[pg 24]
When Wingate ended his exposition and looked around for approval it was obvious that many of these regulations met with disfavor at the start. The democracy of the train was one in which each man wanted his own way. Leaning head to head, speaking low, men grumbled at all this fuss and feathers and Army stuff. Some of these were friends and backers in the late election. Nettled by their silence, or by their murmured comments, Wingate arose again.
"Well, you have heard my plan, men," said he. "The Santa Fé men worked it up, and used it for years, as you all know. They always got through. If there's anyone here knows a better way, and one that's got more experience back of it, I'd like to have him get up and say so."
Silence for a time greeted this also. The Northern men, Wingate's partisans, looked uncomfortably one to the other. It was young Woodhull, of the Liberty contingent, who rose at length.
"What Cap'n Wingate has said sounds all right to me," said he. "He's a new friend of mine--I never saw him till two-three hours ago--but I know about him. What he says about the Santa Fé fashion I know for true. As some of you know, I was out that way, up the Arkansas, with Doniphan, for the Stars and Stripes. Talk about wagon travel--you got to have a regular system or you have everything in a mess. This here, now, is a lot like so many volunteers enlisting for war. There's always a sort of preliminary election of officers; sort of shaking down and shaping up. I wasn't here when Cap'n Wingate was elected--our wagons were some late--but speaking for our men, I'd move to ratify his choosing, and that means to ratify his regulations. I'm wondering if I don't get a second for that?"
[pg 25]
Some of the bewhiskered men who sat about him stirred, but cast their eyes toward their own captain, young Banion, whose function as their spokesman had thus been usurped by his defeated rival, Woodhull. Perhaps few of them suspected theargumentum ad hominem--or ratherad feminam--in Woodhull's speech.
Banion alone knew this favor-currying when he saw it, and knew well enough the real reason. It was Molly! Rivals indeed they were, these two, and in more ways than one. But Banion held his peace until one quiet father of a family spoke up.
"I reckon our own train captain, that we elected in case we didn't throw in with the big train, had ought to say what he thinks about it all."
Will Banion now rose composedly and bowed to the leader.
"I'm glad to second Mr. Woodhull's motion to throw our vote and our train for Captain Wingate and the big train," said he. "We'll ratify his captaincy, won't we?"
The nods of his associates now showed assent, and Wingate needed no more confirmation.
[pg 26]
"In general, too, I would ratify Captain Wingate's scheme. But might I make a few suggestions?"
"Surely--go on." Wingate half rose.
"Well then, I'd like to point out that we've got twice as far to go as the Santa Fé traders, and over a very different country--more dangerous, less known, harder to travel. We've many times more wagons than any Santa Fé train ever had, and we've hundreds of loose cattle along. That means a sweeping off of the grass at every stop, and grass we've got to have or the train stops.
"Besides our own call on grass, I know there'll be five thousand Mormons at least on the trail ahead of us this spring--they've crossed the river from here to the Bluffs, and they're out on the Platte right now. We take what grass they leave us.
"What I'm trying to get at, captain, is this: We might have to break into smaller detachments now and again. We could not possibly always keep alignment in four columns."
"And then we'd be open to any Indian attack," interrupted Woodhull.
"We might have to fight some of the time, yes," rejoined Banion; "but we'll have to travel all the time, and we'll have to graze our stock all the time. On that one basic condition our safety rests--grass and plenty of it. We're on a long journey.
"You see, gentlemen," he added, smiling, "I was with Doniphan also. We learned a good many things. For instance, I'd rather see each horse on a thirty-foot picket rope, anchored safe each night, than to trust to any hobbles. A homesick horse can travel miles, hobbled, in a night. Horses are a lot of trouble.
[pg 27]
"Now, I see that about a fourth of our people, including Captain Wingate, have horses and mules and not ox transport. I wish they all could trade for oxen before they start. Oxen last longer and fare better. They are easier to herd. They can be used for food in the hard first year out in Oregon. The Indians don't steal oxen--they like buffalo better--but they'll take any chance to run off horses or even mules. If they do, that means your women and children are on foot. You know the story of the Donner party, two years ago--on foot, in the snow. They died, and worse than died, just this side of California."
Men of Iowa, of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, began to nod to one another, approving the words of this young man.
"He talks sense," said a voice aloud.
"Well, I'm talking a whole lot, I know," said Banion gravely, "but this is the time and place for our talking. I'm for throwing in with the Wingate train, as I've said. But will Captain Wingate let me add even just a few words more?
"For instance, I would suggest that we ought to have a record of all our personnel. Each man ought to be required to give his own name and late residence, and the names of all in his party. He should be obliged to show that his wagon is in good condition, with spare bolts, yokes, tires, bows and axles, and extra shoes for the stock. Each wagon ought to be required to carry anyhow half a side of rawhide, and the usual tools of the farm and the trail, as well as proper weapons and abundance of ammunition.
[pg 28]
"No man ought to be allowed to start with this caravan with less supplies, for each mouth of his wagon, than one hundred pounds of flour. One hundred and fifty or even two hundred would be much better--there is loss and shrinkage. At least half as much of bacon, twenty pounds of coffee, fifty of sugar would not be too much in my own belief. About double the pro rata of the Santa Fé caravans is little enough, and those whose transport power will let them carry more supplies ought to start full loaded, for no man can tell the actual duration of this journey, or what food may be needed before we get across. One may have to help another."
Even Wingate joined in the outspoken approval of this, and Banion, encouraged, went on:
"Some other things, men, since you have asked each man to speak freely. We're not hunters, but home makers. Each family, I suppose, has a plow and seed for the first crop. We ought, too, to find out all our blacksmiths, for I promise you we'll need them. We ought to have a half dozen forges and as many anvils, and a lot of irons for the wagons.
"I suppose, too, you've located all your doctors; also all your preachers--you needn't camp them all together. Personally I believe in Sunday rest and Sunday services. We're taking church and state and home and law along with us, day by day, men, and we're not just trappers and adventurers. The fur trade's gone.
[pg 29]
"I even think we ought to find out our musicians--it's good to have a bugler, if you can. And at night, when the people are tired and disheartened, music is good to help them pull together."
The bearded men who listened nodded yet again.
"About schools, now--the other trains that went out, the Applegates in 1843, the Donners of 1846, each train, I believe, had regular schools along, with hours each day.
"Do you think I'm right about all this? I'm sure I don't want Captain Wingate to be offended. I'm not dividing his power. I'm only trying to stiffen it."
Woodhull arose, a sneer on his face, but a hand pushed him down. A tall Missourian stood before him.
"Right ye air, Will!" said he. "Ye've an old head, an' we kin trust hit. Ef hit wasn't Cap'n Wingate is more older than you, an' already done elected, I'd be for choosin' ye fer cap'n o' this here hull train right now. Seein' hit's the way hit is, I move we vote to do what Will Banion has said is fitten. An' I move we-uns throw in with the big train, with Jess Wingate for cap'n. An' I move we allow one more day to git in supplies an' fixin's, an' trade hosses an' mules an' oxens, an' then we start day atter to-morrow mornin' when the bugle blows. Then hooray fer Oregon!"
[pg 30]
There were cheers and a general rising, as though after finished business, which greeted this. Jesse Wingate, somewhat crestfallen and chagrined over the forward ways of this young man, of whom he never had heard till that very morning, put a perfunctory motion or so, asked loyalty and allegiance, and so forth.
But what they remembered was that he appointed as his wagon-column captains Sam Woodhull, of Missouri; Caleb Price, an Ohio man of substance; Simon Hall, an Indiana merchant, and a farmer by name of Kelsey, from Kentucky. To Will Banion the trainmaster assigned the most difficult and thankless task of the train, the captaincy of the cow column; that is to say, the leadership of the boys and men whose families were obliged to drive the loose stock of the train.
There were sullen mutterings over this in the Liberty column. Men whispered they would not follow Woodhull. As for Banion, he made no complaint, but smiled and shook hands with Wingate and all his lieutenants and declared his own loyalty and that of his men; then left for his own little adventure of a half dozen wagons which he was freighting out to Laramie--bacon, flour and sugar, for the most part; each wagon driven by a neighbor or a neighbor's son. Among these already arose open murmurs of discontent over the way their own contingent had been treated. Banion had to mend a potential split before the first wheel had rolled westward up the Kaw.
[pg 31]
The men of the meeting passed back among their neighbors and families, and spoke with more seriousness than hitherto. The rifle firing ended, the hilarity lessened that afternoon. In the old times the keel-boatmen bound west started out singing. The pack-train men of the fur trade went shouting and shooting, and the confident hilarity of the Santa Fé wagon caravans was a proverb. But now, here in the great Oregon train, matters were quite otherwise. There were women and children along. An unsmiling gravity marked them all. When the dusky velvet of the prairie night settled on almost the last day of the rendezvous it brought a general feeling of anxiety, dread, uneasiness, fear. Now, indeed, and at last, all these realized what was the thing that they had undertaken.
To add yet more to the natural apprehensions of men and women embarking on so stupendous an adventure, all manner of rumors now continually passed from one company to another. It was said that five thousand Mormons, armed to the teeth, had crossed the river at St. Joseph and were lying in wait on the Platte, determined to take revenge for the persecutions they had suffered in Missouri and Illinois. Another story said that the Kaw Indians, hitherto friendly, had banded together for robbery and were only waiting for the train to appear. A still more popular story had it that a party of several Englishmen had hurried ahead on the trail to excite all the savages to waylay and destroy the caravans, thus to wreak the vengeance of England upon the Yankees for the loss of Oregon. Much unrest arose over reports, hard to trace, to the effect that it was all a mistake about Oregon; that in reality it was a truly horrible country, unfit for human occupancy, and sure to prove the grave of any lucky enough to survive the horrors of the trail, which never yet had been truthfully reported. Some returned travelers from the West beyond the Rockies, who were hanging about the landing at the river, made it all worse by relating what purported to be actual experiences.
[pg 32]
"If you ever get through to Oregon," they said, "you'll be ten years older than you are now. Your hair will be white, but not by age."
The Great Dipper showed clear and close that night, as if one might almost pick off by hand the familiar stars of the traveler's constellation. Overhead countless brilliant points of lesser light enameled the night mantle, matching the many camp fires of the great gathering. The wind blew soft and low. Night on the prairie is always solemn, and to-night the tense anxiety, the strained anticipation of more than two thousand souls invoked a brooding melancholy which it seemed even the stars must feel.
[pg 33]
A dog, ominous, lifted his voice in a long, mournful howl which made mothers put out their hands to their babes. In answer a coyote in the grass raised a high, quavering cry, wild and desolate, the voice of the Far West.
[pg 34]
The notes of a bugle, high and clear, sang reveille at dawn. Now came hurried activities of those who had delayed. The streets of the two frontier settlements were packed with ox teams, horses, wagons, cattle driven through. The frontier stores were stripped of their last supplies. One more day, and then on to Oregon!
Wingate broke his own camp early in the morning and moved out to the open country west of the landing, making a last bivouac at what would be the head of the train. He had asked his four lieutenants to join him there. Hall, Price, and Kelsey headed in with straggling wagons to form the nucleuses of their columns; but the morning wore on and the Missourians, now under Woodhull, had not yet broken park. Wingate waited moodily.
Now at the edge of affairs human apprehensions began to assert themselves, especially among the womenfolk. Even stout Molly Wingate gave way to doubt and fears. Her husband caught her, apron to eyes, sitting on the wagon tongue at ten in the morning, with her pots and pans unpacked.
[pg 35]
"What?" he exclaimed. "You're not weakening? Haven't you as much courage as those Mormon women on ahead? Some of them pushing carts, I've heard."
"They've done it for religion, Jess. Oregon ain't no religion for me."
"Yet it has music for a man's ears, Molly."
"Hush! I've heard it all for the last two years. What happened to the Donners two years back? And four years ago it was the Applegates left home in old Missouri to move to Oregon. Who will ever know where their bones are laid? Look at our land we left--rich--black and rich as any in the world. What corn, what wheat--why, everything grew well in Illinois!"
"Yes, and cholera below us wiping out the people, and the trouble over slave-holding working up the river more and more, and the sun blazing in the summer, while in the wintertime we froze!"
"Well, as for food, we never saw any part of Kentucky with half so much grass. We had no turkeys at all there, and where we left you could kill one any gobbling time. The pigeons roosted not four miles from us. In the woods along the river even a woman could kill coons and squirrels, all we'd need--no need for us to eat rabbits like the Mormons. Our chicken yard was fifty miles across. The young ones'd be flying by roasting-ear time--and in fall the sloughs was black with ducks and geese. Enough and to spare we had; and our land opening; and Molly teaching the school, with twelve dollars a month cash for it, and Ted learning his blacksmith trade before he was eighteen. How could we ask more? What better will we do in Oregon?"
[pg 36]
"You always throw the wet blanket on Oregon, Molly."
"It is so far!"
"How do we know it is far? We know men and women have crossed, and we know the land is rich. Wheat grows fifty bushels to the acre, the trees are big as the spires on meeting houses, the fish run by millions in the streams. Yet the winters have little snow. A man can live there and not slave out a life.
"Besides"--and the frontier now spoke in him--"this country is too old, too long settled. My father killed his elk and his buffalo, too, in Kentucky; but that was before my day. I want the buffalo. I crave to see the Plains, Molly. What real American does not?"
Mrs. Wingate threw her apron over her face.
"The Oregon fever has witched you, Jesse!" she exclaimed between dry sobs.
Wingate was silent for a time.
"Corn ought to grow in Oregon," he said at last.
"Yes, but does it?"
"I never heard it didn't. The soil is rich, and you can file on six hundred and forty acres. There's your donation claim, four times bigger than any land you can file on here. We sold out at ten dollars an acre--more'n our land really was worth, or ever is going to be worth. It's just the speculators says any different. Let 'em have it, and us move on. That's the way money's made, and always has been made, all across the United States."
[pg 37]
"Huh! You talk like a land speculator your own self!"
"Well, if it ain't the movers make a country, what does? If we don't settle Oregon, how long'll we hold it? The preachers went through to Oregon with horses. Like as not even the Applegates got their wagons across. Like enough they got through. I want to see the country before it gets too late for a good chance, Molly. First thing you know buffalo'll be getting scarce out West, too, like deer was getting scarcer on the Sangamon. We ought to give our children as good a chance as we had ourselves."
"As good a chance! Haven't they had as good a chance as we ever had? Didn't our land more'n thribble, from a dollar and a quarter? It may thribble again, time they're old as we are now."
"That's a long time to wait."
"It's a long time to live a life-time, but everybody's got to live it."
She stood, looking at him.
"Look at all the good land right in here! Here we got walnut and hickory and oak--worlds of it. We got sassafras and pawpaw and hazel brush. We get all the hickory nuts and pecans we like any fall. The wild plums is better'n any in Kentucky; and as for grapes, they're big as your thumb, and thousands, on the river. Wait till you see the plum and grape jell I could make this fall!"
[pg 38]
"Women--always thinking of jell!"
"But we got every herb here we need--boneset and sassafras and Injun physic and bark for the fever. There ain't nothing you can name we ain't got right here, or on the Sangamon, yet you talk of taking care of our children. Huh! We've moved five times since we was married. Now just as we got into a good country, where a woman could dry corn and put up jell, and where a man could raise some hogs, why, you wanted to move again--plumb out to Oregon! I tell you, Jesse Wingate, hogs is a blame sight better to tie to than buffalo! You talk like you had to settle Oregon!"
"Well, haven't I got to? Somehow it seems a man ain't making up his own mind when he moves West. Pap moved twice in Kentucky, once in Tennessee, and then over to Missouri, after you and me was married and moved up into Indiana, before we moved over into Illinois. He said to me--and I know it for the truth--he couldn't hardly tell who it was or what it was hitched up the team. But first thing he knew, there the old wagon stood, front of the house, cover all on, plow hanging on behind, tar bucket under the wagon, and dog and all. All he had to do, pap said, was just to climb up on the front seat and speak to the team. My maw, she climb up on the seat with him. Then they moved--on West. You know, Molly. My maw, she climb up on the front seat--"
[pg 39]
His wife suddenly turned to him, the tears still in her eyes.
"Yes, and Jesse Wingate, and you know it, your wife's as good a woman as your maw! When the wagon was a-standing, cover on, and you on the front seat, I climb up by you, Jess, same as I always have and always will. Haven't I always? You know that. But it's harder on women, moving is. They care more for a house that's rain tight in a storm."
"I know you did, Molly," said her husband soberly.
"I suppose I can pack my jells in a box and put in the wagon, anyways." She was drying her eyes.
"Why, yes, I reckon so. And then a few sacks of dried corn will go mighty well on the road."
"One thing"--she turned on him in wifely fury--"you shan't keep me from taking my bureau and my six chairs all the way across! No, nor my garden seeds, all I saved. No, nor yet my rose roots that I'm taking along. We got to have a home, Jess--we got to have a home! There's Jed and Molly coming on."
"Where's Molly now?" suddenly asked her husband. "She'd ought to be helping you right now."
"Oh, back at the camp, I s'pose--her and Jed, too. I told her to pick a mess of dandelion greens and bring over. Larking around with them young fellows, like enough. Huh! She'll have less time. If Jed has to ride herd, Molly's got to take care of that team of big mules, and drive 'em all day in the light wagon too. I reckon if she does that, and teaches night school right along, she won't be feeling so gay."
[pg 40]
"They tell me folks has got married going across," she added, "not to mention buried. One book we had said, up on the Platte, two years back, there was a wedding and a birth and a burying in one train, all inside of one hour, and all inside of one mile. That's Oregon!"
"Well, I reckon it's life, ain't it?" rejoined her husband. "One thing, I'm not keen to have Molly pay too much notice to that young fellow Banion--him they said was a leader of the Liberty wagons. Huh, he ain't leader now!"
"You like Sam Woodhull better for Molly, Jess?"
"Some ways. He falls in along with my ideas. He ain't so apt to make trouble on the road. He sided in with me right along at the last meeting."
"He done that? Well, his father was a sheriff once, and his uncle, Judge Henry D. Showalter, he got into Congress. Politics! But some folks said the Banions was the best family. Kentucky, they was. Well, comes to siding in, Jess, I reckon it's Molly herself'll count more in that than either o' them or either o' us. She's eighteen past. Another year and she'll be an old maid. If there's a wedding going across--"
[pg 41]
"There won't be," said her husband shortly. "If there is it won't be her and no William Banion, I'm saying that."
[pg 42]
Meantime the younger persons referred to in the frank discussion of Wingate and his wife were occupying themselves in their own fashion their last day in camp. Molly, her basket full of dandelion leaves, was reluctant to leave the shade of the grove by the stream, and Jed had business with the team of great mules that Molly was to drive on the trail.
As for the Liberty train, its oval remained unbroken, the men and women sitting in the shade of the wagons. Their outfitting had been done so carefully that little now remained for attention on the last day, but the substantial men of the contingent seemed far from eager to be on their way. Groups here and there spoke in monosyllables, sullenly. They wanted to join the great train, had voted to do so; but the cavalier deposing of their chosen man Banion--who before them all at the meeting had shown himself fit to lead--and the cool appointment of Woodhull in his place had on reflection seemed to them quite too high-handed a proposition. They said so now.
"Where's Woodhull now?" demanded the bearded man who had championed Banion. "I see Will out rounding up his cows, but Sam Woodhull ain't turned a hand to hooking up to pull in west o' town with the others."
[pg 43]
"That's easy," smiled another. "Sam Woodhull is where he's always going to be--hanging around the Wingate girl. He's over at their camp now."
"Well, I dunno's I blame him so much for that, neither. And he kin stay there fer all o' me. Fer one, I won't foller no Woodhull, least o' all Sam Woodhull, soldier or no soldier. I'll pull out when I git ready, and to-morrow mornin' is soon enough fer me. We kin jine on then, if so's we like."
Someone turned on his elbow, nodded over shoulder. They heard hoof beats. Banion came up, fresh from his new work on the herd. He asked for Woodhull, and learning his whereabouts trotted across the intervening glade.
"That's shore a hoss he rides," said one man.
"An' a shore man a-ridin' of him," nodded another. "He may ride front o' the train an' not back o' hit, even yet."
Molly Wingate sat on the grass in the little grove, curling a chain of dandelion stems. Near by Sam Woodhull, in his best, lay on the sward regarding her avidly, a dull fire in his dark eyes. He was so enamored of the girl as to be almost unfit for aught else. For weeks he had kept close to her. Not that Molly seemed over-much to notice or encourage him. Only, woman fashion, she ill liked to send away any attentive male. Just now she was uneasy. She guessed that if it were not for the presence of her brother Jed near by this man would declare himself unmistakably.
[pg 44]
If the safety of numbers made her main concern, perhaps that was what made Molly Wingate's eye light up when she heard the hoofs of Will Banion's horse splashing in the little stream. She sprang to her feet, waving a hand gayly.
"Oh, so there you are!" she exclaimed. "I was wondering if you'd be over before Jed and I left for the prairie. Father and mother have moved on out west of town. We're all ready for the jump-off. Are you?"
"Yes, to-morrow by sun," said Banion, swinging out of saddle and forgetting any errand he might have had. "Then it's on to Oregon!"
He nodded to Woodhull, who little more than noticed him. Molly advanced to where Banion's horse stood, nodding and pawing restively as was his wont. She stroked his nose, patted his sweat-soaked neck.
"What a pretty horse you have, major," she said. "What's his name?"
"I call him Pronto," smiled Banion. "That means sudden."
"He fits the name. May I ride him?"
"What? You ride him?"
"Yes, surely. I'd love to. I can ride anything. That funny saddle would do--see how big and high the horn is, good as the fork of a lady's saddle."
[pg 45]
"Yes, but the stirrup!"
"I'd put my foot in between the flaps above the stirrup. Help me up, sir?"
"I'd rather not."
Molly pouted.
"Stingy!"
"But no woman ever rode that horse--not many men but me. I don't know what he'd do."
"Only one way to find out."
Jed, approaching, joined the conversation.
"I rid him," said he. "He's a goer all right, but he ain't mean."
"I don't know whether he would be bad or not with a lady," Banion still argued. "These Spanish horses are always wild. They never do get over it. You've got to be a rider."
"You think I'm not a rider? I'll ride him now to show you! I'm not afraid of horses."
"That's right," broke in Sam Woodhull. "But, Miss Molly, I wouldn't tackle that horse if I was you. Take mine."
"But I will! I've not been horseback for a month. We've all got to ride or drive or walk a thousand miles. I can ride him, man saddle and all. Help me up, sir?"
Banion walked to the horse, which flung a head against him, rubbing a soft muzzle up and down.
[pg 46]
"He seems gentle," said he. "I've pretty well topped him off this morning. If you're sure--"
"Help me up, one of you?"
It was Woodhull who sprang to her, caught her up under the arms and lifted her fully gracious weight to the saddle. Her left foot by fortune found the cleft in the stirrup fender, her right leg swung around the tall horn, hastily concealed by a clutch at her skirt even as she grasped the heavy knotted reins. It was then too late. She must ride.
Banion caught at a cheek strap as he saw Woodhull's act, and the horse was the safer for an instant. But in terror or anger at his unusual burden, with flapping skirt and no grip on his flanks, the animal reared and broke away from them all. An instant and he was plunging across the stream for the open glade, his head low.
He did not yet essay the short, stiff-legged action of the typical bucker, but made long, reaching, low-headed plunges, seeking his own freedom in that way, perhaps half in some equine wonder of his own. None the less the wrenching of the girl's back, the leverage on her flexed knee, unprotected, were unmistakable.
The horse reared again and yet again, high, striking out as she checked him. He was getting in a fury now, for his rider still was in place. Then with one savage sidewise shake of his head after another he plunged this way and that, rail-fencing it for the open prairie. It looked like a bolt, which with a horse of his spirit and stamina meant but one thing, no matter how long delayed.
[pg 47]
It all happened in a flash. Banion caught at the rein too late, ran after--too slow, of course. The girl was silent, shaken, but still riding. No footman could aid her now.
With a leap, Banion was in the saddle of Woodhull's horse, which had been left at hand, its bridle down. He drove in the spurs and headed across the flat at the top speed of the fast and racy chestnut--no match, perhaps, for the black Spaniard, were the latter once extended, but favored now by the angle of the two.
Molly had not uttered a word or cry, either to her mount or in appeal for aid. In sooth she was too frightened to do so. But she heard the rush of hoofs and the high call of Banion's voice back of her:
"Ho, Pronto! Pronto!Vien' aqui!"
Something of a marvel it was, and showing companionship of man and horse on the trail; but suddenly the mad black ceased his plunging. Turning, he trotted whinnying as though for aid, obedient to his master's command, "Come here!" An instant and Banion had the cheek strap. Another and he was off, with Molly Wingate, in a white dead faint, in his arms.
By now others had seen the affair from their places in the wagon park. Men and women came hurrying. Banion laid the girl down, sought to raise her head, drove back the two horses, ran with his hat to the stream for water. By that time Woodhull had joined him, in advance of the people from the park.
[pg 48]
"What do you mean, you damned fool, you, by riding my horse off without my consent!" he broke out. "If she ain't dead--that damned wild horse--you had the gall--"
Will Banion's self-restraint at last was gone. He made one answer, voicing all his acquaintance with Sam Woodhull, all his opinion of him, all his future attitude in regard to him.
He dropped his hat to the ground, caught off one wet glove, and with a long back-handed sweep struck the cuff of it full and hard across Sam Woodhull's face.
[pg 49]
There were dragoon revolvers in the holsters at Woodhull's saddle. He made a rush for a weapon--indeed, the crack of the blow had been so sharp that the nearest men thought a shot had been fired--but swift as was his leap, it was not swift enough. The long, lean hand of the bearded Missourian gripped his wrist even as he caught at a pistol grip. He turned a livid face to gaze into a cold and small blue eye.
"No, ye don't, Sam!" said the other, who was first of those who came up running.
Even as a lank woman stooped to raise the head of Molly Wingate the sinewy arm back of the hand whirled Woodhull around so that he faced Banion, who had not made a move.
"Will ain't got no weapon, an' ye know it," went on the same cool voice. "What ye mean--a murder, besides that?"
He nodded toward the girl. By now the crowd surged between the two men, voices rose.
"He struck me!" broke out Woodhull. "Let me go! He struck me!"
[pg 50]
"I know he did," said the intervener. "I heard it. I don't know why. But whether it was over the girl or not, we ain't goin' to see this other feller shot down till we know more about hit. Ye can meet--"
"Of course, any time."
Banion was drawing on his glove. The woman had lifted Molly, straightened her clothing.
"All blood!" said one. "That saddle horn! What made her ride that critter?"
The Spanish horse stood facing them now, ears forward, his eyes showing through his forelock not so much in anger as in curiosity. The men hustled the two antagonists apart.
"Listen, Sam," went on the tall Missourian, still with his grip on Woodhull's wrist. "We'll see ye both fair. Ye've got to fight now, in course--that's the law, an' I ain't learned it in the fur trade o' the Rockies fer nothin', ner have you people here in the settlements. But I'll tell ye one thing, Sam Woodhull, ef ye make one move afore we-uns tell ye how an' when to make hit, I'll drop ye, shore's my name's Bill Jackson. Ye got to wait, both on ye. We're startin' out, an' we kain't start out like a mob. Take yer time."
"Any time, any way," said Banion simply. "No man can abuse me."
"How'd you gentlemen prefer fer to fight?" inquired the man who had described himself as Bill Jackson, one of the fur brigaders of the Rocky Mountain Company; a man with a reputation of his own in Plains and mountain adventures of hunting, trading and scouting. "Hit's yore ch'ice o' weapons, I reckon, Will. I reckon he challenged you-all."
[pg 51]
"I don't care. He'd have no chance on an even break with me, with any sort of weapon, and he knows that."
Jackson cast free his man and ruminated over a chew of plug.
"Hit's over a gal," said he at length, judicially. "Hit ain't usual; but seein' as a gal don't pick atween men because one's a quicker shot than another, but because he's maybe stronger, or something like that, why, how'd knuckle and skull suit you two roosters, best man win and us to see hit fair? Hit's one of ye fer the gal, like enough. But not right now. Wait till we're on the trail and clean o' the law. I heern there's a sheriff round yere some'rs."
"I'll fight him any way he likes, or any way you say," said Banion. "It's not my seeking. I only slapped him because he abused me for doing what he ought to have done. Yes, I rode his horse. If I hadn't that girl would have been killed. It's not his fault she wasn't. I didn't want her to ride that horse."
"I don't reckon hit's so much a matter about a hoss as hit is about a gal," remarked Bill Jackson sagely. "Ye'll hatter fight. Well then, seein' as hit's about a gal, knuckle an' skull, is that right?"
[pg 52]
He cast a glance around this group of other fighting men of a border day. They nodded gravely, but with glittering eyes.
"Well then, gentlemen"--and now he stood free of Woodhull--"ye both give word ye'll make no break till we tell ye? I'll say, two-three days out?"
"Suits me," said Woodhull savagely. "I'll break his neck for him."
"Any time that suits the gentleman to break my neck will please me," said Will Banion indifferently. "Say when, friends. Just now I've got to look after my cows. It seems to me our wagon master might very well look after his wagons."
"That sounds!" commented Jackson. "That sounds! Sam, git on about yer business, er ye kain't travel in the Liberty train nohow! An' don't ye make no break, in the dark especial, fer we kin track ye anywhere's. Ye'll fight fair fer once--an' ye'll fight!"
By now the group massed about these scenes had begun to relax, to spread. Women had Molly in hand as her eyes opened. Jed came up at a run with the mule team and the light wagon from the grove, and they got the girl into the seat with him, neither of them fully cognizant of what had gone on in the group of tight-mouthed men who now broke apart and sauntered silently back, each to his own wagon.
[pg 53]
With the first thin line of pink the coyotes hanging on the flanks of the great encampment raised their immemorial salutation to the dawn. Their clamorings were stilled by a new and sterner voice--the notes of the bugle summoning sleepers of the last night to the duties of the first day. Down the line from watch to watch passed the Plains command, "Catch up! Catch up!" It was morning of the jump-off.
Little fires began at the wagon messes or family bivouacs. Men, boys, barefooted girls went out into the dew-wet grass to round up the transport stock. A vast confusion, a medley of unskilled endeavor marked the hour. But after an hour's wait, adjusted to the situation, the next order passed down the line:
"Roll out! Roll out!"
And now the march to Oregon was at last begun! The first dust cut by an ox hoof was set in motion by the whip crack of a barefooted boy in jeans who had no dream that he one day would rank high in the councils of his state, at the edge of an ocean which no prairie boy ever had envisioned.
[pg 54]
The compass finger of the trail, leading out from the timber groves, pointed into a sea of green along the valley of the Kaw. The grass, not yet tall enough fully to ripple as it would a half month later, stood waving over the black-burned ground which the semicivilized Indians had left the fall before. Flowers dotted it, sometimes white like bits of old ivory on the vast rug of spindrift--the pink verbena, the wild indigo, the larkspur and the wild geranium--all woven into a wondrous spangled carpet. At times also appeared the shy buds of the sweet wild rose, loveliest flower of the prairie. Tall rosinweeds began to thrust up rankly, banks of sunflowers prepared to fling their yellow banners miles wide. The opulent, inviting land lay in a ceaseless succession of easy undulations, stretching away illimitably to far horizons, "in such exchanging pictures of grace and charm as raised the admiration of even these simple folk to a pitch bordering upon exaltation."
Here lay the West, barbaric, abounding, beautiful. Surely it could mean no harm to any man.
The men lacked experience in column travel, the animals were unruly. The train formation--clumsily trying to conform to the orders of Wingate to travel in four parallel columns--soon lost order. At times the wagons halted to re-form. The leaders galloped back and forth, exhorting, adjuring and restoring little by little a certain system. But they dealt with independent men. On ahead the landscape seemed so wholly free of danger that to most of these the road to the Far West offered no more than a pleasure jaunt. Wingate and his immediate aids were well worn when at mid afternoon they halted, fifteen miles out from Westport.