Page 10 - Keays Diary with forward 1866 and Cover

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May 5 – Friday night came 31 or 2 miles in order to camp on

the Little Sandy, we would have stopped at a station 5 miles back but

there was no water or wood, so concluded to give the horses their first

long drive as it as cool. It has been quite cloudy this afternoon and

we feared a rainy evening to get supper in but it has held off, but looks

like would get it tonight. At noon we stopped for lunch where there were

a great many teams and no good drinking water.

The country is all hilly, great with bluffs with small streams and

timber but is seems a pity that all the nice grass should not be eaten by

cattle and made to do some good; if it was all cultivated what a popula-

tion it would support.

We stand the riding better than expected at first.

Saturday night we had a good old fashioned rain, poured down

the entire night without ceasing. The tent not being ditched around,

the men were fairly flooded out, all but Will who slept in the middle
and had others to absorb the water before it reached him. Mrs.

Peterson and I slept in the wagon; we slept dry, tho the rain soaked

in around the sides of our bed but did not affect us at all. We are,

still here at 8 this morning with little prospect of going to the Little

Blue River which was our destination for Sunday. This is the Little

Sandy where we are now, it is some larger than when we came. We have

got the stove in the tent an try to be as comfortable as we can but it

is not very pleasant to camp out in rainy weather. We started Saturday

morning to go to the Little Blue, about twenty or twenty-five miles,

and a bad time we had of it; the horses had by far the hardest pull

they have had yet and we were until 5 o’clock getting into camp, but

we felt glad we had made the effort, in seeing how much nicer it was

here to spend the Sabbath. We are in a bend of the Little Blue which