalo chips and the occasional insect. She'd also had to keep moving around the fire as the breezes blew the smoke in a different direction. The fireplace directed all the smoke back and up the chimney.

She was also happy that she had a table to work on and to eat on. After she'd started a pot of beans cooking, she went back to the wagon and opened one of the boxes. When she came back, she had a small tablecloth that she spread on the table. Another trip to the wagon brought two plates, two forks, and two knives which she sat on the table.

By the time the beans were done, Eleanor had the rest of her hams hung from pegs beside the door, and the sacks of beans, cornmeal, flour, sugar, and salt were sitting on the shelves beside the fireplace.

She was looking at the bed against the east side when Jacob walked into the cabin. He thought he knew what she was thinking.

"Mrs. Watkins, I figured I'd sleep on the floor in front of the fire. You can sleep on the bed."

Eleanor smiled.

"Mr. Ridgley, I only have enough blankets for one bed. You can't sleep on a bare dirt floor. We slept side by side in my wagon. We are both old enough to know right from wrong. I see no reason why we can not share one bed.

"Now, our supper is ready. Tomorrow, I'll bake some cornbread to go with the ham and sweet potatoes I'm planning on fixing."

}|{

Sharing a bed with Eleanor had turned out to be easier than he'd thought it might. Arapaho wives slept beside their husbands, so after Jacob had seen an actual bed, he made his wide enough for two people. He had planned on sharing that bed with his wife when he found one. The only thing he had to do was tighten up the ropes so the straw mattress didn't sag so much in the middle.

The only real problem was how they were to get undressed before going to bed and how they were to get dressed again the next morning. There hadn't been enough room in the wagon to do that, so he and Eleanor had just slept in their clothes. Jacob had no idea how people got into bed if they lived in a cabin. His only frame of reference was how an Arapaho man and wife went to bed.

Neither wore any clothes to bed because it was cooler that way in summer and warmer in winter. Children went to bed the same way. Jacob had grown up thinking it was normal for people to sleep naked. He was pretty sure that Eleanor wouldn't think the same way. During his trips over the trail, he'd seen both men and women climb down from their wagon at night to relieve themselves. Both always wore a sort of dress that didn't fit tight but covered them from the neck to the feet.

Jacob was trying to think of a way to ask Eleanor what she wore to bed when she said she had to go outside for a little while once it got dark.

"Mr. Ridgley, I brought my lantern from the wagon so I can see my way in the dark. While I'm gone, you get into bed. When I come back inside, I'll put out my lantern and then change into my nightdress.

"In the morning, I'll need to go outside for a while again, so I'll wear my night dress and go out while you get dressed again. When I come back, you go outside so I can get dressed."

That first night had been a little tense on Jacob's part. A couple times Eleanor had touched him while she slept. By the third night, he just went to sleep and didn't know if she'd touched him or not.

Part of that reason was that Jacob was tired and he was tired because of something Eleanor had asked him.

One morning after he came back to the cabin and found her dressed and fixing breakfast, she looked at him and frowned.

"Mr. Ridgley, I got used to... well... taking care of things in the trees or tall grass when we were moving with the wagon train. Here... well..."

Jacob smiled.

"I understand. I was going to build one if I hadn't started guiding wagon trains. Let me see what I can do."

It took a day to dig the hole about twenty feet from the cabin, and another week to cut enough logs to build a tiny little outhouse over the hole. When he finished the outside and the roof, he made a split board floor and a split board seat with one hole, and finally a door hung on leather hinges.

When he showed it to Eleanor, she hugged him.

"It's almost like the one we had back in Jacksonville. I like it. I like it a lot."

}|{

The rest of Jacob's time was spent in cutting firewood for the winter. Winter came early in the valley and it lasted a long time. There was already a lot of split pine left over from when he'd left the cabin. Pine was good for starting a fire because it caught fire easily and burned hot. Pine wouldn't make a good cooking or heating fire though. Those fires required wood that would burn hot but slowly and would burn down to coals that would last the night if banked properly.

There were maples and hawthorn trees in the valley, and those are what Jacob looked for. Every day, he'd yoke one pair of oxen and drive them out to the trees. There were some maples and hawthorns there that had been blown over, so he used the axe from Eleanor's wagon to chop them into six-foot lengths. He'd have a few logs cut and dragged back to the woodpile by the oxen by noon.

Jacob would spend the afternoon chopping those logs into two-foot long pieces and then splitting the short logs into wedges that were small enough to catch fire easily. He always split a few thicker logs into two half logs. Those half logs would be put in the fireplace when the weather turned cold. They would burn all night and still have enough hot coals to light the pine kindling the next morning.

It had been hard at first because of his injuries, but the longer he worked those muscles the stronger they became. By the time he saw frost on the grass when he went outside to the outhouse, Jacob figured he had enough firewood to last the winter. He'd still cut more logs until the snow got too deep, but those would be live trees and live wood needed a year to dry out enough to burn well.

Eleanor spent her days making the cabin better. She'd brought a broom with her thinking there might not be any in Oregon. She used her broom to sweep the cobwebs from the walls and then sweep the floor. She washed the small windows on both the inside and outside and the cabin seemed to be brighter.

It took a while, but Eleanor started to realize that she was happier here in this little cabin than she'd been on her farm with William. She couldn't really understand why except that on their farm in Illinois, she'd done what William expected her to do. Her in the cabin, Jacob didn't seem to expect her to do anything so she was doing what she wanted to do just because she wanted to do it.

}|{

By the time of the first snowfall, both Eleanor and Jacob had become comfortable with their living arrangement. Neither looked upon the other as anything more than a friend who had helped a friend in need, but that bond of friendship was strong.

Eleanor was impressed by how much Jacob could do by himself. When she asked him how he could do that he just shrugged.

"Arapaho boys are brought up learning how to do anything a man needs to do. We learned to help each other, but we also learned how to do everything by ourselves."

Jacob was also impressed and not just because Eleanor was a good cook and a good housekeeper. He was impressed with her because she'd volunteered to help him do some of the work required to get ready for winter.

One of those things was laying in enough firewood to last the winter. When Eleanor saw Jacob wearing himself out by swinging an axe, she asked him if the bucksaw her husband had brought in the wagon wouldn't be faster.

Jacob said it probably would be faster and easier, but that a bucksaw needed two men to work it. Eleanor had smiled.

"It can't be all that hard to do. I watched William and his brother saw the poles for our cattle pen. I think I could do it."

Eleanor had helped Jacob saw the logs he brought back to the cabin and it was fast enough he was able to build a wood pile with more than enough splits of maple and hawthorn to last the winter. After that, they were able to saw and split the live trees he'd cut and stack them to dry for the next winter.

Eleanor had also surprised him when she asked how he took a bath and how he washed his clothes.

"Mr. Ridgley, I have not yet seen you bathe nor have I seen you wash your clothing. Surely the Arapaho people do both. I know I would enjoy feeling clean again after not bathing since I left Kansas City. How do the Arapaho do these things?"

Jacob had to think about what he was going to say because he was pretty sure Eleanor wouldn't agree.

"Well, you need to understand another thing about the Arapaho. They do take baths, especially the women and young children. Usually they wash themselves in a river or a stream. I wouldn't recommend you do that in the lake. Even in summer, the water's pretty cold."

"Do they just wade out together? That seems like it's inappropriate to me, seeing each other naked I mean. Aren't they embarrassed?"

Jacob smiled.

"No, they're not embarrassed. Young children who can walk don't wear any clothes until winter, and men and women wouldn't think anything about walking into a river with no clothes. No man would even think of looking at a woman and thinking anything about her. No woman would look at a man and have any thoughts about him either. Those thoughts are only between a man and his wife and then only in the privacy of their teepee."

Eleanor frowned.

"Well, that's not how I was raised. In my house, children were washed first in the same washtub the wife used to wash clothes. When the children were clean, she took her bath and the husband and children had to leave the house until she was done. After she finished, the husband bathed after everybody else and the wife and children were outside the house."

Jacob scratched his head then.

"I don't understand why. Doesn't a man see his wife without clothes? Doesn't a wife see her husband without clothes?"

"No, not usually. They both wear nightdresses to bed."

Jacob was still scratching his head.

"Then how can they... I mean don't those nightdresses get in the way?"

Eleanor didn't know how to explain it to Jacob except to tell him the truth.

"Mr. Ridgley, wives know what they're supposed to do and husbands know what they're supposed to do. When the husband wants to... well, when he feels like it, he'll let his wife know. She'll pull up her nightdress enough for him to do what he needs to do and he'll pull up his. That's always after it gets dark, so no, they don't see each other without at least something on."

Jacob chuckled.

"Arapaho wives and husbands know the same thing, but it sounds like white husbands and wives are missing out on a lot."

"What do you mean by missing out on a lot? The wife takes care of her husband's needs that way just like she takes care of his other needs. In return, he gives his wife children."

"The wife doesn't feel anything? You've been a wife. Is that all it was to you, just doing what your husband wanted to do and getting children in return? No Arapaho wife would ever settle for that. Arapaho wives want children, but when they're with their husband it's a lot more than just having the husband give them a child. It's how they show each other how much they care about each other by each giving and taking. That's how I was taught."

Eleanor had to think about that for a while. Yes, at first that's all it had been, but after the first few times, she'd started to feel more. She'd been taught that those feelings were something she shouldn't have had, but they were there nonetheless. She couldn't tell that to Jacob though.

"Well, I did feel good that I was doing something for my husband."

Jacob frowned.

"If he didn't make you feel more than that, he wasn't taught very well. An Arapaho man would never treat his wife like that. If he did, she'd make him leave her teepee, and the tribe would agree with her."

}|{

Eleanor thought about what Jacob had said while she went about her chores that day. Could it really be true that the Arapaho were naked in front of each other? Could it be true that Arapaho wives felt something when their husbands made babies with them? Was what she'd felt when William was with her the same thing?

As Eleanor went to the wagon to bring in the washtub she'd brought on the trip so she could wash clothes, and shook her head.

No, it couldn't be the same thing. It hadn't really been something she felt in her mind anyway. It was just a little tightening in her belly. William had finished before that tightening got any stronger, so she'd dismissed it at the time. Now though Eleanor wondered if it might have been the same if William hadn't finished so fast. She had no idea of what it would have turned into, but if Arapaho wives felt something maybe she could too.

She shook her head again.

Even if she could, there was no chance of that happening until she got to Oregon and found another husband. Eleanor asked Jacob to go outside until she told him he could come back, and then put a pot of water over the fire to heat. It wouldn't be enough water to take a full bath, but at least she would feel cleaner.

}|{

When the first snow came, it came hard. When Eleanor went to the outhouse that morning, there was enough snow on the ground that it covered her bare feet up to her ankles and the white flakes that sparkled in the early morning sunshine were still falling and adding to the white carpet that covered the ground and made white cloaks on the branches of the pines.

By the time Eleanor got back inside the cabin, the snow was another inch deep. Before, the bare ground had been cold, but she'd built up calluses on her feet from walking barefoot. Now that the snow covered her feet up to her ankles, her feet were freezing. She sat down in front of the fire to warm them up.

Jacob saw her and chuckled.

"Since it's winter, you need some moccasins to keep your feet warm."

Eleanor looked up.

"Well, I don't have any so I suppose I'll just be cold."

Jacob smiled.

"You get dressed and we'll make you a pair when I come back inside."

Eleanor stayed by the fire until her feet warmed up a little and then started changing clothes. After taking off her nightdress, she put on one of the simple dresses she'd brought. It wasn't a true dress in that it had a skirt with a drawstring for the waist and then a blouse that buttoned up the front and came down far enough to flare out over her hips and hide her waist.

Eleanor had stepped into the dress, tightened the waist and tied it, and had put on the blouse when Jacob came back inside. She turned to look at him and then realized her breasts were exposed.

She quickly turned so her back was to Jacob and buttoned up the blouse. When she turned back around, she was frowning. Jacob was smiling.

"I thought you said a woman never let a man see her naked. What changed your mind?"

Eleanor felt her face grow warm and knew she was blushing.

"I... well... I was cold and I thought you'd take longer outside. I wasn't naked either. Just the top of my blouse was open a little. I thought you said a man would never look at a naked women."

Jacob smiled.

"No, I didn't say a man would never look at a naked woman. I said a man would never look at a naked woman and have any thoughts about her."

"So, you're telling me that even though you saw my... even though you saw me, you didn't think anything about it?"

Jacob shrugged.

"I had some thoughts but they weren't what you're thinking of. I just thought that you were a good-looking woman. It doesn't matter anyway. We need to get you some moccasins made."

Jacob went to the box on the north wall, untied the leather thong that kept the lid closed, and then opened it.

"If the mice haven't gotten to them, I have a few deer hides that you can use. Ah, here they are and they look all right."

Jacob took one of the hides to the fire and spread it out on the stone floor in front of the fireplace. Then he motioned to Eleanor to come closer.

"Come put your feet right here. This is the thickest part of the hide so we'll use it to make the bottoms of the moccasins."

When Eleanor stepped on the hide, Jacob found a small piece of kindling and put the end in the coals. When it began to burn, he blew out the flame.

"Mrs. Watkins, lift up your dress so I can draw around your feet."

Eleanor reached down and lifted her skirt a few inches, and then another few inches when Jacob said, "More than that."

It tickled when Jacob used the stick to draw a line around each of her feet, but there was something else there too. He'd put his left hand on her foot to hold it still. His rough hand on her foot cause a little tingle to race up her leg. That same tingling feeling happened when he traced the outline of her other foot. Eleanor couldn't remember ever having that same feeling with William, but she didn't remember William ever touching her feet either.

Jacob leaned back then.

"I always use my knife to cut out the pieces, but I think your scissors will work better. Just cut around the lines and leave about a finger's width between the line and where you cut."

When Eleanor had cut out both pieces, Jacob slit the remaining hide down the middle and then said he'd have to help her measure for the tops.

"You'll need winter moccasins that come up to your knees. I'll have to help you measure how much you need. Put your weight on your right foot and lift your dress up to your knees."

Eleanor shook her head.

"I can't let you see my legs."

Jacob frowned.

"If you don't make leggings on your moccasins, your legs will freeze. All I'm going to do is wrap the hide around your legs and mark where you need to cut it. I can't do that unless I can see your legs."

Eleanor took a deep breath and lifted her skirt up to her knees. Jacob didn't really look at her legs. He just put one end of the side of leather about half an inch past her toes and then began shaping it around her foot. When it closed at her heel, he made a mark on each side and then began forming it around her leg. Every so often, he'd stop and make a mark on both sides. When he got to her knees, Jacob made another two marks.

When he pulled the hide from her legs and turned it over, Eleanor saw the marks. Jacob carefully connected the marks with the end of the charred stick and then leaned back.

"Just cut out along the lines I drew like you did for the bottom. I won't have to do your other leg because it will be the same size. After you cut out the first one, use it to cut out the second."

Eleanor's hands were shaking a little as she cut out the shape. She was shaking because of the feelings Jacob's hands on her legs had caused. It wasn't like any feeling she'd ever had before and she'd felt it all the way from her legs to her belly. It wasn't a bad feeling. It was a feeling that was making her want his hands on her leg and that surprised her.

Her mother had never told her about a woman feeling anything when a man touched her. Eleanor hadn't any time her father touched her. That was just her father touching her to make a point or to make her feel better about something.

William had never done much touching to her body except when he knelt between her thighs. He'd never given her that tingling feeling that made her wish Jacob would have had to measure her other leg.

When she'd cut out both pieces, Jacob showed her how to sew the legging to the foot.

rJust use you biggest needle and sew up the seam like you would if you were making a dress. Heavy thread would work best, but if all you have is fine thread just put three through the needle.

"After you get the foot sewed to the legging, sew the legging up the back. Once you get that done, turn the moccasin inside out and you'll have a moccasin that will keep you warm."

Sewing the leather wasn't as easy as sewing cloth, but Eleanor managed. While she sewed, she asked Jacob how he learned to make moccasins.

"Don't Arapaho women make clothes for their family like white women do?"

"Yes, but when I left the village I had to make my own. I grew up watching my Arapaho mother make moccasins, so I knew how. I made my own shirt and trousers too."

Eleanor pulled the thread tight at the last stitch before she started sewing up the back.

"You keep talking about your Arapaho father and Arapaho mother. Don't you remember your real mother and father?"

"Yes, a little, but only just little flashes of what they looked like. It was my Arapaho father who taught me to be a man and my Arapaho mother to taught me about what a woman looks for in a man."

Eleanor sewed a few inches up the back of the legging and then stopped to tie off that thread and start a new one. When she had her needle threaded, she looked up at Jacob.

"So, what does an Arapaho woman look for in a man?"

"Well, she looks for a man who is strong and brave, a man who will hunt meat for her and her children, and who will protect them from danger.

"What does an Arapaho man look for in a woman?"

Jacob smiled.

"Well, it doesn't hurt if she's pretty, but what he looks for is a woman who will be a good wife, keep the teepee clean, cook food, and have his children."

Eleanor frowned.

"So that's how they decide to get married? The man finds the woman he wants and the woman thinks he's the man she wants?"

Jacob shook his head.

"No, it doesn't work that way. The way it works is the fathers of the girl and boy will get together and agree to the marriage. Both the girl and the boy will go along with their decision because both families will get gifts from each other."

Eleanor was confused.

"But you said an Arapaho man would always make sure his wife felt something when they... when they were together in bed. If they don't like each other, how can that possibly happen?"

"Well, you have to understand how the Arapaho have lived for generations. Marriages have always been arranged between parents. They wouldn't arrange a marriage between two people who didn't like each other. What they'd do is watch for the signs that the two at least like each other, like the girl smiling at the boy or the boy trying to act like a man when the girl is around. Most Arapaho couples are happy with the arrangement."

Eleanor smiled.

"Didn't the Arapaho girls smile at you? You look pretty strong and brave to me."

Jacob frowned and shook his head.

"I was accepted by the tribe because I was a good hunter and warrior, but I wasn't Arapaho. No Arapaho father would want his daughter to marry a white man. That's one of the reasons I left the tribe.

"The other reason is that white settlers were starting to farm on the edges of Arapaho hunting grounds. The village talk was that since I was white, I'd be helping more settlers run the Arapaho off their hunting grounds. I thought too much of my Arapaho father to make him go through that, so I left and came here."

Jacob went to check on the oxen and to bring in a bucket of water. Eleanor finished sewing one moccasin and started on the second. The second didn't take as long and when Jacob came back, she was turning the second moccasin inside out.

Jacob smiled when she pulled up her skirt and slipped her foot and leg into the moccasin.

"Feels warmer, doesn't it?"

"I'll tell you when I can stand up."

Eleanor turned to other moccasin and then put it on. When she stood up, she smiled.

"Yes, I am warmer. They feel kind of funny though. It feels like I'm still barefoot."

Jacob nodded.

"That's why I wear moccasins instead of boots. Moccasins let you feel what you're walking on. Boots don't."

He chuckled then.

"All you need now is an Arapaho dress and to put your hair into one braid on each side of your face and you'll look like an Arapaho girl. You might want to think about making a buckskin dress. Buckskin doesn't let the wind blow through like cloth does, so you'll be warmer when it gets really cold outside."

Eleanor smiled.

"I suppose you know how to make a buckskin dress too."

"Yes I do, and they're easier than moccasins. I have a couple more deer hides if you want to try."

}|{

As the weeks went by, the temperature got colder and the snow in the valley got deeper. That limited what Eleanor and Jacob could do, so they stayed inside most of the time.

Once a day, Jacob would check on the oxen. He'd take a bucket with him and after making sure the hole he'd broken in the ice on the lake was still open, he'd bring the bucket back full of water. He also made sure the short path to the outhouse wasn't showed shut and he brought in enough wood to last at least a day.

Jacob also went hunting. When he told Eleanor he was going to kill a deer so they'd have meat other than bacon and ham, she asked him how he was going to do that since he didn't have a rifle.

Jacob pointed to a bundle wrapped in leather and hanging from a ceiling beam.

"The Arapaho didn't always have rifles. I grew up learning how to make a bow and arrows and how to shoot them. I still have my bow and in some ways it's better than a rifle. I can't kill a deer as far away as I can with a rifle, but I can shoot five arrows in the same time it takes to shoot a rifle once and then reload it."

Jacob had brought back a deer that day, and continued to hunt once a week. After that, Eleanor used the venison like she would have used beef and they had venison roasts and stews for every meal.

Eleanor kept the fire burning in the fireplace so the cabin was relatively warm. She was warm enough if she was doing something, and if she had to go outside, she wore the one coat she'd brought. She still had William's coat, so when it got really cold, she'd put them both on.

Jacob didn't need a coat because he already had one made from a buffalo hide. Eleanor tried it on once and decided it was warmer than both her coats put together, but weighed a lot more.

Because they had little to do, Jacob began teaching the Arapaho language to Eleanor. She found it difficult to make some of the sounds, but learned to understand when Jacob spoke to her in Arapaho. When Eleanor had learned enough to communicate a little, they often went for days only speaking Arapaho.

Eleanor did make a buckskin dress, and just as Jacob had said, it was warmer and more comfortable then her cloth dresses. It was softer against her skin, and didn't let air through if there was a breeze. She began wearing it instead of her cloth dresses.

}|{

Little by little, though without much thought on her part, Eleanor began to love living in the little cabin in the valley. Jacob was always there if she needed him for something, but he never got in her way when she didn't need help. He also never said anything about how she did things other than to tell her how an Arapaho woman would have done the same thing if she asked him.

It was one day when she was making another venison stew that she realized why she was so happy. She was happy because she was free, free of everything that white society expected of a woman, and free of the looks of other women when she did something they didn't approve of. She was also free of what most men would consider the proper role of a woman.

If she wanted to stay in bed beside Jacob because the cabin was cold, he didn't tell her it was time she got up an made breakfast. He'd just smile and say they could eat when they got hungry. If she served the same venison stew for three days in a row, Jacob never complained. He'd always tell her she made venison stew as good as his Arapaho mother had made.

She began to wonder if all Arapaho men were like Jacob, or if he was different because he'd been raised as an Arapaho but was white. She'd always heard that Indian men treated their wives as slaves, but Jacob had never done anything like that. If anything, he'd always treated her better than William had.

One afternoon, she asked Jacob about that.

"Mr. Ridgley, do all Arapaho men treat their wives like you treat me?"

Jacob wasn't sure what she was asking.

"I don't know what you mean. We aren't man and wife, but if you were my wife I wouldn't treat you any differently than I do now."

"What I mean is you never tell me to do anything. William used to tell me what to do all the time. I thought that's just how men were, but you aren't."

Jacob put down the knife he'd been sharpening so it would be ready the next time he killed a deer.

"I'm the way I am because of how I was raised. The Arapaho have set things that men do and set things that women do. Men hunt, keep others off their hunting grounds, and protect women and children. Women make teepees, make clothes, cook meals, keep the teepee clean and neat, and have a man's children.

"No Arapaho man would ever tell his wife she did something wrong, and no Arapaho wife would ever tell her husband he'd done something wrong. Women decide how they do things and men decide how they do things. Neither interferes with the other. It's been that way for as long as anybody can remember."

"But if I need help doing something, you always help me. William wouldn't usually do that."

Jacob chuckled.

"There's an old Arapaho saying that a happy wife makes for a warm bed. An Arapaho husband would never tell his wife how to do anything, but if she needed his help, he'd be more than willing to help her to keep her happy.

"He wouldn't brag about doing it either because bragging would make him less of a man to the rest of the men in the tribe. That wouldn't be because he'd helped his wife because all husbands do that. It would be because men are not suppose to brag about what they do. What they do and how they do it are what makes them men in other men's eyes.

"I don't think you're like most white women either. When I needed your help to make me well after that bear almost killed me, I didn't ask you to do that. You just did. When I was chopping logs for firewood, you got your saw and helped me do that. An Arapaho wife would have done the same if she saw her husband needed her help."

}|{

That night as she lay in bed beside Jacob and listening to his deep breathing, she thought about that conversation. Indians, at least the Arapaho, weren't the savages she'd been taught they were. They were just people who it seemed to her were more caring than a lot of white people she knew.

Her thoughts then drifted to what she'd find once she got to Oregon. When she'd decided to stay with Jacob, her thought had been that once she got to Oregon, she'd find another husband and claim her hundred and sixty acres of land. They'd build a house and start farming and a family.

When Eleanor thought about it that night, she felt a little like a half-witted teenage girl. What she'd done was assume a lot of things because she'd been too stubborn to leave Jacob to die.

Now, she wondered if she could make it work out that way. As William had explained it to her, a woman could only get that hundred and sixty acres if she was married, so she'd have to find a husband first.

What would she do while she was looking? More importantly, how long would it take to find a man she felt safe with and a man she could trust who wanted to marry her?

She knew no one in Oregon, so staying with friends or family wouldn't be possible. As far as she knew, the Willamette valley was just farms with just a small town. Would there be a hotel, and if there was, how much would it cost? She'd planned on selling her oxen and the wagon so she'd have some money, but there were probably hundreds of oxen for sale so she wouldn't get much.

After that money ran out, how would she support herself?

Eleanor finally fell asleep after telling herself that things had worked out so far, and if she worked hard enough, they'd work out again.

}|{

That winter passed slowly in terms of days, weeks, and months, but quickly in Eleanor's mind. She stayed busy all day, every day, with either cooking, keeping the fire going, or learning Arapaho with Jacob. She didn't really realize that spring was in the air until she saw icicles forming on the roof of the outhouse.

It was a week after that day when Eleanor heard a horse neigh. That wasn't possible unless they had visitors. She turned to Jacob, but he was already standing with his bow in one hand and three arrows in the other.

"Mrs. Watkins, you stay here while I go see who's out there."

Eleanor watched through a window as Jacob walked up to a man on horseback. He was dressed in buckskin clothes with a lot of beaded decorations and had a few feathers in his hair.

She couldn't hear what they were saying, but both men were smiling. After they talked for a while, the man dismounted, tied his horse to the fence behind the cabin, and then followed Jacob through the door.

Eleanor was terrified at first, but Jacob smiled.

"Mrs. Watkins, this is Chief Little Fawn, my Arapaho father. He doesn't speak much English, so I'll translate what he says."

Jacob turned to Chief Little Fawn then and pointed to Eleanor.

Eleanor heard a stream of Arapaho words but they were spoken so fast she only caught bits and pieces.

Chief Little Fawn had smiled and walked up to her, put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently while saying something.

Jacob interpreted.

"He says you are a pretty woman and a good wife for his son. He wishes you many children and a long life."

Eleanor wasn't sure what she should do. Apparently Jacob had told Chief Little Fawn that she was Jacob's wife. She had no idea why Jacob would do such a thing, but she could do what any wife would do when welcoming a visitor.

"Tell him you have told me many good things about him and Ihat I am not so pretty as he says. Then tell him I have a fresh venison stew in the pot and tell him I want him to stay for supper."

Jacob translated and when he finished, Chief Little Fawn smiled and shook his head. Then he said a few more words to her in Arapaho. Eleanor caught the words that meant "Thank you."

Jacob translated the rest.

"My father says you are a good wife to offer him food, but he must return to his village. It is spring on the flat lands and they are following the buffalo north. He also said that it is good that you say you are not as pretty as he thinks. A good woman would not say that she is pretty because she would not need to. Other people can see it for themselves."

Chief Little Fawn offered his hand to Jacob then. Jacob took it but they didn't shake hands. It was just the gesture of a father to his son to say he loved him.

When Eleanor saw that, she asked Jacob if she should do the same. Jacob quietly said no. Eleanor frowned then.

"I'm not going to let your father walk out of my house without knowing how I feel about him. I don't care if it's right or not."

With that, Eleanor held out her arms, embraced Chief Little Fawn, and then smiled and said, "Chief Little Fawn, you are welcome in our cabin any time you want to come."

Chief Little Fawn didn't say anything when Eleanor stepped back. He just turned and walked out the door. After Eleanor watched him ride back down the trail, she asked Jacob how Chief Little Fawn had found them.

Jacob smiled.

"When I left the village I told him where I was going to go. He just came to see how I'd turned out. I think he was happy."

"He seemed happy when you told him I was your wife. We're not married. Why would you lie to him?"

Jacob looked at the floor.

"He wouldn't have understood why you were living with me unless we were married. Arapaho couples never live together before they're married. They may sneak off together once the marriage is arranged, but they don't live in the same teepee. I just wanted him to think I was doing the things he taught me."

"He didn't do anything when I gave him a hug. Did I do wrong by doing that?"

Jacob smiled.

"Well, it's probably the only time in his life that any woman other than his mother or his wife or his daughter hugged him, but he was smiling. I think he liked it."

}|{

As the days went by, the temperatures got warmer and the snow began to melt. Jacob knew Eleanor would want to start for Oregon again as soon as they could, so he spent some time checking the wagon and the yokes for the oxen. He also started teaching Eleanor how to cure the six deer hides that had been frozen all winter.

After soaking the hides in the lake to make the hair easier to scrape off, he stretched the hides on pole frames and showed Eleanor how to scrape them to remove the hair and any fat or tissue that remained after he'd skinned the deer.

Eleanor was good with scraping the fat and other tissue from the hides. She was a little squeamish when Jacob broke open the skulls he'd saved and removed the deer brains.

"One deer brain will tan one deer hide. It's a little messy, but once the hide is tanned and smoked, you'll have enough to make more moccasins and dresses."

It was the day that Jacob sat the frames over a low, smoky fire that Eleanor asked him a question, a question that had been in her mind since Chief Little Fawn had paid them a visit. For a while, she couldn't bring herself to admit the reason for her question, but finally, she had to.

"Mr. Ridgley, what will you do after we get to Oregon?"

Jacob shrugged.

"Go back to Kansas City and guide another wagon train I suppose. I'll have to buy another horse, saddle, and rifle, but the wagon master still owes me some money from your wagon train."

"Aren't you happy here? You seemed to be happy over the winter."

"Well, this is a nice place, but ... well, when you get used to having other people around, it can get pretty lonely."

Eleanor couldn't look at Jacob so she looked at her hands.

"You could find a wife to live here with you. Then you wouldn't be lonely."

Jacob chuckled.

"I already told you that I can't marry an Arapaho woman. What white woman in her right mind would ever want to live this far away from everything?"

Eleanor did look at Jacob then.

"I... if you'd have me, I would."

Jacob stared at Eleanor in disbelief.

"I thought you wanted to go on to Oregon, get your land, find another husband, and then start a family."

Eleanor nodded.

"That is what I thought I wanted."

"And now you don't? What happened?"

Eleanor felt a tear stream down her cheek.

"I've been thinking that going to Oregon isn't going to be like I thought. I won't know anybody there and I won't have a place to live and..."

Eleanor looked up at Jacob then.

"... and I won't have you."

}|{

Jacob just stood there looking at Eleanor. He'd decided when he left the Arapaho that he was destined to live his life alone. When he'd helped that first wagon train, he'd thought that maybe he could settle down somewhere with a wife and farm like most white men.

The problem he'd had with that way of thinking was that he had no idea about how to farm anything. The land in Oregon was free and he could build a cabin, but he wouldn't have any idea about what to raise and how to raise it.

There was another problem that he'd discovered on that first wagon train and had been confirmed on the others. The men on the wagon train respected him for what he could do, but they were careful to not become too friendly. The women were all polite to him, but he could see the distrust in their eyes and in the way they spoke to him. The reason was how he looked. He wore buckskins and the settlers wore cotton or wool. He wore moccasins. They wore boots.

He realized early on that to them, he must have appeared to be some sort of savage who didn't fit into their mold of what a white man should be. He'd never find a woman who could get past all that and see him for what he really was.

He'd believed Eleanor when she said staying in his cabin over the winter seemed like to only chance she had of getting to Oregon. He'd grown accustomed to her even though he knew she'd leave him as soon as he got her to the Willamette Valley.

That had changed a little when she hadn't corrected him when he told Chief Little Fawn that she was his wife. That could have just been her being polite, but when she'd hugged the man it couldn't have just been her being polite. White women didn't hug men they'd just met and especially not if that man was an Indian.

Now, things had changed again. Eleanor had just told him she'd stay with him as his wife if he'd have her. She hadn't asked if he wanted her for a wife. She'd left him a way out by the words, "if you'd have me."

Would he have her for his wife? When Jacob thought about the last few months, he realized that except for one thing, Eleanor had been acting like he'd seen Chief Little Fawn's wife act around him. When he thought some more, he realized he'd been acting like a husband as well. He hadn't intended for it to turn out that way. It just had.

When he was old enough to marry, the other young men of the tribe had talked about this girl or that and whether they would make a good wife or not. Most of that was just talk, but he remembered hearing one say he knew this girl would be his wife one day. Jacob had asked him how he could be so sure. The man smiled and said he didn't know except that to him, she was different from all the rest.

Was that it? Did he see Eleanor as different from all the giggling Arapaho girls and different from all the white women and girls on the wagon trains?

He put his hand on Eleanor's shoulder.

"Is this something you really want? Don't tell me it is and then change your mind when we get to Oregon."

Eleanor wiped the tears from her cheek and then chuckled.

"Haven't you known me long enough to know I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it?"

Her smile stopped then.

"What matters most to me is if this is something you want too. I won't force myself on a man like that no matter how much I want it."

Jacob put his arms around Eleanor and smiled.

"I'd be very happy to have you as my wife."

Eleanor hugged Jacob and smiled back.

"I seem to remember you telling me that there are some thoughts that a husband and wife only have in private. I think I'm having those thoughts right now and there's nobody else around. Are you having the same thoughts? I hope you are."

Jacob frowned,

"But we haven't been married so we're not really man and wife yet."

Eleanor smiled again.

"I was married once by a real preacher in a real church. The way it turned out wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I don't need to say those words in front of another preacher. I just need to say them to you.

"Mr. Ridgley, I promise to be the best wife I know how to be and to keep your house and to have your babies."

Jacob thought for a second. He'd been taught that the Great Spirit watched over all things, and that everywhere was the place where the Great Spirit lived. If there was ever a place meant for two people to promise each other to live together as man and wife, this little valley with its white capped pines, calm lake, and towering mountains was it.

"Mrs. Watkins, I promise to protect you from everything and to hunt for you and to give you babies."

Eleanor grinned.

"You're supposed to kiss me now."

After Jacob kissed Eleanor, he smiled.

"Well now that we're married, could you start calling me Jacob and let me start calling you Eleanor?"

Eleanor grinned.

"You can call me anything you want as long as you say I'm your wife."

}|{

The next morning Jacob woke up with Eleanor's bare breasts against his side and her thigh over his. She was still asleep, so Jacob didn't move. He just remembered.

After they ate supper the night before and after Eleanor had been to the outhouse, Jacob went to the outhouse so Eleanor could put on her nightdress. When he came back, she was still dressed. He asked her if he needed to go outside again and she'd just smiled.

"You told me Arapaho people sleep with no clothes on. Since I'm your wife now I don't think I need that nightdress anymore. You take off your clothes and then I'll take off mine."

Eleanor had looked a little nervous when she undressed, but she still did. Jacob watched her until she stood naked in the dimming light coming through the windows.

He already knew she was a pretty woman. He didn't know that she would affect him like she had.

Eleanor didn't seem to notice. She just pulled back the blankets and got into bed. When he hesitated, she chuckled.

"Have I scared you that much?"

It had been like he'd been taught, but his father had left out some things that seemed very important. It hadn't been just Jacob relieving his desires. It was both of them showing each other that they belonged together.

Eleanor woke up then, stretched, and then smiled.

"My mother never told me it could be like this. Is this how all Arapaho wives feel afterwards?"

Jacob grinned.

"I don't know. I've never had an Arapaho wife."

Eleanor rolled a little closer.

"Well, this wife feels like she's never felt before in her life. Make me feel this way again."

}|{

As soon as Jacob figured the passes would be open, he yoked the oxen and hitched them to the wagon while Eleanor put what was left of her food and her cooking things back in the boxes in the wagon. They were going to follow the trail to Oregon, but they weren't going to stay. Jacob wanted to get his horse and rifle back. Eleanor wanted to buy a few things and to do that; she needed to sell her oxen and wagon.

Two months later, Jacob stopped the wagon in front of a building with a sign that read, "Land Claim Office." He and Eleanor went inside.

Eleanor asked if a Mr. Winings had filed a claim. The clerk said he had and gave her directions to the farm.

When they walked out of the claim office, they met the wagon master walking down the street and carrying a sack from the general store. He took one look at them and blanched a very pale shade of white.

"Jacob... Jacob Ridgley?"

The look on Jacob's face was stern and his voice was level.

"Yes, I'm Jacob Ridgley, the man you left for dead. As you can see, I didn't die."

The wagon master started to apologize.

"Jacob, I'm sorry I had to do that, but --"

Jacob cut him off.

"I know why you did what you did and I don't hold that against you. All I want is my pay for making half the trip, and my horse and rifle back."

The wagon master rode with them to the Winings farm, and went to talk to Mr. Winings. He came back leading a saddled horse.

"Mr. Winings didn't want to face you, but he asked me to apologize for taking your horse. He never rode him and he fed him all winter so he's in good shape.

"We'll have to go see Mr. James for your rifle. I don't know that he still has it. He opened a general store in town and he sells guns, so if he doesn't, maybe he'll give you one he has."

The wagon master looked at Eleanor then.

"Ma'am you must have worked a miracle to get Jacob well again. You deserve to get your milk cow back. The Johnsons have her, but I'll explain things to them."

Eleanor shook her head.

"I don't need a milk cow. What I need is to sell my oxen and my wagon and to buy two more horses. I want one with a saddle and a bridle and one with a pack saddle."

"Well, Mr. James can probably help you there too."

}|{

Mr. James' jaw fell open when Jacob and Eleanor walked in the door of his stall.

"Jacob... you're still alive, and Eleanor... I figured you would have either starved to death or froze to death."

He regained his composure a little then, but his voice was still shaky.

"It's nice to see you again. It looks like you did all right over the winter. What can I do for you today?"

Jacob didn't have time for small talk.

"Eleanor says you got the Hawken rifle I was carrying. I want it back with five pounds of gunpowder, ten pounds of lead, two hundred caps, and the bullet mold that was in my saddlebag."

Mr. James swallowed hard.

"Mr. Ridgley, I don't have that rifle anymore. I sold it to a man who was going to Montana territory to trap beaver."

He paused then and smiled a fake smile.

"I do happen to have another Hawken rifle. She's a fifty-four caliber and I bought her for forty dollars from a man who gave up trapping for a plot here in the valley. I can let you have her for say... ten dollars. I've been asking fifty because the rifle is almost brand new, but since I'm replacing your old one, I'll give her to you for ten."

Before Jacob could say anything, Eleanor stepped between him and Mr. James, and her voice sounded angry.

"Mr. James, you only got Jacob's rifle because some people assumed he was going to die. You were one of the people who brought Jacob back so you knew how badly he was hurt. When you could have stood up to the wagon master all you did was leave Jacob and me by ourselves.

"You were counting on him dying and thought I'd die too. We didn't. I'm sure you made a profit on a rifle you got for nothing. I'm also pretty sure you only paid ten for the rifle you want to sell for fifty. You're just trying to make more money from a man and a woman you abandoned. I wonder what the rest of the town would think if I told a few of the women in town what you did when you left Jacob and me on the trail?"

Mr. James swallowed hard again.

"Well, when you put it that way... Mr. Ridgley, if I give you the rifle and the powder and lead and caps... Oh, and I sold that bullet mold too but it won't do you any good with this rifle. If I add a new bullet mold for this rifle, will that do to call us square?"

Eleanor again spoke before Jacob could.

"I need a few other things too, but we'll pay for them. I need seeds for corn, beans, carrots, onions, and some potato eyes... Oh, and some squash seeds if you have any."

"Well, I have the seeds, but you'll have to take potatoes and cut the eyes out yourself. How many will you be needing?"

Eleanor smiled then.

"I need a pound of seed for corn, half a pound of bean seed, two ounces of carrot and onion seed, and five pounds of potatoes."

Mr. James wrote something on a paper, then looked up and smiled.

"That'll be five dollars, Ma'am."

Jacob took a five dollar gold piece from the pouch on his belt after Mr. James had put all her seeds and the potatoes in paper sacks.

Mr. James put the coin in his cash box, and then measured out the gunpowder and lead and put each in tightly woven cotton bags. After putting two tins of caps and the bullet mold on the counter, he said, "Will that be all for you folks?"

Jacob smiled.

"Would you be interested in buying four oxen, the yokes, and a wagon? Eleanor here wants to sell hers."

Mr. James shook his head.

"We have a lot of wagons around here for sale. I can give you twenty for the wagon if it's in good shape. You'll have to see Mr. Breedlove down at the livery stable about your oxen."

}|{

It was late afternoon when Jacob and Eleanor rode out of town. They'd traded four oxen for two horses, one with an almost new saddle and bridle, and another with a well-used packsaddle and two panniers.

In those panniers were the gunpowder, lead and caps for the Hawken along with the seeds and potatoes Eleanor had bought. Once she'd traded the oxen for the horses, she'd also gone back to the general store and bought two sides of bacon, a hundred pounds of potatoes, and fifty pounds each of corn meal, flour, sugar and salt.

With the seeds, she'd plant a garden beside the cabin, a garden that would furnish fresh vegetables through the summer with enough to preserve for winter.

As she rode the chestnut mare with a white star and four white feet, Eleanor was thinking she'd made the best decision of her life when she decided to stay with Jacob. She'd had some second thoughts once they got to the town, but Mr. James had put those thoughts to rest. He'd treated her and Jacob as if they were too dumb to understand what he was trying to do.

She was also sure Mr. Breedlove hadn't lost any money by trading two horses for four oxen, but by then she was past arguing about anything. She just wanted to go home to the little cabin in the mountain valley and beside a lake.

}|{

Eleanor and Jacob lived in the little cabin for another year before Eleanor gave birth to Samuel, the first of three boys and two girls she gave Jacob. Jacob added two more rooms to the cabin over the years. Their income was the deer hides from the deer Jacob killed and from a few fisher and martin hides he trapped. Everything else they needed came from the lake and the forests. When each boy turned five, Jacob took some hides to the new town of South Pass City and traded them for a horse, saddle, and bridle.

Eleanor kept expanding her garden as there were more mouths to feed. She was happiest showing her daughters the things girls needed to know in order to become what she called "proper ladies." She often reflected that her own mother would not have considered what she taught her girls to be exactly proper, but it was what Eleanor considered to be proper.

As time went on, things in that part of Wyoming were changing. Gold was discovered in South Pass, and the gold brought many people to the area. For a while, those people were concentrated in a few mining towns. The Arapaho and Shoshone who shared the hunting grounds weren't too concerned at first. When the miner's began shooting any Indians they saw, the Arapaho and Shoshone fought back. The US Cavalry established a fort to control the Indians and this just resulted in more bloodshed without solving the problem.

That problem became worse when people discovered that while that area of Wyoming wasn't good farm land, it would graze cattle just like it had served as a grazing ground for the buffalo for centuries. The result was many of the buffalo either being killed or just moving around the area. That meant the Arapaho and Shoshone had to travel outside of their old hunting grounds to survive.

That led to confrontations with the Crow who had for ages used the Wind River Valley as a hunting ground. More fighting broke out, this time between the Shoshone and the Crow. That small war was finally settled and the Crow gave up the Wind River Valley. It became both a wintering encampment and a path to the buffalo hunting grounds.

None of that bothered Eleanor and Jacob and their family. The war did bother Chief Little Fawn and his wife. Chief Running Fawn was too old by then to go on war parties. He and his wife moved their teepee to the valley by the lake to stay out of the conflict he was sure the Arapaho would lose.

In time, all the unrest had been put to bed when the Fort Bridger Treaty Council designated the Wind River Valley as a reservation for the Shoshone. In a later court case, the Arapaho were given part of that land. Chief Little Fawn didn't want to move to the reservation so he and his wife, Small Dove, stayed in their teepee beside Eleanor's and Jacob's cabin.

Both Eleanor and Jacob were happy to have Chief Little Fawn and his wife living with them. Chief Little Fawn had time to teach his grandsons what all Arapaho boys should know. Small Dove taught her granddaughters how Arapaho girls were supposed to act. Later in their lives, both the boys and girls related how there was little difference in what they learned from their parents and what they learned from Chief Little Fawn and Small Dove.

}|{

Time's unstoppable march forward always changes things. Some changes are good and some, not so good. Both Jacob and Eleanor realized that life in the little cabin wasn't a life that their children would be able to live. The loss of the buffalo because of hunting by the US government had had the desired outcome. The formerly nomadic plains tribes had been driven onto the reservations. Their hunting grounds were empty of buffalo and were now cattle ranches and a few small towns. Later discoveries of minerals threatened the mountains.

Jacob encouraged his sons to leave the valley and find jobs. They became cowhands on the ranches at first, and later started their own ranches. Eleanor told her daughters that a woman's place was beside a special man, a man who they would know was that special man if they were careful to know him for a while. One of her daughters married a rancher. The other married a blacksmith in South Pass City. It broke Eleanor's heart to lose her family, but she understood they'd made the right decision, just like she'd made the right decision to stay with Jacob all those years ago. She also knew it would take a strong man to live with her daughters because they were so much like her.

}|{

The little cabin is gone now as is the teepee. Once Chief Little Fawn went to be with the Great Spirit, Small Dove moved into the house. She was warmer in the house in winter and it was easier for Eleanor to take care of her in her declining years.

Small Dove went to be with her husband five years later. That left Eleanor and Jacob the same as they were all those years ago.

If you'd known them before, you'd see they weren't actually the same. The scars on Jacob's chest and arms were now just faint lines and one had to look hard to find where Eleanor had stitched those cuts back together. Jacob also had lost much of his hair. Eleanor's cooking had given him the pounds she'd always said he needed.

Eleanor wasn't the slim young girl who had nursed Jacob back to health, learned to love him, and then pledged to stay with him forever. She was a little rounder in some places and her hair was shot through with streaks of white. Instead of the dresses she'd worn while walking beside her wagon and driving her oxen, she usually wore a buckskin dress. Every night, she took off everything and slept naked beside Jacob.

Jacob kept the cabin repaired until he passed, and after that, Eleanor's sons would make the trip to the cabin at least every month. They made sure the cabin was still sound and that her woodpile was always full of wood for cooking and heating through the winter. At harvest time, her whole family would be there to help her bring in and store the vegetables she raised in her garden.

}|{

When Eleanor went to be with Jacob, the family didn't abandon the cabin. It became a weekend retreat for fishing the lake in summer and hunting deer in winter. It finally fell down after a very heavy snow one winter and was never rebuilt.

Today's generation of Ridgley's and their kin still hunt the woods and fish the lake, but they stay in tents they bring up the mountain on packhorses. The pole fence Jacob built has been replaced by woven wire so the horses have a place to stay on those camping trips.

Also to be seen are four rough-hewn weathered boards stuck upright in the rocky soil near where Jacob had built his fence. They mark the resting-places of Chief Little Fawn, Small Dove, Jacob, and Eleanor. Jacob laid his Arapaho mother and father there so they would live on in the land they knew as their hunting grounds.

Eleanor laid Jacob to rest beside them because she said she couldn't separate him from the only mother and father he'd ever known. Eleanor's children couldn't bring themselves to separate their mother from their father, so they buried her beside Jacob.

Subsequent generations didn't follow suit. As their oldest son Samuel said, the valley was a refuge for his parents and it kept them alive so they could have a family together. He said they should keep the valley just as it was then, a refuge for four people who found happiness in the wilds of nature and living with what they had.

Today, the valley is a popular camping spot for the latest generations of Ridgleys and the other families related by marriage. There's a small dock now where the oxen used to walk down for water, and two aluminum canoes are turned upside down on a wood rack for when someone wants to fish for a few hours. The woodpile has become sort of a fire circle where the campers sit on logs and tell stories about Jacob and Eleanor to the children.

All of the kids really believe the stories. They believe because they've all been to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody. In that museum are several things they've heard about since they were old enough to listen and understand.

One is one of the twelve buffalo hides that made up the covering of Small Dove's teepee. They know Small dove painted those designs because that's what the printed explanation says.

The other is a picture taken in 1866 by a photographer documenting the expansion of the West by both the Oregon Trail and the railroads. It's part of a series of pictures the photographer had taken in the area. He'd asked in South Crossing if there were any original settlers still living in the area. The owner of the general store told him how to get to the valley.

The black and white picture is in a sealed glass case now, and shows a tiny little log cabin with a teepee beside it. In the background are the stately pines and the mirror surface of a lake surrounded by the white capped mountains. There is snow on the ground, but not deep because the picture was taken in early spring.

In the center of the picture are Jacob and Eleanor and Chief Little Fawn and Small Dove. In front of them are Jacob and Eleanor's children. All are wearing buckskin clothing.

The caption on the explanation under the picture reads "Wintering Over in Wyoming Territory - 1866"