The
country was changing, the trees growing thin and scattered and sandy
areas were cropping up through the trail. At night they unfolded the
maps and holding them to the firelight measured the distance to the
valley of the Platte. Once there the first stage of the journey would
be over. When they started from Independence the Platte had shone to
the eyes of their imaginations as a threadlike streak almost as far
away as California. Now they would soon be there. At sunset they
stood on eminences and pointed in its direction, let their mental
vision conjure up Grand Island and sweep forward to the
buffalo-darkened plains and the river sunk in its league-wide bottom,
even peered still further and saw Fort Laramie, a faint, white dot
against the cloudy peaks of mountains.
The afternoon was hot and the camp drowsed. Susan moving away from it
was the one point of animation in the encircling quietude. She was not
in spirit with its lethargy, stepping rapidly in a stirring of light
skirts, her hat held by one string, fanning back and forth from her
hanging hand. Her goal was a spring hidden in a small arroyo that made
a twisted crease in the land's level face.
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