Don Wildman

One of the oxen missing.

The boys have been hunting for him all day.

Dreary times, wet and muddy and crowded in the tent, cold and wet and uncomfortable in the wagon.

No place for the poor children.

I have been busy cooking, roasting coffee, etc.

Today I have come into the wagon to write this and make our bed.

Oh my God, it sounds like the worst day of camping in my life.

Yes.

You mentioned before I was going to bring it up, the Native American tribes.

This is a largely feel-good episode about what these pioneers encountered and the whole adventure of all of this settlement in the West.

Of course, there's elephants in the room when we're talking about this.

You've already mentioned Native Americans were sort of okay with this idea or more so than we might think.

Often they worked as guides, as you say, ferrying off over rivers and so forth.

But the whole image of this thing, I just want to know, was that boiled into the John Wayne movies later on?

Or was this even popularized earlier in the Western media that was coming back later in this period?

Were they scared about this idea or did they kind of understand it better than we think?

Death was a big thing.

I have in my notes, roughly one out of 10 people who undertook this journey died each year.

Is that a fair fraction?

Stephen, let's take another break.