Although the tone is dismal, Coon is still writing of the elephant not as a consequence but as a consolation or benefit of an unfortunate happenstance; in her case it was bad weather. Merrill Mattes, the Great Platte River Road historian, found that bad weather was often a catalyst for pioneers to put the elephant in their journals. A hailstorm induced Walter Pigman (1850) to write: "The boys concluded the elephant was somewhere in the neighborhood." During a storm in 1849, Niles Searls "had a peep at his proboscis." Neither of these references paint the pachyderm in either a good or bad light, but the fact that its usage comes during vicious storms might allude to something more. Storms on the prairie can be dangerous but also tremendous and breathtaking. They probably wreaked havoc on wagons and stock, but the pioneers likely could not help but be impressed by the unmatched forces of nature at play on the open plains. This mixture of fear, misfortune, and overwhelming new experiences is at the center of the elephant emergence.
