They still were in the eastern part of what is now the state of Kansas, one of the most beautiful and exuberantly rich portions of the country, as all early travelers declared.  The land lay in a succession of timber-lined valleys and open prairie ridges.  Groves of walnut, oak, hickory, elm, ash at first were frequent, slowly changing, farther west, to larger proportions of poplar, willow and cottonwood.  The white dogwood passed to make room for scattering thickets of wild plum.  Wild tulips, yellow or of broken colors; the campanula, the wild honeysuckle, lupines—­not yet quite in bloom—­the sweetbrier and increasing quantities of the wild rose gave life to the always changing scene.  Wild game of every sort was unspeakably abundant—­deer and turkey in every bottom, thousands of grouse on the hills, vast flocks of snipe and plover, even numbers of the green parrakeets then so numerous along that latitude.  The streams abounded in game fish.  All Nature was easy and generous.

Men and women grumbled at leaving so rich and beautiful a land lying waste.  None had seen a country more supremely attractive.  Emotions of tenderness, of sadness, also came to many.  Nostalgia was not yet shaken off.  This strained condition of nerves, combined with the trail hardships, produced the physical irritation which is inevitable in all amateur pioneer work.  Confusions, discordances, arising over the most trifling circumstances, grew into petulance, incivility, wrangling and intrigue, as happened in so many other earlier caravans.  In the Babel-like excitement of the morning catch-up, amid the bellowing and running of the cattle evading the yoke, more selfishness, less friendly accommodation now appeared, and men met without speaking, even this early on the road.

The idea of four parallel columns had long since been discarded.  They broke formation, and at times the long caravan, covering the depressions and eminences of the prairie, wound along in mile-long detachments, each of which hourly grew more surly and more independent.  Overdriven oxen now began to drop.  By the time the prairies proper were reached more than a score of oxen had died.  They were repeating trail history as recorded by the travelers of that day.

Personal and family problems also made divisions more natural.  Many suffered from ague; fevers were very common.  An old woman past seventy died one night and was buried by the wayside the next day.  Ten days after the start twins were born to parents moving out to Oregon.  There were numbers of young children, many of them in arms, who became ill.  For one or other cause, wagons continually were dropping out.  It was difficult for some wagons to keep up, the unseasoned oxen showing distress under loads too heavy for their draft.  It was by no means a solid and compact army, after all, this west-bound wave of the first men with plows.  All these things sat heavily on the soul of Jesse Wingate, who daily grew more morose and grim.