A plague of green-headed flies and flying ants assailed them by day, and at night the mosquitoes made an affliction well-nigh insufferable.

The women and children could not sleep, the horses groaned all night under the clouds of tormentors which gathered on them.

Early as it was, the sun at times blazed with intolerable fervor, or again the heat broke in savage storms of thunder, hail and rain.

All the elements, all the circumstances seemed in league to warn them back before it was too late, for indeed they were not yet more than on the threshold of the Plains.
The spring rains left the ground soft in places, so that in creek valleys stretches of corduroy sometimes had to be laid down.

The high waters made even the lesser fords difficult and dangerous, and all knew that between them and the Platte ran several strong and capricious rivers, making in general to the southeast and necessarily transected by the great road to Oregon.
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.