could be spared. But there are exceptions to every rule, and the Little Doctor, watching her opportunity, managed with the aid of Scotty to stow away the long-secreted spinning-wheel and baby's cradle which had been Mrs. Ranger's property.
"If we can complete our journey at all, we can carry these things," the Little Doctor said to Jean* "We are getting near the Columbia River, as we can see by the topography of the country; and there's a mission at The Dalles, where we can get more help if we need it, I am sure. Mamma and I will ride our horses as long as they are able to carry us. We have provisions enough to feed our two teamsters and ourselves till we reach a settlement."
One woman at a time was detailed to ride in the family wagon and take care of the babies; all the rest walked, stopping to ride only when the frequent streams that were too deep to wade were to be crossed; at which times the wearied oxen were compelled to do the double duty of pulling the loads and carrying the footsore pedestrians on their backs.
The weather was now intensely hot during the long hours of sunshine. The sandy wastes radiated the blistering heat under which the vast sageplains lay staring at the unmerciful sun in apathetic stillness, like a Lilliputian forest under a state of arrested development. But the nights were chilly, and the storms of wind and dust that came up with the going down of the sun were trying in the extreme. The men of the party no longer had tents or wagon-covers for shelter, and were obliged to sleep on the lee side of friendly rocks, beside which they awoke, sometimes, to find themselves uncomfortably near a den of rattlesnakes or the decaying carcass of an animal.
At every spot where a little grass was found, the cattle were unhitched from the wagons and turned out in pairs, under the yoke, to feed. Every stray bit of wood, every discarded ox-yoke or ox-bow, and not infrequently the
