Like a large white worm, the wagons moved toward Gilbert.  Perry was familiar with this part of the trip because he had attended Dry Creek School.  As the wagons passed the white, two-room school, he remembered how surprised he was to find boys from eight to eighteen attending the school.  There were a few girls, too.

After passing the schoolhouse, they came to Billy Mays’ General Store, which also housed the Gilbert Post Office.  Winding around the steep rocky hills, the wagon train came to the Buffalo River where Geroge Grinder operated a ferry.  At the fery, everyone got out of the wagons in order to move them across the river.  The wagons were rolled onto the ferry, which could carry two at a time across the river.  At last, the women and children were carried across the river.  George charged a dollar per family.  Turning on Calf Creek, the travelers went by the old Searcy County seat, Lebanon.

Camp was made on the bank of Calf Creek.  Perry’s job was to gather wood for the campfire.  The men unfastened the teams from the wagons and took the horses downstream to water them.  After the horses were watered, they were staked out to graze.  Eight horses and one mule ate the green grass that lined the creek.  This mule was a special animal to Virginia because it had carried her to many exciting places to deliver babies.  She had purchased it from an Ozark woman who had trained it to only allow a woman to ride it.

After the evening chores, the campers set around the campfire at Wayne’s wagon to make plans for the next day.  Wayne said, “Tomorrow we will stop at Snowball to see J.M. Harkey.  He will know how close the cotton is to being ready for picking.”

The next morning the camp came alive to the sound of frying eggs and boiling coffee.  The smell of side meat frying floated around the area.  Enough biscuits and meat were cooked to furnish the noon meal so that they traveled until evening without stopping to build a fire.

By the third day, the wagon train moved through McCutchean Gap.  Days melted into weeks as they crossed creeks and passed over and around high mountains.  The hills had turned into giant flowerbeds at this time of the year.  The colors lit the spirits of each person as the wagons rolled into Westville, Indian Territory.  After following Baron Fork Creek to the Illinois River, the wagons came to a beautiful camping place about a mile outside of Tahlequah.

The wagon train made camp in the Illinois River while the sun was still high in the sky.  Perry had time to play with the Middleton boys.  The boys called Perry over the edge of the camp and said, “We dare you to throw that cat into the river.”  A dare was never taken lightly by the young Ozark boy.  Perry reached out and grabbed the cat by its tail and whirled it over his head then let it go.  The animal no sooner reached the water when, the oldest boy said, “Now you are in trouble.  That cat belongs to the Indians and they will be mad enough to scalp you.”

Within an hour, the boys heard loud whooping and hollering with the sound of horses coming fast.  The boys looked at Perry with alarm.  Perry turned and ran into the woods.  Virginia called in vain for her oldest son.  She wanted Perry to meet his Unlces Jesse and Cousin John, who were blacksmiths for the town of Tahlequah.  Perry never realized until later years that his relatives were of the Cherokee Tribe.