The Meekers were a family of fur trappers that Roger had joined on the Oregon Train when his aunt Caroline's spaceship crashed in the 1800s in "OreTron Trail".
Roger recalls his tale to Steve when he becomes afraid of outliving the Smiths as the Meekers had all died on their trip west. When a wheel breaks off of their wagon, Roger chases it down overnight. When he returns to the wagon he finds that the father had died of dysentery, the mother of starvation and their little girl of snakebite. Oxy, their ox, had died of autoerotic asphyxiation.