Nancy Stearnes trudged alongside her family’s wagon, in a cloud of dust stirred up by the oxen’s plodding feet. Ahead of the Stearnes’ wagon were a dozen others, and behind them, as many more, all bound for Oregon.

“Can’t believe it’s so hot already,” Nancy said to her friend Mary Katherine Beechum, as she rubbed a mosquito from the back of her hand. She bent to pick up a handful of buffalo chips, the hardened droppings left by the buffalo that roamed the valley. The chips would be fuel for the evening cook fires.

“Yeah,” Mary Katherine agreed, coughing from the dust. “You know, if we used only one sack, one of us could hold it and the other could gather the chips, and we could cover our mouths with our aprons. That way we wouldn’t cough so much.”

Mary Katherine was always thinking of better ways of doing things. And no wonder, with all she had to do. Her stepmother had just had a baby and was weak, so all the cooking and the washing up and the rest of the woman’s work on the trail fell to Mary Katherine, though she was only eleven, same age as Nancy.

“We could try it,” said Nancy, “’cause Donnie and Karl ain’t much help.” She glanced at her four-year-old twin brothers and sighed. She hoped her mother’s new baby would be a girl.

Then Nancy heard a faraway rumbling sound, like thunder. And it was growing louder…

Some of the leaders from the wagon train

among them Mr. Estes, their trail guide and Capt. Beechum, Mary Katherine’s father

were galloping up on horseback, shouting to Nancy’s Pa.

“Buffalo stampede!” yelled Mr. Estes. “Headed this way!”

Pa, rifle in hand, leaped from the wagon seat onto a horse. “Millie,” he said to Ma, “can you hold the oxen steady? “

“I can handle them,” said Ma. “You go. And be careful.”

“I will,” said Pa. Then he spotted Nancy and Mary Katherine and the boys. “Into the wagon with you young un’s!”

The girls scrambled to obey, herding the boys into the wagon. Nancy saw a cloud of dust rising like smoke, and then, with a thunder that shook the earth, came the buffalo. She shuddered, thinking of a thousand flying hooves pounding toward them and Pa riding straight into the midst.

Pa cried “Giddup,” and galloped off.

Soon the wagon was trembling from the force of pounding hooves. In an instant the buffalo were everywhere, engulfing the wagon. Suddenly, it lurched to one side, then toppled over. Nancy was pitched forward and struck her head against a trunk. Everything went black.

When Nancy came to, the first thing she noticed was the quiet. The stampede was over. Someone groaned — Mary Katherine. Blood trickled from a gash on her forehead. Nancy leaned closer to her. “Kat,” she said. “Can you hear me?”

Mary Katherine’s eyes opened. “Ohhh,” she groaned. “Is it over? Are we all alive?”

“Thank heaven you’re all fine,” Ma said.

“But the wagon ain’t fine,” said Donnie. “It’s all smashed.”

“Wagons can be mended,” said Ma, “and stuff replaced. Not so with precious children.”

Blood streamed from Mary Katherine’s wound. Ma lifted her skirt, tore a strip from her petticoat, and wrapped the strip around Mary’s Katherine’s forehead. “That should hold off the bleeding,” she said, “till we can have Doc take a look at it.”

Mary Katherine got up. “Really, Mrs. Stearnes, it’s not that bad. I really should go see how Mother and the baby are.”

“Nancy, you go with her,” said Ma. “Hurry back though. I need your help getting this mess cleaned up.”

As Nancy and Mary Katherine walked up the trail toward the front of the train, Nancy felt sick at the devastation that met her eyes. It looked as if a tornado had touched down and cut a trail across the prairie and right through the middle of the wagon train. Grass and bushes were trampled flat, and wagons were overturned with contents spilling out.

There were people everywhere, talking, shouting, small children crying, older children running about, men trying to fix wagons, women gathering up belongings, but it didn’t seem as if anybody had been seriously hurt. Nancy didn’t see Pa anywhere.

She wondered where Pa was; surely he would be looking for them too. Had she somehow missed him in all the turmoil? Or — the thought occurred to her with a terrible pounding of her heart — had something happened to the men who had ridden out to stop the stampede? She hadn’t seen a single one of them yet.

She was just about to speak her fears to Mary Katherine when she saw Capt. Beechum emerge from between two wagons. Mary Katherine spotted him too. “Father!” she yelled. “Here we are!”

As Capt. Beechum strode toward them, Nancy saw the grim expression on his face, and instantly thought of Mary Katherine’s ailing stepmother and baby brother. Had something happened to them?