.....Once more looking back at John Henry, as he & his family make their journey West....

            When John Henry and his family started their trip West, it was plagued with many misfortunes. First encountering those Mountain men that killed Lilly's husband, and Henry taking care of them, so that Lilly could live and move on with her life...now with Henry and his mother and father. They managed to cross the mighty rivers that separated the East from the West, and now faced their most difficult challenge.....crossing the wide open Desert Plains....

        Getting to the Plains, where they met up with a wagon train heading West. The lead wagon comprised of husband and wife with two young children, a boy about eight and a girl about the same age as Lilly. The rest of the wagon train consisted of three more families. All having a wife and husband, and a mix of children ranging from a year old to Henry's age, which was about seventeen at the time.
        Henry's parent's became close to the lead family quickly, since they had more in common than with the rest. The lead family was more acquainted with this way making it out this far once before, as did Henry's father when he made past trips exploring the best route West.
         Soon they were on the move, slowly so that everyone got into a certain pace which was need to control all the wagons, as they moved closer to the plains, they wanted to make sure everyone was close and stuck to the Trail.

       Henry's family and the McKlintock's, those being the lead wagon of the Train, moved steady into the vast unknown of the Desert Plains, and soon it was clear who the stronger wagon families were. It was into the second day that they realized that they would have to separate themselves from the other three families, and move ahead of them knowing that they were not going to keep up the pace, that was needed to get through this wasteland with the supplies that they had with them.
          The other families understood and said they would either turn back or with any luck a bigger wagon train would come through, that had more supplies to help them get by.
       
      Now in unknown territories, where the dust blew hard during the day, and the cold set in at night, the two families forged ahead into a land that held many mysteries from other frontiersmen who had made it through and were able to talk about it. The one most worrisome was the stories of Indians that had no mercy on the 'White Man' that tries to take their land.
      There were gruesome tales of how the Indians would attack at night and drag the members of the Train back to their tribe and dismember the men, Rape and torture  the women, then take the young girls for Squaws, and raise them in the tribe. 
      Soon the two families came across evidence of this along the way, making it harder to focus and keep the pace which they needed to do with only three more days of rations, and five more days they thought that they needed to get to safety on the plush and safe side of the Plains........