{"product_id":"2940148834168","title":"A Prairie-Schooner Princess (Illustrated)","description":"From under the curving top of a canvas-covered \"\"prairie schooner\"\" a boy of about fifteen leaned out, his eyes straining intently across the brown, level expanse of the prairies.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"Father,\"\" he called, with a note of anxiety in his voice, \"\"look back there to the northeast! What is that against the horizon? It looks like a cloud of dust or smoke.\"\"\u003cbr\u003eIn a second prairie schooner, just ahead of the one the boy was driving, a man with a brown, bearded face looked out hastily, then continued to scan the horizon with anxious gaze.\u003cbr\u003eBeside him in the wagon sat a blue-eyed, comely woman with traces of care in her face. As the boy's voice reached her she started, then leaned out of the wagon, her startled gaze sweeping the lonely untrodden plains over which they were traveling.\u003cbr\u003eInside the wagon under the canvas cover a boy of nine, two little girls of seven and twelve, a curly-headed little girl of five, and a baby boy of two years, lay on the rolled-up bedding sleeping heavily.\u003cbr\u003eThe time was midsummer, 1856, and the family of Joshua Peniman, crossing the plains to the Territory of Nebraska, which had recently been organized, were traveling over the uninhabited prairies of western Iowa.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"Does thee think it could be Indians, Joshua?\"\" asked Hannah Peniman, her face growing white as she viewed the cloud of dust which appeared momentarily to be coming nearer.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"I can't tell—-I can't see yet,\"\" answered her husband, turning anxious eyes from the musket he was hastily loading toward the cloud of dust. \"\"But whatever it is, it is coming this way. It might be a herd of elk or buffalo, but anyway, we must be prepared. Get inside, Hannah, and thee and the little ones keep well under cover.\"\"\u003cbr\u003eIn the other wagon two younger boys had joined the lad who was driving. On the seat beside him now sat a merry-faced, brown-eyed lad of fourteen, and leaning on their shoulders peering out between them was a boy of twelve, the twin of the twelve-year-old girl in the other wagon, with red hair, laughing blue eyes, and a round, freckled face.\u003cbr\u003eSam was the mischief of the family, and was generally larking and laughing, but now his face looked rather pale beneath its coat of tan and freckles, and the eyes which he fastened on the horizon had in them an expression of terror.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"Do you suppose it's Indians, Joe?\"\" he whispered huskily. \"\"Did you hear what that man told Father at Fort Dodge the other day? He said that Indians had set on an emigrant train near Fontanelle and murdered the whole party.\"\"\u003cbr\u003eThe boy on the driver's seat did not answer. With his wide grey eyes focused intently on the cloud of dust in the distance, his tanned face strained and set, he craned forward, every muscle of his body at rigid attention.\u003cbr\u003ePresently he handed the lines to the brother who sat beside him and reaching up into the curving top of the wagon took down a heavy old muzzle-loading musket.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"Do you think it is Indians?\"\" the boy asked, his hands a bit tremulous on the lines.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"I dunno. Can't tell yet. But we've got to be ready anyhow. Better load up your rifle, Lige.\"\"\u003cbr\u003eThe brown-eyed boy wound the lines around the whip-stock and took from a rack under the cover a long-barreled rifle.\u003cbr\u003eThey had seen many roving bands of Indians on their journey, but had never been molested by them, but at the last settlement they had passed through they had heard horrifying accounts of the scalping and massacre of settlers and emigrants by the red men. On the old Overland Trail between Fort Laramie and the South Fork of the Platte there had occurred an Indian uprising a few days before, the terrifying news of which had reached them at their last stopping place.\u003cbr\u003eAs Joe leaned forward with eyes fastened on the horizon he suddenly uttered a cry.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"It's a wagon,\"\" he shouted,—\"\"an emigrant wagon—like ours!\"\"\u003cbr\u003eFrom out of the cloud of dust that drifted across the prairie an object could now be discerned, a large object, with a white canvas cover.\u003cbr\u003eJoshua Peniman, who had never removed his intent gaze from the approaching cloud, echoed the cry.\u003cbr\u003e\"\"It is a wagon—an emigrant wagon!\"\" Then as the dust drifted aside and he could see more clearly,—\"\"and they are driving at a fearful pace!\"\"\u003cbr\u003eFor many weeks now the family had been traveling over the desolation of the prairies, for days at a time seeing no human creature but one another. For miles all about them lay the prairies, brown, dry, scorched by the hot summer sun, level as a floor, with never a tree, a shrub, a bush, a hill, or a mound to break the dreary monotony of the plains that stretched endlessly away all about them to the very horizon in every direction.\u003cbr\u003eIt was therefore with the greater excitement and astonishment that the family saw a wagon drawn by two furiously plunging horses emerge from the cloud of dust that had concealed it, and come swaying and lurching across the plains.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Lost Leaf Publications","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072808337648,"sku":"2940148834168","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940148834168_p0.jpg?v=1763708696","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940148834168","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}