RALDINE 
 
 ONNER 
 

 He gathered her in his arms, and bending low carried 
 her back into the darkened cavern. 
 
 See page 4.16 
 
THE 
 EMIGRANT TRAIL 
 
 BY 
 
 GERALDINE BONNER 
 
 : II 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 1910 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY 
 
 April,- 
 
 THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PRAIRIE . i 
 
 PART II 
 THE RIVER 97 
 
 PART III 
 THE MOUNTAINS 191 
 
 PART IV 
 THE DESERT 325 
 
 PART V 
 THE PROMISED LAND 429 
 
 938163 
 
PART I 
 The Prairie 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 IT had rained steadily for three days, the 
 straight, relentless rain of early May on the Mis 
 souri frontier. The emigrants, whose hooded 
 wagons had been rolling into Independence for the 
 past month and whose tents gleamed through the 
 spring foliage, lounged about in one another s 
 camps cursing the weather and swapping bits of 
 useful information. 
 
 The year was 1848 and the great California emi 
 gration was still twelve months distant. The 
 flakes of gold had already been found in the race of 
 Sutter s mill, and the thin scattering of men, which 
 made the population of California, had left their 
 plows in the furrow and their ships in the cove and 
 gone to the yellow rivers that drain the Sierra s 
 mighty flanks. But the rest of the world knew 
 nothing of this yet. They were not to hear till 
 November when a ship brought the news to New 
 York, and from city and town, from village and 
 cottage, a march of men would turn their faces to 
 the setting sun and start for the land of gold. 
 
 Those now bound for California knew it only as 
 the recently acquired strip of territory that lay 
 along the continent s Western rim, a place of per- 
 
 3 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 petual sunshine, where everybody had a chance and 
 there was no malaria. That was what they told 
 each other as they lay under the wagons or sat on 
 saddles in the wet tents. The story of old Rouba- 
 doux, the French fur trader from St. Joseph, cir 
 culated cheeringly from mouth to mouth a man 
 in Monterey had had chills and people came from 
 miles around to see him shake, so novel was the 
 spectacle. That was the country for the men and 
 women of the Mississippi Valley, who shook half 
 the year and spent the other half getting over it. 
 
 The call of the West was a siren song in the ears 
 of these waiting companies. The blood of pioneers 
 urged them forward. Their forefathers had moved 
 from the old countries across the seas, from the 
 elm-shaded towns of New England, from the un 
 kempt villages that advanced into the virgin lands 
 by the Great Lakes, from the peace and plenty of 
 the splendid South. Year by year they had pushed 
 the frontier westward, pricked onward by a cease 
 less unrest, " the old land hunger " that never was 
 appeased. The forests rang to the stroke of their 
 ax, the slow, untroubled rivers of the wilderness 
 parted to the plowing wheels of their unwieldy 
 wagons, their voices went before them into places 
 where Nature had kept unbroken her vast and pon 
 dering silence. The distant country by the Pacific 
 was still to explore and they yoked their oxen, and 
 with a woman and a child on the seat started out 
 again, responsive to the cry of " Westward, Ho ! " 
 
 As many were bound for Oregon as for Cali- 
 4 
 
The Prairie 
 
 fornia. Marcus Whitman and the missionaries had 
 brought alluring stories of that great domain once 
 held so cheaply the country almost lost it. It was 
 said to be of a wonderful fertility and league-long 
 stretches of idle land awaited the settler. The 
 roads ran together more than half the way, part 
 ing at Green River, where the Oregon trail turned 
 to Fort Hall and the California dipped southward 
 and wound, a white and spindling thread, across 
 what men then called " The Great American Des 
 ert." Two days journey from Independence this 
 road branched from the Santa Fe Trail and bent 
 northward across the prairie. A signboard on a 
 stake pointed the way and bore the legend, " Road 
 to Oregon." It was the starting point of one of 
 the historic highways of the world. The Indians 
 called it " The Great Medicine Way of the Pale 
 face." 
 
 Checked in the act of what they called " jumping 
 off " the emigrants wore away the days in telling 
 stories of the rival countries, and in separating 
 from old companies and joining new ones. It was 
 an important matter, this of traveling partnerships. 
 A trip of two thousand miles on unknown roads 
 beset with dangers was not to be lightly under- 
 taken. Small parties, frightened on the edge of 
 the enterprise, joined themselves to stronger ones. 
 The mountain men and trappers delighted to aug 
 ment the tremors of the fearful, and round the 
 camp fires listening groups hung on the words of 
 long-haired men clad in dirty buckskins, whose 
 
 5 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 moccasined feet had trod the trails of the fur trader 
 and his red brother. 
 
 This year was one of special peril for, to the 
 accustomed dangers from heat, hunger, and In 
 dians, was added a new one the Mormons. They 
 were still moving westward in their emigration 
 from Nauvoo to the new Zion beside the Great 
 Salt Lake. It was a time and a place to hear the 
 black side of Mormonism. A Missourian hated a 
 Latter Day Saint as a Puritan hated a Papist. 
 Hawn s mill was fresh in the minds of the fron 
 tiersmen, and the murder of Joseph Smith was ac 
 counted a righteous act. The emigrant had many 
 warnings to lay to heart against Indian surprises 
 in the mountains, against mosquitoes on the plains, 
 against quicksands in the Platte, against stampedes 
 among the cattle, against alkaline springs and the 
 desert s parching heats. And quite as important as 
 any of these was that against the Latter Day Saint 
 with the Book of Mormon in his saddlebag and his 
 long-barreled rifle across the pommel. 
 
 So they waited, full of ill words and impatience, 
 while the rain fell. Independence, the focusing 
 point of the frontier life, housing unexpected hun 
 dreds, dripped from all its gables and swam in 
 mud. And in the camps that spread through the 
 fresh, wet woods and the oozy uplands, still other 
 hundreds cowered under soaked tent walls and in 
 damp wagon boxes, listening to the rush of the 
 continuous showers. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ON the afternoon of the fourth day the clouds 
 lifted. A band of yellow light broke out along the 
 horizon, and at the crossings of the town and in 
 the rutted country roads men and women stood 
 staring at it with its light and their own hope 
 brightening their faces. 
 
 David Crystal, as he walked through the woods, 
 saw it behind a veining of black branches. Though 
 a camper and impatient to be off like the rest, he did 
 not feel the elation that shone on their watching 
 faces. His was held in a somber abstraction. Just 
 behind him, in an opening under the straight, white 
 blossoming of dogwood trees, was a new-made 
 grave. The raw earth about it showed the prints 
 of his feet, for he had been standing by it thinking 
 of the man who lay beneath. 
 
 Four days before his friend, Joe Linley, had died 
 of cholera. Three of them Joe, himself, and 
 George Leffingwell, Joe s cousin had been in 
 camp less than a week when it had happened. Un 
 til then their life had been like a picnic there in the 
 clearing by the roadside, with the thrill of the great 
 journey stirring in their blood. And then Joe had 
 been smitten with such suddenness, such awful 
 suddenness! He had been talking to them when 
 David had seen a suspension of something, a stop- 
 
 7 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 page of a vital inner spring, and with it a white 
 ness had passed across his face like a running tide. 
 The awe of that moment, the hush when it seemed 
 to David the liberated spirit had paused beside him 
 in its outward flight, was with him now as he 
 walked through the rustling freshness of the wood. 
 The rain had begun to lessen, its downfall thin 
 ning into a soft patter among the leaves. The 
 young man took off his hat and let the damp air 
 play over his hair. It was thick hair, black and 
 straight, already longer than city fashions dictated, 
 and a first stubble of black beard was hiding the 
 lines of a chin perhaps a trifle too sensitive and 
 pointed. Romantic good looks and an almost 
 poetic refinement were the characteristics of the 
 face, an unusual type for the frontier. With 
 thoughtful gray eyes set deep under a jut of brows 
 and a nose as finely cut as a woman s, it was of a 
 type that, in more sophisticated localities, men 
 would have said had risen to meet the Byronic ideal 
 of which the world was just then enamored. But 
 there was nothing Byronic or self-conscious about 
 David Crystal. He had been born and bred in 
 what was then the Far West, and that he should 
 read poetry and regard life as an undertaking that 
 a man must face with all honor and resoluteness 
 was not so surprising for the time and place. The 
 West, with its loneliness, its questioning silences, 
 its solemn sweep of prairie and roll of slow, majes 
 tic rivers, held spiritual communion with those of 
 its young men who had eyes to see and ears to hear. 
 
 8 
 
The Prairie 
 
 The trees grew thinner and he saw the sky pure 
 as amber beneath the storm pall. The light from 
 it twinkled over wet twigs and glazed the water in 
 the crumplings of new leaves. Across the glow the 
 last raindrops fell in slanting dashes. David s 
 spirits rose. The weather was clearing and they 
 could start start on the trail, the long trail, the 
 Emigrant Trail, two thousand miles to California! 
 
 He was close to the camp. Through the branches 
 he saw the filmy, diffused blueness of smoke and 
 smelled the sharp odor of burning wood. He 
 quickened his pace and was about to give forth a 
 cheerful hail when he heard a sound that made him 
 stop, listen with fixed eye, and then advance cau 
 tiously, sending a questing glance through the 
 screen of leaves. The sound was a woman s voice 
 detached in clear sweetness from the deeper tones 
 of men. 
 
 There was no especial novelty in this. Their 
 camp was just off the road and the emigrant wom 
 en were wont to pause there and pass the time 
 of day. Most of them were the lean and leathern- 
 skinned mates of the frontiersmen, shapeless and 
 haggard as if toil had drawn from their bodies all 
 the softness of feminine beauty, as malaria had 
 sucked from their skins freshness and color. But 
 there were young, pretty ones, too, who often 
 strolled by, looking sideways from the shelter uf 
 jealous sunbonnets. 
 
 This voice was not like theirs. It had a quality 
 David had only heard a few times in his life cul- 
 
 9 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 tivation. Experience would have characterized it 
 as " a lady voice." David, with none, thought it an 
 angel s. Very shy, very curious, he came out from 
 the trees ready at once and forever to worship any 
 one who could set their words to such dulcet ca 
 dences. 
 
 The clearing, green as an emerald and shining 
 with rain, showed the hood of the wagon and the 
 new, clean tent, white as sails on a summer sea, 
 against the trees young bloom. In the middle the 
 fire burned and beside it stood Leff, a skillet in his 
 hand. He was a curly-headed, powerful country 
 lad, twenty-four years old, who, two months be 
 fore, had come from an Illinois farm to join the 
 expedition. The frontier was to him a place of 
 varied diversion, Independence a stimulating cen 
 ter. So diffident that the bashful David seemed by 
 contrast a man of cultured ease, he was now blush 
 ing till the back of his neck was red. 
 
 On the other side of the fire a lady and gentle 
 man stood arm in arm under an umbrella. The 
 two faces, bent upon Leff with grave attention, 
 were alike, not in feature, but in the subtly similar 
 play of expression that speaks the blood tie. A 
 father and daughter, David thought. Against the 
 rough background of the camp, with its litter at 
 their feet, they had an air of being applied upon an 
 alien surface, of not belonging to the picture, but 
 standing out from it in sharp and incongruous con 
 trast. 
 
 The gentleman was thin and tall, fifty or there- 
 10 
 
The Prairie 
 
 abouts, very pale, especially to one accustomed to 
 the tanned skins of the farm and the country town. 
 His face held so frank a kindliness, especially the 
 eyes which looked tired and a little sad, that David 
 felt its expression like a friendly greeting or a strong 
 handclasp. 
 
 The lady did not have this, perhaps because she 
 was. a great deal younger. She was yet in the bud, 
 far from the tempering touch of experience, still 
 in the state of looking forward and anticipating 
 things. She was dark, of medium height, and in 
 clined to be plump. Many delightful curves went 
 to her making, and her waist tapered elegantly, as 
 was the fashion of the time. Thinking it over 
 afterwards, the young man decided that she did 
 not belong in the picture with a prairie schooner 
 and camp kettles, because she looked so like an 
 illustration in a book of beauty. And David knew 
 something of these matters, for had he not been 
 twice to St. Louis and there seen the glories of the 
 earth and the kingdoms thereof? 
 
 But life in camp outside Independence had evi 
 dently blunted his perceptions. The small waist, a 
 round, bare throat rising from a narrow band of 
 lace, and a flat, yellow straw hat were the young 
 woman s only points of resemblance to the beauty- 
 book heroines. She was not in the least beautiful, 
 only fresh and healthy, the flat straw hat shading 
 a girlish face, smooth and firmly modeled as a ripe 
 fruit. Her skin was a glossy brown, softened with 
 a peach s bloom, warming through deepening 
 
 II 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 shades of rose to lips that were so deeply colored 
 no one noticed how firmly they could come to 
 gether, how their curving, crimson edges could 
 shut tight, straighten out, and become a line of 
 forceful suggestions, of doggedness, maybe who 
 knows? perhaps of obstinacy. It was her physi 
 cal exuberance, her downy glow, that made David 
 think her good looking; her serene, brunette rich 
 ness, with its high lights of coral and scarlet, that 
 made her radiate an aura of warmth, startling in 
 that woodland clearing, as the luster of a firefly 
 in a garden s glooming dusk. 
 
 She stopped speaking as he emerged from the 
 trees, and LefFs stammering answer held her in a 
 riveted stare of attention. Then she looked up and 
 saw David. 
 
 " Oh," she said, and transferred the stare to him. 
 "Is this he?" 
 
 Leff was obviously relieved : 
 
 " Oh, David, I ain t known what to say to this 
 lady and her father. They think some of joining 
 us. They ve been waiting for quite a spell to see 
 you. They re goin to California, too." 
 
 The gentleman lifted his hat. Now that he 
 smiled his face was even kindlier, and he, too, had 
 a pleasant, mellowed utterance that linked him with 
 the world of superior quality of which David had 
 had those two glimpses. 
 
 " I am Dr. Gillespie," he said, " and this is my 
 daughter Susan." 
 
 David bowed awkwardly, a bow that was sup- 
 12 
 
The Prairie 
 
 posed to include father and daughter. He did not 
 know whether this was a regular introduction, and 
 even if it had been he would not have known what 
 to do. The young woman made no attempt to re 
 turn the salutation, not that she was rude, but she 
 had the air of regarding it as a frivolous interrup 
 tion to weighty matters. She fixed David with 
 eyes, small, black, and bright as a squirrel s, so 
 devoid of any recognition that he was a member of 
 the rival sex or, in fact, of the human family 
 that his self-consciousness sunk down abashed as if 
 before reproof. 
 
 " My father and I are going to California and 
 the train we were going with has gone on. We ve 
 come from Rochester, New York, and everywhere 
 we ve been delayed and kept back. Even that boat 
 up from St. Louis was five days behind time. It s 
 been nothing but disappointments and delays since 
 we left home. And when we got here the people 
 we were going with a big train from Northern 
 New York had gone on and left us." 
 
 She said all this rapidly, poured it out as if she 
 were so full of the injury and annoyance of it, that 
 she had to ease her indignation by letting it run 
 over into the first pair of sympathetic ears. David s 
 were a very good pair. Any woman with a tale of 
 trouble would have found him a champion. How 
 much more a fresh-faced young creature with a 
 melodious voice and anxious eyes. 
 
 " A good many trains have gone on," he said. 
 And then, by way of consolation for her manner 
 
 13 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 demanded, that, " But they ll be stalled at the fords 
 with this rain. They ll have to wait till the rivers 
 fall. All the men who know say that." 
 
 " So we ve heard," said the father, " but we 
 hoped that we d catch them up. Our outfit is very 
 light, only one wagon, and our driver is a thor 
 oughly capable and experienced man. What we 
 want are some companions with whom we can 
 travel till we overhaul the others. I d start alone, 
 but with my daughter 
 
 She cut in at once, giving his arm a little, irri 
 tated shake : 
 
 " Of course you couldn t do that." Then to the 
 young men : " My father s been sick for quite a 
 long time, all last winter. It s for his health 
 we re going to California, and, of course, he 
 couldn t start without some other men in the 
 party. Indians might attack us, and at the ho 
 tel they said the Mormons were scattered all 
 along the road and thought nothing of shooting a 
 Gentile." 
 
 Her father gave the fingers crooked on his arm 
 a little squeeze with his elbow. It was evident the 
 pair were very good friends. 
 
 * You ll make these young men think I m a help 
 less invalid, who ll lie in the wagon all day. They 
 won t want us to go with them." 
 
 This made her again uneasy and let loose an 
 other flow of authoritative words. 
 
 " No, my father isn t really an invalid. He 
 doesn t have to lie in the wagon. He s going to 
 
The Prairie 
 
 ride most of the time. He and I expect to ride all 
 the way, and the old man who goes with us will 
 drive the mules. What s been really bad for my 
 father was living in that dreadful hotel at Inde 
 pendence with everything damp and uncomfortable. 
 We want to get off just as soon as we can, and this 
 gentleman," indicating Leff, " says you want to go, 
 too." 
 
 :( We ll start to-morrow morning, if it s clear." 
 
 "Now, father," giving the arm she held a re 
 newed clutch and sharper shake, " there s our 
 chance. We must go with them." 
 
 The father s smile would have shown something 
 of deprecation, or even apology, if it had not been 
 all pride and tenderness. 
 
 These young men will be very kind if they per 
 mit us to join them," was what his lips said. His 
 eyes added : " This is a spoiled child, but even so, 
 there is no other like her in the world." 
 
 The young men sprang at the suggestion. The 
 spring was internal, of the spirit, for they were too 
 overwhelmed by the imminent presence of beauty 
 to show a spark of spontaneity on the outside. 
 They muttered their agreement, kicked the ground, 
 and avoided the eyes of Miss Gillespie. 
 
 " The people at the hotel," the doctor went on, 
 " advised us to join one of the ox trains. But it 
 seemed such a slow mode of progress. They don t 
 make much more than fifteen to twenty miles a 
 day." 
 
 " And then," said the girl, " there might be peo- 
 15 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 pie we didn t like in the train and we d be with 
 them all the time." 
 
 It is not probable that she intended to suggest 
 to her listeners that she could stand them as travel 
 ing companions. Whether she did or not they 
 scented the compliment, looked stupid, and hung 
 their heads, silent in the intoxication of this first 
 subtle whiff of incense. Even Leff, uncouth and 
 unlettered, extracted all that was possible from the 
 words, and felt a delicate elation at the thought 
 that so fine a creature could endure his society. 
 
 " We expect to go a great deal faster than the 
 long trains," she continued. " We have no oxen, 
 only six mules and two extra horses and a cow." 
 
 Her father laughed outright. 
 
 " Don t let my daughter frighten you. We ve 
 really got a very small amount of baggage. Our 
 little caravan has been made up on the advice of 
 Dr. Marcus Whitman, an old friend of mine. Five 
 years ago when he was in Washington he gave me 
 a list of what was needed for the journey across 
 the plains. I suppose he s the best authority on 
 that subject. We all know how successfully the 
 Oregon emigration was carried through." 
 
 David was glad to show he knew something of 
 that. A boy friend of his had gone to Oregon with 
 this, the first large body of emigrants that had ven 
 tured on the great enterprise. Whitman was to 
 him a national hero, his ride in the dead of wintei 
 from the far Northwest to Washington, as patrioti 
 cally inspiring as Paul Revere s. 
 
 16 
 
The Prairie 
 
 There was more talk, standing round the fire, 
 while the agreements for the start were being made. 
 No one thought the arrangement hasty, for it was 
 a place and time of quick decisions. Men starting 
 on the emigrant trail were not for wasting time on 
 preliminaries. Friendships sprang up like the grass 
 and were mown down like it. Standing on the 
 edge of the unknown was not the propitious mo 
 ment for caution and hesitation. Only the bold 
 dared it and the bold took each other without ques 
 tion, reading what was on the surface, not bother 
 ing about what might be hidden. 
 
 It was agreed, the weather being fair, that they 
 would start at seven the next morning, Dr. Gil- 
 lespie s party joining David s at the camp. With 
 their mules and horses they should make good time 
 and within a month overhaul the train that had left 
 the Gillespies behind. 
 
 As the doctor and his daughter walked away the 
 shyness of the young men returned upon them in a 
 heavy backwash. They were so whelmed by it that 
 they did not even speak to one another. But both 
 glanced with cautious stealth at the receding backs, 
 the doctor in front, his daughter walking daintily 
 on the edge of grass by the roadside, holding her 
 skirts away from the wet weeds. 
 
 When she was out of sight Leff said with an 
 embarrassed laugh: 
 
 " Well, we got some one to go along with us 
 now." 
 
 David did not laugh. He pondered frowningly. 
 17 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 He was the elder by two years and he felt his re 
 sponsibilities. 
 
 " They ll do all right. With two more men we ll 
 make a strong enough train." 
 
 Left was cook that night, and he set the coffee 
 on and began cutting the bacon. Occupied in this 
 congenial work, the joints of his tongue were loos 
 ened, and as the skillet gave forth grease and 
 odors, he gave forth bits of information gleaned 
 from the earlier part of the interview : 
 
 " I guess they got a first rate outfit. The old 
 gentleman said they d been getting it together since 
 last autumn. They must be pretty well fixed." 
 
 David nodded. Being " well fixed " or being 
 poor did not count on the edge of the prairie. They 
 were frivolous outside matters that had weight in 
 cities. Leff went on, 
 
 " He s consumpted. That s why he s going. He 
 says he expects to be cured before he gets to Cali 
 fornia." 
 
 A sudden zephyr irritated the tree tops, which 
 bent away from its touch and scattered moisture on 
 the fire and the frying pan. There was a sputter 
 and sizzle and Leff muttered profanely before he 
 took up the dropped thread : 
 
 " The man that drives the mules, he s a hired 
 man that the old gentleman s had for twenty years. 
 He was out on the frontier once and knows all 
 about it, and there ain t nothing he can t drive " 
 turning of the bacon here, Leff absorbed beyond 
 explanatory speech " They got four horses, two 
 
 18 
 
The Prairie 
 
 to ride and two extra ones, and a cow. I don t see 
 how they re goin to keep up the pace with the cow 
 along. The old gentleman says they can do twenty 
 to twenty-five miles a day when the road s good. 
 But I don t seem to see how the cow can keep up 
 such a lick." 
 
 " A hired man, a cow, and an outfit that it took 
 all winter to get together," said David thought 
 fully. " It sounds more like a pleasure trip than 
 going across the plains." 
 
 He sat as if uneasily debating the possible draw 
 backs of so elaborate an escort, but he was really 
 ruminating upon the princess, who moved upon the 
 wilderness with such pomp and circumstance. 
 
 As they set out their tin cups and plates they con 
 tinued to discuss the doctor, his caravan, his mules, 
 his servant, and his cow, in fact, everything but 
 his daughter. It was noticeable that no mention 
 of her was made till supper was over and the night 
 fell. Then their comments on her were brief. Leff 
 seemed afraid of her even a mile away in the 
 damp hotel at Independence, seemed to fear that 
 she might in some way know he d had her name 
 upon his tongue, and would come to-morrow with 
 angry, accusing looks like an offended goddess. 
 David did not want to talk about her, he did not 
 quite know why. Before the thought of traveling 
 a month in her society his mind fell back reeling, 
 baffled by the sudden entrance of such a dazzling 
 intruder. A month beside this glowing figure, a 
 month under the impersonal interrogation of those 
 
 19 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 cool, demanding eyes! It was as if the President 
 or General Zachary Taylor had suddenly joined 
 them. 
 
 But of course she figured larger in their thoughts 
 than any other part or all the combined parts of Dr. 
 Gillespie s outfit. In their imaginations the hun 
 gry imaginations of lonely young men she repre 
 sented all the grace, beauty, and mystery of the 
 Eternal Feminine. They did not reason about her, 
 they only felt, and what they felt unconsciously 
 to themselves was that she had introduced the 
 last, wildest, and most disturbing thrill into the ad 
 venture of the great journey. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE next day broke still and clear. The dawn 
 was yet a pale promise in the East when from In 
 dependence, out through the dripping woods and 
 clearings, rose the tumult of breaking camps. The 
 rattle of the yoke chains and the raucous cry of 
 "Catch up! Catch up!" sounded under the trees 
 and out and away over valley and upland as the 
 lumbering wagons, freighted deep for the long 
 trail, swung into the road. 
 
 David s camp was astir long before the sun was 
 up. The great hour had come. They were going! 
 They sung and shouted as they harnessed Bess and 
 Ben, a pair of sturdy roans bought from an emi 
 grant discouraged before the start, while the saddle 
 horses nosed about the tree roots for a last crop 
 ping of the sweet, thick grass. Inside the wagon 
 the provisions were packed in sacks and the rifles 
 hung on hooks on the canvas walls. At the back, 
 on a supporting step, the mess chest was strapped. 
 It was a businesslike wagon. Its contents included 
 only one deviation from the practical and necessary 
 three books of David s. Joe had laughed at 
 him about them. What did a man want with 
 Byron s poems and Milton and Bacon s " Essays " 
 crossing the plains? Neither Joe nor Left could 
 
 21 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 understand such devotion to the printed page. 
 Their kits were of the compactest, not a useless 
 article or an unnecessary pound, unless you counted 
 the box of flower seeds that belonged to Joe, who 
 had heard that California, though a dry country, 
 could be coaxed into productiveness along the 
 rivers. 
 
 Dr. Gillespie and his daughter were punctual. 
 David s silver watch, large as the circle of a cup 
 and possessed of a tick so loud it interrupted 
 conversation, registered five minutes before seven, 
 when the doctor and his daughter appeared at the 
 head of their caravan. Two handsome figures, well 
 mounted and clad with taste as well as suitability, 
 they looked as gallantly unfitted for the road as 
 armored knights in a modern battlefield. Good 
 looks, physical delicacy, and becoming clothes had 
 as yet no recognized place on the trail. The Gil- 
 lespies were boldly and blithely bringing them, and 
 unlike most innovators, romance came with them. 
 Nobody had gone out of Independence with so 
 confident and debonair an air. Now advancing 
 through a spattering of leaf shadows and sunspots, 
 they seemed to the young men to be issuing from 
 the first pages of a story, and the watchers secretly 
 hoped that they would go riding on into the heart 
 of it with the white arch of the prairie schooner 
 and the pricked ears of the six mules as a movable 
 background. 
 
 There was no umbrella this morning to obscure 
 Miss Gillespie s vivid tints, and in the same flat, 
 
 22 
 
The Prairie 
 
 straw hat, with her cheeks framed in little black 
 curls, she looked a freshly wholesome young girl, 
 who might be dangerous to the peace of mind of 
 men even less lonely and susceptible than the two 
 who bid her a flushed and bashful good morning. 
 She had the appearance, however, of being entirely 
 oblivious to any embarrassment they might show. 
 There was not a suggestion of coquetry in her man 
 ner as she returned their greetings. Instead, it was 
 marked by a businesslike gravity. Her eyes 
 touched their faces with the slightest welcoming 
 light and then left them to rove, sharply inspecting, 
 over their wagon and animals. When she had scru 
 tinized these, she turned in her saddle, and said 
 abruptly to the driver of the six mules: 
 
 " Daddy John, do you see horses ? " 
 
 The person thus addressed nodded and said in a 
 thin, old voice, 
 
 " I do, and if they want them they re welcome to 
 them." 
 
 He was a small, shriveled man, who might have 
 been anywhere from sixty to seventy-five. A bat 
 tered felt hat, gray-green with wind and sun, was 
 pulled well down to his ears, pressing against his 
 forehead and neck thin locks of gray hair. A 
 grizzle of beard edged his chin, a poor and scanty 
 growth that showed the withered skin through its 
 sparseness. His face, small and wedge-shaped, was 
 full of ruddy color, the cheeks above the ragged 
 hair smooth and red as apples. Though his mouth 
 was deficient in teeth, his neck, rising bare from the 
 
 23 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 band of his shirt, corrugated with the starting 
 sinews of old age, he had a shrewd vivacity of 
 glance, an alertness of poise, that suggested an un 
 impaired spiritual vitality. He seemed at home be 
 hind the mules, and here, for the first time, David 
 felt was some one who did not look outside the pic 
 ture. In fact, he had an air of tranquil acceptance 
 of the occasion, of adjustment without effort, that 
 made him fit into the frame better than anyone else 
 of the party. 
 
 It was a glorious morning, and as they fared 
 forward through the checkered shade their spirits 
 ran high. The sun, curious and determined, pried 
 and slid through every crack in the leafage, turned 
 the flaked lichen to gold, lay in clotted light on the 
 pools around the fern roots. They were delicate 
 spring woods, streaked with the white dashes of 
 the dogwood, and hung with the tassels of the 
 maple. The foliage was still unfolding, patterned 
 with fresh creases, the prey of a continuous, frail 
 unrest. Little streams chuckled through the un 
 derbrush, and from the fusion of woodland whis 
 perings bird notes detached themselves, soft flut- 
 ings and liquid runs, that gave another expression 
 to the morning s blithe mood. 
 
 Between the woods there were stretches of open 
 country, velvet smooth, with the trees slipped down 
 to where the rivers ran. The grass w r as as green 
 as sprouting grain, and a sweet smell of wet earth 
 and seedling growths came from it. Cloud shadows 
 trailed across it, blue blotches moving languidly. 
 
 24 
 
The Prairie 
 
 It was the young earth in its blushing promise, fra 
 grant, rain-washed, budding, with the sound of 
 running water in the grass and bird voices dropping 
 from the sky. 
 
 With their lighter wagons they passed the ox 
 trains plowing stolidly through the mud, barefoot 
 children running at the wheel, and women knitting 
 on the front seat. The driver s whip lash curled in 
 the air, and his nasal " Gee haw " swung the yoked 
 beasts slowly to one side. Then came detachments 
 of Santa Fe traders, dark men in striped scrapes 
 with silver trimmings round their high-peaked hats. 
 Behind them stretched the long line of wagons, the 
 ponderous freighters of the Santa Fe Trail, rolling 
 into Independence from the Spanish towns that lay 
 beyond the burning deserts of the Cimarron. They 
 filed by in slow procession, a vision of faded colors 
 and swarthy faces, jingle of spur and mule bell 
 mingling with salutations in sonorous Spanish. 
 
 As the day grew warmer, the doctor complained 
 of the heat and went back to the wagon. David 
 and the young girl rode on together through the 
 green thickness of the wood. They had talked a 
 little while the doctor was there, and now, left to 
 themselves, they suddenly began to talk a good 
 deal. In fact, Miss Gillespie revealed herself as a 
 somewhat garrulous and quite friendly person. 
 David felt his awed admiration settling into a much 
 more comfortable feeling, still wholly admiring but 
 relieved of the cramping consciousness that he had 
 entertained an angel unawares. She was so natural 
 
 25 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 and girlish that he began to cherish hopes of ad 
 dressing her as " Miss Susan," even let vaulting 
 ambition carry him to the point where he could 
 think of some day calling himself her friend. 
 
 She was communicative, and he was still too 
 dazzled by her to realize that she was not above 
 asking questions. In the course of a half hour she 
 knew all about him, and he, without the courage to 
 be thus flatteringly curious, knew the main points 
 of her own history. Her father had been a practic 
 ing physician in Rochester for the past fifteen 
 years. Before that he had lived in New York, 
 where she had been born twenty years ago. Her 
 mother had been a Canadian, a French woman 
 from the Province of Quebec, whom her father had 
 met there one summer when he had gone to fish in 
 Lake St. John. Her mother had been very beauti 
 ful David nodded at that, he had already decided 
 it and had always spoken English with an accent. 
 She, the daughter, when she was little, spoke 
 French before she did English ; in fact, did not Mr. 
 Crystal notice there was still something a little 
 queer about her r s ? 
 
 Mr. Crystal had noticed it, noticed it to the ex 
 tent of thinking it very pretty. The young lady 
 dismissed the compliment as one who does not 
 hear, and went on with her narrative: 
 
 " After my mother s death my father left New 
 York. He couldn t bear to live there any more. 
 He d been so happy. So he moved away, though 
 he had a fine practice/ 
 
 26 
 
The Prairie 
 
 The listener gave forth a murmur of sympathetic 
 understanding. Devotion to a beautiful woman 
 was matter of immediate appeal to him. His re 
 spect for the doctor rose in proportion, especially 
 when the devotion was weighed in the balance 
 against a fine practice. Looking at the girl s profile 
 with prim black curls against the cheek, he saw the 
 French-Canadian mother, and said not gallantly, 
 but rather timidly : 
 
 " And you re like your mother, I suppose ? 
 You re dark like a French woman." 
 
 She answered this with a brusque denial. Ex 
 tracting compliments from the talk of a shy young 
 Westerner was evidently not her strong point. 
 
 " Oh, no ! not at all. My mother was pale and 
 tall, with very large black eyes. I am short and 
 dark and my eyes are only just big enough to see 
 out of. She was delicate and I am very strong. 
 My father says I ve never been sick since I got my 
 first teeth." 
 
 She looked at him and laughed, and he real 
 ized it. was the first time he had seen her do it. 
 It brightened her face delightfully, making the 
 eyes she had spoken of so disparagingly narrow 
 into dancing slits. When she laughed men who 
 had not lost the nicety of their standards by a so 
 journ on the frontier would have called her a pretty 
 girl. 
 
 " My mother was of the French noblesse" she 
 said, a dark eye upon him to see how he would take 
 this dignified piece of information. " She was a 
 
 27 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 descendant of the Baron de Poutrincourt, who 
 founded Port Royal." 
 
 David was as impressed as anyone could have de 
 sired. He did not know what the French noblesse 
 was, but by its sound he judged it to be some high 
 and honorable estate. He was equally ignorant of 
 the identity of the Baron de Poutrincourt, but the 
 name alone was impressive, especially as Miss Gil- 
 lespie pronounced it. 
 
 " That s fine, isn t it? " he said, as being the only 
 comment he could think of which at once showed 
 admiration and concealed ignorance. 
 
 The young woman seemed to find it adequate 
 and went on with her family history. Five years 
 ago in Washington her father had seen his old 
 friend, Marcus Whitman, and since then had been 
 restless with the longing to move West. His health 
 demanded the change. His labors as a physician 
 had exhausted him. His daughter spoke feelingly 
 of the impossibility of restraining his charitable 
 zeal. He attended the poor for nothing. He rose 
 at any hour and went forth in any weather in re 
 sponse to. the call of suffering. 
 
 " That s what he says a doctor s duties are," she 
 said. " It isn t a profession to make money with, 
 it s a profession for helping people and curing 
 them. You yourself don t count, it s only what you 
 do that does. Why, my father had a very large 
 practice, but he made only just enough to keep us." 
 
 Of all she had said this seemed to the listener 
 the best worth hearing. The doctor now mounted 
 
 28 
 
The Prairie 
 
 to the top of the highest pedestal David s admira 
 tion could supply. Here was one of the compensa 
 tions with which life keeps the balances even. Joe 
 had died and left him friendless, and while the ache 
 was still sharp, this stranger and his daughter had 
 come to soothe his pain, perhaps, in the course of 
 time, to conjure it quite away. 
 
 Early in the preceding winter the doctor had 
 been forced to decide on the step he had been long 
 contemplating. An attack of congestion of the 
 lungs developed consumption in his weakened con 
 stitution. A warm climate and an open-air life 
 were prescribed. And how better combine them 
 than by emigrating to California? 
 
 " And so," said the doctor s daughter, " father 
 made up his mind to go and sold out his practice. 
 People thought he was crazy to start on such a trip 
 when he was sick, but he knows more than they do. 
 Besides, it s not going to be such hard work for 
 him. Daddy John, the old man who drives the 
 mules, knows all about this Western country. He 
 was here a long time ago when Indiana and Illinois 
 were wild and full of Indians. He got wounded 
 out here fighting and thought he was going to die, 
 and came back to New York. My father found 
 him there, poor and lonely and sick, and took care 
 of him and cured him. He s been with us ever 
 since, more than twenty years, and he manages 
 everything and takes care of everything. He and 
 father 11 tell you I rule them, but that s just teasing. 
 It s really Daddy John who rules." 
 
 29 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The mules were just behind them, and she looked 
 back at the old man and called in her clear voice : 
 
 " I m talking about you, Daddy John. I m tell 
 ing all about your wickedness." 
 
 Daddy John s answer came back, slow and 
 amused : 
 
 " Wait till I get the young feller alone and I ll do 
 some talking." 
 
 Laughing, she settled herself in her saddle and 
 dropped her voice for David s ear : 
 
 " I think Daddy John was quite pleased we 
 missed the New York train. It was a big com 
 pany, and he couldn t have managed everything the 
 way he can now. But we ll soon catch it up and 
 then " she lifted her eyebrows and smiled with 
 charming malice at the thought of Daddy John s 
 coming subjugation. " We ought to overtake it in 
 three or four weeks they said in Independence." 
 
 Her companion made no answer. The cheerful 
 conversation had suddenly taken a depressing turn. 
 Under the spell of Miss Gillespie s loquacity and 
 black eyes he had quite forgotten that he was only 
 a temporary escort, to be superseded by an entire 
 ox train, of which even now they were in pursuit. 
 David was a dreamer, and while the young woman 
 talked, he had seen them both in diminishing per 
 spective, passing sociably across the plains, over the 
 mountains, into the desert, to where California 
 edged with a prismatic gleam the verge of the 
 world. They were to go riding, and talking on, 
 their acquaintance ripening gradually and delight- 
 
 30 
 
The Prairie 
 
 fully, while the enormous panorama of the continent 
 unrolled behind them. And it might end in three 
 or four weeks! The Emigrant Trail looked over 
 whelmingly long when he could only see himself 
 and Leff riding over it, and California lost its color 
 and grew as gray as a line of sea fog. 
 
 That evening s camp was pitched in a clearing 
 near the road. The woods pressed about them, 
 whispering and curious, thrown out and then 
 blotted as the fires leaped or died. It was the first 
 night s bivouac, and much noise and bustle went to 
 its accomplishment. The young men covertly 
 watched the Gillespie Camp. How would this or 
 namental party cope with such unfamiliar labors? 
 With its combination of a feminine element which 
 must be helpless by virtue of a rare and dainty fine 
 ness and a masculine element which could hardly be 
 otherwise because of ill health, it would seem that 
 all the work must devolve upon the old man. 
 
 Nothing, however, was further from the fact. 
 The Gillespies rose to the occasion with the same 
 dauntless buoyancy that they had shown in ever at 
 tempting the undertaking, and then blithely defying 
 public opinion with a servant and a cow. The sense 
 of their unfitness which had made the young men 
 uneasy now gave way to secret wonder as the doc 
 tor pitched the tent like a backwoodsman, and his 
 daughter showed a skilled acquaintance with camp 
 ers biscuit making. 
 
 She did it so well, so without hurry and with 
 knowledge, that it was worth while watching her, 
 
 31 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 if David s own cooking could have spared him. He 
 did find time once to offer her assistance and that 
 she refused, politely but curtly. With sleeves rolled 
 to the elbow, her hat off, showing a roll of hair on 
 the crown of her head separated by a neat parting 
 from the curls that hung against her cheeks, she 
 was absorbed in the business in hand. Evidently 
 she was one of those persons to whom the matter 
 of the moment is the only matter. When her bis 
 cuits were done, puffy and brown, she volunteered 
 a preoccupied explanation : 
 
 "I ve been learning to do this all winter, and 
 I m going to do it right." 
 
 And even then it was less an excuse for her 
 abruptness than the announcement of a compact 
 with herself, steadfast, almost grim. 
 
 After supper they sat by the fire, silent with 
 fatigue, the scent of the men s tobacco on the air, 
 the girl, with her hands clasping her knees, look 
 ing into the flames. In the shadows behind the old 
 servant moved about. They could hear him croon 
 ing to the mules, and then catch a glimpse of his 
 gnomelike figure bearing blankets from the wagon 
 to the tent. There came a point where his labors 
 seemed ended, but his activity had merely changed 
 its direction. He came forward and said to the girl, 
 
 " Missy, your bed s ready. You d better be go 
 ing." 
 
 She gave a groan and a movement of protest un 
 der which was the hopeless acquiescence of the 
 conquered : 
 
 32 
 
The Prairie 
 
 " Not yet, Daddy John. I m so comfortable sit 
 ting here." 
 
 * There s two thousand miles before you. 
 Mustn t get tired this early. Come now, get 
 up." 
 
 His manner held less of urgence than of quiet 
 command. He was not dictatorial, but he was de 
 termined. The girl looked at him, sighed, rose to 
 her knees, and then made a last appeal to her 
 father : 
 
 " Father, do take my part. Daddy John s too 
 interfering for words ! " 
 
 But her father would only laugh at her discom 
 fiture. 
 
 " All right," she said as she bent down to kiss 
 him. " It ll be your turn in just about five minutes." 
 
 It was an accurate prophecy. The tent flaps had 
 hardly closed on her when Daddy John attacked his 
 employer. 
 
 " Coin now ? " he said, sternly. 
 
 The doctor knew his fate, and like his daughter 
 offered a spiritless and intimidated resistance. 
 
 " Just let me finish this pipe," he pleaded. 
 
 Daddy John was inexorable : 
 
 " It s no way to get cured settin round the fire 
 puffin on a pipe." 
 
 :f Ten minutes longer?" 
 
 " We ll roll out to-morrer at seven." 
 
 " Daddy John, go to bed ! " 
 
 " I got to see you both tucked in for the night 
 before I do. Can t trust either of you." 
 
 33 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The doctor, beaten, knocked the ashes out of his 
 pipe and rose with resignation. 
 
 " This is the family skeleton/ he said to the 
 young men who watched the performance with cu 
 riosity. " We re ground under the heel of Daddy 
 John." 
 
 Then he thrust his hand through the old ser 
 vant s arm and they walked toward the wagon, 
 their heads together, laughing like a pair of 
 boys. 
 
 A few minutes later the camp had sunk to si 
 lence. The doctor was stowed away in the wagon 
 and Miss Gillespie had drawn the tent flaps round 
 the mystery of her retirement. David and Leff, too 
 tired to pitch theirs, were dropping to sleep by the 
 fire, when the girl s voice, low, but penetrating, 
 roused them. 
 
 " Daddy John," it hissed in the tone children em 
 ploy in their games of hide-and-seek, " Daddy 
 John, are you awake ? " 
 
 The old man, who had been stretched before the 
 fire, rose to a sitting posture, wakeful and alert. 
 
 Yes, Missy, what s the matter? Can t you 
 sleep?" 
 
 " It s not that, but it s so hard to fix anything. 
 There s no light." 
 
 Here it became evident to the watchers that Miss 
 Gillespie s head was thrust out through the tent 
 opening, the canvas held together below her chin. 
 Against the pale background, it was like the vision 
 of a decapitated head hung on a white wall. 
 
 34 
 
The Prairie 
 
 "What is it you want to fix?" queried the old 
 man. 
 
 " My hair," she hissed back. " I want to put it 
 up in papers, and I can t see." 
 
 Then the secret of Daddy John s power was re 
 vealed. He who had so remorselessly driven her 
 to bed now showed no surprise or disapprobation at 
 her frivolity. It was as if her wish to beautify 
 herself received his recognition as an accepted 
 vagary of human nature. 
 
 " Just wait a minute," he said, scrambling out of 
 his blanket, " and I ll get you a light." 
 
 The young men could not but look on all agape 
 with curiosity to see what the resourceful old man 
 intended getting. Could the elaborately complete 
 Gillespie outfit include candles? Daddy John soon 
 ended their uncertainty. He drew from the fire a 
 thick brand, brilliantly aflame, and carried it to the 
 tent. Miss Gillespie s immovable head eyed it with 
 some uneasiness. 
 
 " I ve nothing to put it in," she objected, " and I 
 can t hold it while I m doing up my hair." 
 
 " I will," said the old man. " Get in the tent 
 now and get your papers ready." 
 
 The head withdrew, its retirement to be imme 
 diately followed by her voice slightly muffled by the 
 intervening canvas : 
 
 " Now I m ready." 
 
 Daddy John cautiously parted the opening, in 
 serted the torch, and stood outside, the canvas flaps 
 carefully closed round his hand. With the intrusion 
 
 35 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 of the flaming brand the tent suddenly became a 
 rosy transparency. The young girl s figure moved 
 in the midst of the glow, a shape of nebulous dark 
 ness, its outlines lost in the mist of enfolding 
 draperies. 
 
 Leff, softly lifting himself on his elbows, gazed 
 fascinated upon this discreet vision. Then looking 
 at David he saw that he had turned over and was 
 lying with his face on his arms. Leff leaned from 
 the blankets and kicked him, a gentle but meaning 
 kick on the leg. 
 
 To his surprise David lifted a wakeful face, the 
 brow furrowed with an angry frown. 
 
 " Can t you go to sleep," he muttered crossly. 
 " Let that girl curl her hair, and go to sleep like a 
 man." 
 
 He dropped his face once more on his arms. Leff 
 felt unjustly snubbed, but that did not prevent him 
 from watching the faintly defined aura of shadow 
 which he knew to be the dark young woman he 
 was too shy to look at when he met her face to 
 face. He continued watching till the brand died 
 down to a spark and Daddy John withdrew it and 
 went back to his fire. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN their division of labor David and Left had 
 decided that one was to drive the wagon in the 
 morning, the other in the afternoon. This morn 
 ing it was David s turn, and as he " rolled out " at 
 the head of the column he wondered if Left would 
 now ride beside Miss Gillespie and lend attentive 
 ear to her family chronicles. But Leff was evi 
 dently not for dallying by the side of beauty. He 
 galloped off alone, vanishing through the thin mists 
 that hung like a fairy s draperies among the trees. 
 The Gillespies rode at the end of the train. Even 
 if he could not see them David felt their nearness, 
 and it added to the contentment that always came 
 upon him from a fair prospect lying under a smil 
 ing sky. At harmony with the moment and the 
 larger life outside it, he leaned back against the 
 canvas hood and let a dreamy gaze roam over the 
 serene and opulent landscape. 
 
 Nature had always soothed and uplifted him, 
 been like an opiate to anger or pain. As a boy his 
 troubles had lost their sting in the consoling large 
 ness of the open, under the shade of trees, within 
 sight of the bowing wheat fields with the wind 
 making patterns on the seeded grain. Now his 
 thoughts, drifting aimless as thistle fluff, went back 
 
 37 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 to those childish days of country freedom, when he 
 had spent his vacations at his uncle s farm. He 
 used to go with his widowed mother, a forlorn, 
 soured woman who rarely smiled. He remembered 
 his irritated wonder as she sat complaining in the 
 ox cart, while he sent his eager glance ahead over 
 the sprouting acres to where the log farmhouse 
 the haven of fulfilled dreams stretched in its squat 
 ugliness. He could feel again the inward lift, the 
 flying out of his spirit in a rush of welcoming 
 ecstasy, as he saw the woods hanging misty on the 
 horizon and the clay bluffs, below which the slow, 
 quiet river uncoiled its yellow length. 
 
 The days at the farm had been the happiest of 
 his life wonderful days of fishing and swimming, 
 of sitting in gnarled tree boughs so still the nest 
 ing birds lost their fear and came back to their 
 eggs. For hours he had lain in patches of shade 
 watching the cloud shadows on the fields, and the 
 great up-pilings when storms were coming, rising 
 black-bosomed against the blue. There had been 
 some dark moments to throw out these brighter 
 ones when chickens were killed and he had tried 
 to stand by and look swaggeringly unconcerned as 
 a boy should, while he sickened internally and shut 
 his lips over pleadings for mercy. And there was 
 an awful day when pigs were slaughtered, and no 
 one knew that he stole away to the elder thickets by 
 the river, burrowed deep into them, and stopped 
 his ears against the shrill, agonized cries. He knew 
 such weakness was shameful and hid it with a 
 
 38 
 
The Prairie 
 
 child s subtlety. At supper he told skillful lies to 
 account for his pale cheeks and lost appetite. 
 
 His uncle, a kindly generous man, without chil 
 dren of his own, had been fond of him and sympa 
 thized with his wish for an education. It was he 
 who had made it possible for the boy to go to a 
 good school at Springfield and afterwards to study 
 law. How hard he had worked in those school 
 years, and what realms of wonder had been opened 
 to him through books, the first books he had known, 
 reverently handled, passionately read, that led him 
 into unknown worlds, pointed the way to ideals 
 that could be realized ! With the law books he was 
 not in so good an accord. But it was his chosen 
 profession, and he approached it with zeal and high 
 enthusiasm, a young apostle who would sell his 
 services only for the right. 
 
 Now he smiled, looking back at his disillusion. 
 The young apostle was jostled out of sight in the 
 bustle of the growing town. There was no room in 
 it for idealists who were diffident and sensitive and 
 stood on the outside of its self-absorbed activity be 
 wildered by the noises of life. The stream of events 
 was very different from the pages of books. David 
 saw men and women struggling toward strange 
 goals, fighting for soiled and sordid prizes, and felt 
 as he had done on the farm when the pigs were 
 killed. And as he had fled from that ugly scene to 
 the solacing quiet of Nature, he turned from the 
 tumult of the little town to the West, upon whose 
 edge he stood. 
 
 39 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 It called him like a voice in the night. The spell 
 of its borderless solitudes, its vast horizons, its be 
 nign silences, grew stronger as he felt himself 
 powerless and baffled among the fighting energies 
 of men. He dreamed of a life there, moving in 
 unobstructed harmony. A man could begin in a 
 fresh, clean world, and be what he wanted, be a 
 young apostle in his own way. His boy friend who 
 had gone to Oregon fired his imagination with 
 stories of Marcus Whitman and his brother mis 
 sionaries. David did not want to be a missionary, 
 but he wanted, with a young man s solemn serious 
 ness, to make his life of profit to mankind, to do 
 the great thing without self-interest. So he had 
 yearned and chafed while he read law and waited 
 for clients and been as a man should to his mother, 
 until in the summer of 1847 both his mother and 
 his uncle had died, the latter leaving him a little 
 fortune of four thousand dollars. Then the Emi 
 grant Trail lay straight before him, stretching to 
 California. 
 
 The reins lay loose on the backs of Bess and Ben 
 and the driver s gaze was fixed on the line of trees 
 that marked the course of an unseen fiver. The 
 dream was realized, he was on the trail. He lifted 
 his eyes to the sky where massed clouds slowly 
 sailed and birds flew, shaking notes of song down 
 upon him. Joe was dead, but the world was still 
 beautiful, with the sun on the leaves and the wind 
 on the grass, with the kindliness of honest men 
 and the gracious presence of women. 
 
 40 
 
The Prairie 
 
 Dr. Gillespie was the first dweller in that un 
 known world east of the Alleghenies whom David 
 had met. For this reason alone it would be a privi 
 lege to travel with him. How great the privilege 
 was, the young man did not know till he rode by 
 the doctor s side that afternoon and they talked to 
 gether on the burning questions of the day; or the 
 doctor talked and David hungrily listened to the 
 voice of education and experience. 
 
 The war with Mexico was one of the first sub 
 jects. The doctor regarded it as a discreditable 
 performance, unworthy a great and generous na 
 tion. The Mormon question followed, and on this 
 he had much curious information. Living in the 
 interior of New York State, he had heard Joseph 
 Smith s history from its beginning, when he posed 
 as " a money digger " and a seer who could read 
 the future through " a peek stone." The recent 
 polygamous teachings of the prophet were a matter 
 to mention with lowered voice. Miss Gillespie, rid 
 ing on the other side, was not supposed to hear, and 
 certainly appeared to take no interest in Mexico, or 
 Texas, or Joseph Smith and his unholy doctrines. 
 
 She made no attempt to enter into the conversa 
 tion, and it seemed to David, who now and then 
 stole a shy look at her to see if she was impressed 
 by his intelligent comments, that she did not listen. 
 Once or twice, when the talk was at its acutest 
 point of interest, she struck her horse and left 
 them, dashing on ahead at a gallop. At another 
 time she dropped behind, and his ear, trained in 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 her direction, heard her voice in alternation with 
 Daddy John s. When she joined them after this 
 withdrawal she was bright eyed and excited. 
 
 " Father," she called as she came up at a sharp 
 trot, " Daddy John says the prairie s not far be 
 yond. He says we ll see it soon the prairie that 
 I ve been thinking of all winter ! " 
 
 Her enthusiasm leaped to David and he forgot 
 the Mexican boundaries and the polygamous Mor 
 mons, and felt like a discoverer on the prow of a 
 ship whose keel cuts unknown seas. For the prairie 
 was still a word of wonder. It called up visions of 
 huge unpeopled spaces, of the flare of far flung 
 sunsets, of the plain blackening with the buffalo, 
 of the smoke wreath rising from the painted tepee, 
 and the Indian, bronzed and splendid, beneath his 
 feathered crest. 
 
 " It s there," she cried, pointing with her whip. 
 " I can t wait. I m going on." 
 
 David longed to go with her, but the doctor was 
 deep in the extension of slavery and of all the sub 
 jects this burned deepest. The prairie was inter 
 esting but not when the repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise was on the carpet. Watching the 
 girl s receding shape, David listened respectfully 
 and heard of the dangers and difficulties that were 
 sure to follow on the acquisition of the great strip 
 of Mexican territory. 
 
 All afternoon they had been passing through 
 woods, the remnant of that mighty forest which had 
 once stretched from the Missouri to the Alle- 
 
 42 
 
The Prairie 
 
 ghenies. Now its compact growth had become 
 scattered and the sky, flaming toward sunset, shone 
 between the tree trunks. The road ascended a 
 slight hill and at the top of this Miss Gillespie ap 
 peared and beckoned to them. As they drew near 
 she turned and made a sweeping gesture toward the 
 prospect. The open prairie lay before them. 
 
 No one spoke. In mute wonderment they gazed 
 at a country that was like a map unrolled at their 
 feet. Still as a vision it stretched to where sky and 
 earth fused in a golden haze. No sound or motion 
 broke its dreaming quiet, vast, brooding, self- 
 absorbed, a land of abundance and accomplishment, 
 its serenity flowing to the faint horizon blur. Lines 
 of trees, showing like veins, followed the wander 
 ing of streams, or gathered in clusters to suck the 
 moisture of springs. Nearby a pool gleamed, a 
 skin of gold linked by the thread of a rivulet to 
 other pools. They shone, a line of glistening disks, 
 imbedded in the green. Space that seemed to 
 stretch to the edges of the world, the verdure of 
 Eden, the silence of the unpolluted, unconquered 
 earth were here. 
 
 So must it have looked when the beaked Viking 
 ships nosed along the fretted shores of Rhode 
 Island, when Columbus took the sea in his high- 
 pooped caravals, when the Pilgrims saw the rocks 
 and naked boughs of the New England coast. So 
 it had been for centuries, roamed by wild men who 
 had perished from its face and left no trace, their 
 habitation as a shadow in the sun, their work as 
 
 43 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 dew upon the grass, their lives as the lives of the 
 mayfly against its immemorial antiquity. 
 
 The young man felt his spirit mount in a rush of 
 exaltation like a prayer. Some fine and exquisite 
 thing in himself leaped out in wild response. The 
 vision and the dream were for a moment his. And 
 in that moment life, all possible, all perfect, 
 stretched before him, to end in a triumphant glory 
 like the sunset. 
 
 The doctor took off his hat. 
 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God. All the 
 earth doth magnify his name," he said in a low 
 voice. 
 
 44 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A BROKEN line of moving dots, the little company 
 trailed a slow way across this ocean of green. 
 Nothing on its face was more insignificant than 
 they. The birds in the trees and the bees in the 
 flowers had a more important place in its economy. 
 One afternoon David riding in the rear crested a 
 ridge and saw them a mile in advance, the road 
 stretching before and behind them in a curving 
 thread. The tops of the wagons were like the 
 backs of creeping insects, the mounted figures, 
 specks of life that raised a slight tarnish of dust 
 on the golden clearness. He wondered at their 
 lack of consequence, unregarded particles of matter 
 toiling across the face of the world. 
 
 This was what they suggested viewed largely 
 from the distance. Close at hand one of them 
 and it was a very different matter. They enjoyed 
 it. If they were losing their significance as man 
 in the aggregate, the tamer, and master, they were 
 gaining a new importance as distinct and separate 
 units. Convention no longer pressed on them. 
 What law there was they carried with them, bore 
 it before them into the wilderness like the Ark of 
 the Covenant. But nobody wanted to be unlawful. 
 There was no temptation to be so. Envy, hatred 
 
 45 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 and malice and all uncharitableness had been left 
 behind in the cities. They were a very cheerful 
 company, suffering a little from fatigue, and with 
 now and then a faint brush of bad temper to put 
 leaven into the dough. 
 
 There was a Biblical simplicity in their life. They 
 had gone back to the era when man was a nomad, 
 at night pitching his tent by the water hole, and 
 sleeping on skins beside the fire. When the sun 
 rose over the rim of the prairie the camp was astir. 
 When the stars came out in the deep blue night 
 they sat by the cone of embers, not saying much, for 
 in the open, spoken words lose their force and the 
 human creature becomes a silent animal. 
 
 Each day s march was a slow, dogged, progres 
 sion, broken by fierce work at the fords. The dawn 
 was the beautiful time when the dew was caught 
 in frosted webs on the grass. The wings of the 
 morning were theirs as they rode over the long 
 green swells where the dog roses grew and the 
 leaves of the sage palpitated to silver like a wom 
 an s body quivering to the brushing of a beloved 
 hand. Sometimes they walked, dipped into hollows 
 where the wattled huts of the Indians edged a creek, 
 noted the passage of earlier trains in the cropped 
 grass at the spring mouth and the circles of dead 
 fires. 
 
 In the afternoons it grew hot. The train, delib 
 erate and determined as a tortoise, moved through 
 a shimmer of light. The drone of insect voices rose 
 in a sleepy chorus and the men drowsed in the wag- 
 
The Prairie 
 
 ons. Even the buoyant life of the young girl 
 seemed to feel the stupefying weight of the prairie s 
 deep repose. She rode at a foot pace, her hat hang 
 ing by its strings to the pommel, her hair pushed 
 back from her beaded forehead, not bothering about 
 her curls now. 
 
 Then came the wild blaze of the sunset and the 
 pitching of the camp, and after supper the rest by 
 the fire with pipe smoke in the air, and overhead 
 the blossoming of the stars. 
 
 They were wonderful stars, troops and troops of 
 them, dust of myriad, unnumbered worlds, and the 
 white lights of great, bold planets staring at ours. 
 David wondered what it looked like from up there. 
 Was it as large, or were we just a tiny, twinkling 
 point too? From city streets the stars had always 
 chilled him by their awful suggestion of worlds be 
 yond worlds circling through gulfs of space. But 
 here in the primordial solitudes, under the solemn 
 cope of the sky, the thought lost its terror. He 
 seemed in harmony with the universe, part of it as 
 was each speck of star dust. Without question or 
 understanding he felt secure, convinced of his one 
 ness with the great design, cradled in its infinite 
 care. 
 
 One evening while thus dreaming he caught Su 
 san s eye full of curious interest like a watching 
 child s. 
 
 " What are you thinking of ? " she asked. 
 
 "The stars," he answered. "They used to 
 frighten me." 
 
 47 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 She looked from him to the firmament as if to 
 read a reason for his fear : 
 
 "Frighten you? Why?" 
 
 " There were so many of them, thousands and 
 millions, wandering about up there. It was so 
 awful to think of them, how they d been swinging 
 round forever and would keep on forever. And 
 maybe there were people on some of them, and what 
 it all was for." 
 
 She continued to look up and then said indiffer 
 ently : 
 
 " It doesn t seem to me to matter much." 
 
 " It used to make me feel that nothing was any 
 use. As if I was just a grain of dust." 
 
 Her eyes came slowly down and rested on him 
 in a musing gaze. 
 
 " A grain of dust. I never felt that way. I 
 shouldn t think you d like it, but I don t see why 
 you were afraid." 
 
 David felt uncomfortable. She was so exceed 
 ingly practical and direct that he had an unpleasant 
 feeling she would set him down as a coward, who 
 went about under the fear that a meteor might 
 fall on him and strike him dead. He tried to 
 explain: 
 
 " Not afraid actually, just sort of frozen by the 
 idea of it all. It s so immense, so so crushing 
 and terrible." 
 
 Her gaze continued, a questioning quality enter 
 ing it. This gained in force by a slight tilting of 
 her head to one side. David began to fear her next 
 
 48 
 
The Prairie 
 
 question. It might show that she regarded him not 
 only as a coward but also as a fool. 
 
 " Perhaps you don t understand," he hazarded 
 timidly. 
 
 " I don t think I do," she answered, then dropped 
 her eyes and added after a moment of pondering, 
 " I can t remember ever being really afraid of any 
 thing." 
 
 Had it been daylight she would have noticed 
 that the young man colored. He thought guiltily 
 of certain haunting fears of his childhood, ghosts 
 in the attic, a banshee of which he had once heard 
 a fearsome story, a cow that had chased him on the 
 farm. She unconsciously assisted him from this 
 slough of shame by saying suddenly : 
 
 " Oh, yes, I can. I remember now. I m afraid 
 of mad dogs." 
 
 It was not very comforting for, after all, every 
 body was afraid of mad dogs. 
 
 " And there was a reason for that," she went on. 
 " I was frightened by a mad dog when I was a 
 little girl eight years old. I was going out to spend 
 some of my allowance. I got twenty cents a 
 month and I had it all in pennies. And suddenly 
 there was a great commotion in the street, every 
 body running and screaming and rushing into door 
 ways. I didn t know what was the matter but I 
 was startled and dropped my pennies. And just as 
 I stooped to pick them up I saw the dog coming 
 toward me, tearing, with its tongue hanging out. 
 And, would you believe it, I gathered up all those 
 
 49 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 pennies before I ran and just had time to scramble 
 over a fence." 
 
 It was impossible not to laugh, especially with 
 her laughter leading, her eyes narrowed to cracks 
 through which light and humor sparkled at him. 
 
 He was beginning to know Miss Gillespie 
 " Miss Susan " he called her very well. It was 
 just like his dream, riding beside her every day, 
 and growing more friendly, the spell of her youth, 
 and her dark bloom, and her attentive eyes for 
 she was an admirable listener if her answers some 
 times lacked point drawing from him secret 
 thoughts and hopes and aspirations he had never 
 dared to tell before. If she did not understand 
 him she did not laugh at him, which was enough 
 for David with the sleepy whisperings of the prairie 
 around him, and new, strange matter stirring in his 
 heart and making him bold. 
 
 There was only one thing about her that was dis 
 appointing. He did not admit it to himself but it 
 kept falling on their interviews with a depressive 
 effect. To the call of beauty she remained unmoved. 
 If he drew up his horse to gaze on the wonders of 
 the sunset the waiting made her impatient. He had 
 noticed that heat and mosquitoes would distract her 
 attention from the hazy distances drowsing in the 
 clear yellow of noon. The sky could flush and 
 deepen in majestic splendors, but if she was busy 
 over the fire and her skillets she never raised her 
 head to look. And so it was with poetry. She 
 did not know and did not care anything about the 
 
 50 
 
The Prairie 
 
 fine frenzies of the masters. Byron? wrinkling 
 up her forehead yes, she thought she d read some 
 thing in school. Shelley ? " The Ode to the West 
 Wind?" No, she d never read that. What was 
 an ode anyway? Once he recited the " Lines to an 
 Indian Air," his voice trembling a little, for the 
 words were almost sacred. 
 
 She pondered for a space and then said : 
 
 " What are champak odors? " 
 
 David didn t know. He had never thought of 
 inquiring. 
 
 " Isn t that odd," she murmured. " That would 
 have been the first thing I would have wanted to 
 know. Champak? I suppose it s some kind of a 
 flower something like a magnolia. It has a sound 
 like a magnolia." 
 
 A lively imagination was evidently not one of 
 Miss Gillespie s possessions. 
 
 Late one afternoon, riding some distance in front 
 of the train, she and David had seen an Indian 
 loping by on his pony. It was not an unusual sight. 
 Many Indians had visited their camp and at the 
 crossing of the Kaw they had come upon an entire 
 village in transit to the summer hunting grounds. 
 But there was something in this lone figure, moving 
 solitary through the evening glow, that put him in 
 accord with the landscape s solemn beauty, re 
 touched him with his lost magnificence. In buck 
 skins black with filth, his blanket a tattered rag, an 
 ancient rifle across his saddle, the undying pictur- 
 esqueness of the red man was his. 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Look," said David, his imagination fired. 
 " Look at that Indian." 
 
 The savage saw them and turned a face of melan 
 choly dignity upon them, giving forth a deep " How, 
 How." 
 
 " He s a very dirty Indian," said Susan, sweeping 
 him with a glance of disfavor. 
 
 David did not hear her. He looked back to 
 watch the lonely figure as it rode away over the 
 swells. It seemed to him to be riding into the past, 
 the lordly past, when the red man owned the land 
 and the fruits thereof. 
 
 " Look at him as he rides away," he said. " Can t 
 you seem to see him coming home from a battle 
 with his face streaked with vermilion and his war 
 bonnet on ? He d be solemn and grand with the wet 
 scalps dripping at his belt. When they saw him 
 coming his squaws would come out in front of the 
 lodges and begin to sing the war chant." 
 
 " Squaws ! " in a tone of disgust. " That s as 
 bad as the Mormons." 
 
 The muse had possession of David and a regard 
 for monogamy was not sufficient to stay his noble 
 rage. 
 
 "And think how he felt! All this was his, the 
 pale face hadn t come. He d fought his enemies 
 for it and driven them back. In the cool of the 
 evening when he was riding home he could look out 
 for miles and miles, clear to the horizon, and know 
 he was the King of it all. Just think what it was 
 to feel like that! And far away he could see the 
 
 52 
 
The Prairie 
 
 smoke of his village and know that they were wait 
 ing for the return of the chief." 
 
 " Chief! " with even greater emphasis, " that poor 
 dirty creature a chief!" 
 
 The muse relinquished her hold. The young 
 man explained, not with impatience, but as one 
 mortified by a betrayal into foolish enthusiasm : 
 
 " I didn t mean that he was a chief. I was just 
 imagining." 
 
 " Oh," with the falling inflexion of comprehen 
 sion. "You often imagine, don t you? Let s ride 
 on to where the road goes down into that hollow." 
 
 They rode on in silence, both slightly chagrined, 
 for if David found it trying to have his fine flights 
 checked, Susan was annoyed when she said things 
 that made him wear a look of forbearing patience. 
 She may not have had much imagination, but she 
 had a very observing eye, and could have startled 
 not only David, but her father by the shrewdness 
 with which she read faces. 
 
 The road sloped to a hollow where the mottled 
 trunks of cotton woods stood in a group round the 
 dimpling face of a spring. With well-moistened 
 roots the grass grew long and rich. Here was the 
 place for the night s camp. They would wait till 
 the train came up. And even as they rested on 
 this comfortable thought they saw between the 
 leaves the canvas top of a wagon. 
 
 The meeting of trains was one of the excitements 
 of life on the Emigrant Trail. Sometimes they 
 were acquaintances made in the wet days at Inde- 
 
 53 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 pendence, sometimes strangers who had come by 
 way of St. Joseph. Then the encountering parties 
 eyed one another with candid curiosity and from 
 each came the greeting of the plains, " Be you for 
 Oregon or California?" 
 
 The present party was for Oregon from Mis 
 souri, six weeks on the road. They w r ere a family, 
 traveling alone, having dropped out of the com 
 pany with which they had started. The man, a 
 gaunt and grizzled creature, with long hair and 
 ragged beard, was unyoking his oxen, while the 
 woman bent over the fire which crackled beneath 
 her hands. She was as lean as he, shapeless, saf 
 fron-skinned and wrinkled, but evidently younger 
 than she looked. The brood of tow-headed chil 
 dren round her ran from a girl of fourteen to a 
 baby, just toddling, a fat, solemn-eyed cherub, al 
 most naked, with a golden fluff of hair. 
 
 At sight of him Susan drew up, the unthinking 
 serenity of her face suddenly concentrated into a 
 hunger of admiration, a look which changed her, 
 focused her careless happiness into a pointed de 
 light. 
 
 " Look at the baby/ she said quickly, " a lovely 
 fat baby with curls," then slid off her horse and 
 went toward them. 
 
 The woman drew back staring. The children 
 ran to her, frightened as young rabbits, and hid 
 behind her skirts. Only the baby, grave and un- 
 alarmed, stood his ground and Susan snatched him 
 up. Then the mother smiled, gratified and reas- 
 
 54 
 
The Prairie 
 
 sured. She had no upper front teeth, and the wide 
 toothless grin gave her a look of old age that had 
 in it a curious suggestion of debasement. 
 
 David stood by his horse, making no move to 
 come forward. The party repelled him. They 
 were not only uncouth and uncomely, but they were 
 dirty. Dirt on an Indian was, so to speak, dirt in 
 its place but unwashed women and children ! 
 His gorge rose at it. And Susan, always dainty as 
 a pink, seemed entirely indifferent to it. The chil 
 dren, with unkempt hair and legs caked in mud, 
 crowded about her, and as she held the baby 
 against her chest, her glance dwelt on the woman s 
 face, with no more consciousness of its ugliness 
 than when she looked over the prairie there was 
 consciousness of Nature s supreme perfection. 
 
 On the way back to camp he asked her about it. 
 Why, if she objected to the Indian s dirt, had she 
 been oblivious to that of the women and the chil 
 dren? He put it judicially, with impersonal clear 
 ness as became a lawyer. She looked puzzled, then 
 laughed, her fresh, unusual laugh : 
 
 " I m sure I don t know. I don t know why I do 
 everything or why I like this thing and don t like 
 that. I don t always have a reason, or if I do I 
 don t stop to think what it is. I just do things be 
 cause I want to and feel them because I can t help 
 it. I like children and so I wanted to talk to them 
 and hear about them from their mother." 
 
 " But would your liking for them make you 
 blind to such a thing as dirt ? " 
 
 55 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " I don t know. Maybe it would. When you re 
 interested in anything or anybody small things 
 don t matter." 
 
 " Small things ! Those children were a sight ! " 
 
 " Yes, poor little brats ! No one had washed the 
 baby for weeks. The woman said she was too tired 
 to bother and it wouldn t bathe in the creeks with 
 the other children, so they let it go. If we kept 
 near them I could wash it for her. I could borrow 
 it and wash it every morning. But there s no use 
 thinking about it as we ll pass them to-morrow. 
 Wasn t it a darling with little golden rings of hair 
 and eyes like pieces of blue glass ? " 
 
 She sighed, relinquishing the thought of the 
 baby s morning bath with pensive regret. David 
 could not understand it, but decided as Susan felt 
 that way it must be the right way for a woman to 
 feel. He was falling in love, but he was certainly 
 not falling in love as students of a later date have 
 put it with " a projection of his own personality." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THEY had passed the Kaw River and were now 
 bearing on toward the Vermilion. Beyond that 
 would be the Big and then the Little Blue and soon 
 after the Platte where " The Great Medicine way 
 of the Pale Face " bent straight to the westward. 
 The country continued the same and over its suave 
 undulations the long trail wound, sinking to the 
 hollows, threading clumps of cotton-wood and 
 and alder, lying white along the spine of bolder 
 ridges. 
 
 Each day they grew more accustomed to their 
 gypsy life. The prairie had begun to absorb them, 
 cut them off. from the influences of the old setting, 
 break them to its will. They were going back over 
 the footsteps of the race, returning to aboriginal 
 conditions, with their backs to the social life of 
 communities and their faces to the wild. Inde 
 pendence seemed a long way behind, California so 
 remote that it was like thinking of Heaven when 
 one was on earth, well fed and well faring. Their 
 immediate surroundings began to make their world, 
 they subsided into the encompassing immensity, un 
 consciously eliminating thoughts, words, habits, 
 that did not harmonize with its uncomplicated de 
 sign. 
 
 57 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 On Sundays they halted and " lay off " all day. 
 This was Dr. Gillespie s wish. He had told the 
 young men at the start and they had agreed. It 
 would be a good thing to have a day off for wash 
 ing and general " redding up." But the doctor had 
 other intentions. In his own words, he " kept the 
 Sabbath/ and each Sunday morning read the ser 
 vice of the Episcopal Church. Early in their 
 acquaintance David had discovered that his new 
 friend was religious; "a God-fearing man" was 
 the term the doctor had used to describe himself. 
 David, who had only seen the hysterical fanaticism 
 of frontier revivals now for the first time encoun 
 tered the sincere, unquestioning piety of a spiritual 
 nature. The doctor s God was an all-pervading 
 presence, who went before him as pillar of fire or 
 cloud. Once speaking to the young man of the se 
 curity of his belief in the Divine protection, he had 
 quoted a line which recurred to David over and over 
 in the freshness of the morning, in the hot hush 
 of midday, and in the night when the stars were 
 out : " Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither 
 slumber nor sleep." 
 
 Overcome by shyness the young men had stayed 
 away from the firt Sunday s service. David had 
 gone hunting, feeling that to sit near by and not 
 attend would offer a slight to the doctor. No such 
 scruples restrained Leff, who squatted on his heels 
 at the edge of the creek, washing his linen and lis 
 tening over his shoulder. By the second Sunday 
 they had mastered their bashfulness and both came 
 
 58 
 
The Prairie 
 
 shuffling their hats in awkward hands and sitting 
 side by side on a log. Leff, who had never been to 
 church in his life, was inclined to treat the occasion 
 as one for furtive amusement, at intervals casting 
 a sidelong look at his companion, which, on en 
 couragement, would have developed into a wink. 
 David had no desire to exchange glances of derisive 
 comment. He was profoundly moved. The sono 
 rous words, the solemn appeal for strength under 
 temptation, the pleading for mercy with that stern, 
 avenging presence who had said, " I, the Lord thy 
 God am a jealous God," awed him, touched the 
 same chord that Nature touched and caused an ex 
 altation less exquisite but more inspiring. 
 
 The light fell flickering through the leaves of the 
 cotton-woods on the doctor s gray head. He looked 
 up from his book, for he knew the words by heart, 
 and his quiet eyes dwelt on the distance swimming 
 in morning light. His friend, the old servant, 
 stood behind him, a picturesque figure in fringed 
 buckskin shirt and moccasined feet. He held his 
 battered hat in his hand, and his head with its spare 
 locks of grizzled hair was reverently bowed. He 
 neither spoke nor moved. It was Susan s voice 
 who repeated the creed and breathed out a low 
 " We beseech thee to hear us, Good Lord." 
 
 The tents and the wagons were behind her and 
 back of them the long green splendors of the 
 prairie. Flecks of sun danced over her figure, shot 
 back and forth from her skirt to her hair as whiffs 
 of wind caught the upper branches of the cotton 
 
 59 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 woods. She had been sitting on the mess chest, 
 but when the reading of the Litany began she 
 slipped to her knees, and with head inclined an 
 swered the responses, her hands lightly clasped 
 resting against her breast. 
 
 David, who had been looking at her, dropped his 
 eyes as from a sight no man should see. To admire 
 her at this moment, shut away in the sanctuary of 
 holy thoughts, was a sacrilege. Men and their pas 
 sions should stand outside in that sacred hour when 
 a woman is at prayer. Leff had no such high 
 fancies. He only knew the sight of Susan made 
 him dumb and drove away all the wits he had. 
 Now she looked so aloof, so far removed from all 
 accustomed things, that the sense of her remoteness 
 added gloom to his embarrassment. He twisted a 
 blade of grass in his freckled hands and wished 
 that the service would soon end. 
 
 The cotton-wood leaves made a light, dry patter 
 ing as if rain drops were falling. From the pick 
 eted animals, looping their trail ropes over the 
 grass, came a sound of low, continuous cropping. 
 The hum of insects swelled and sank, full of sud 
 den life, then drowsily dying away as though the 
 spurt of energy had faded in the hour s discourag 
 ing languor. The doctor s voice detached itself 
 from this pastoral chorus intoning the laws that 
 God gave Moses when he was conducting a stiff- 
 necked and rebellious people through a wilderness : 
 
 Thou shalt do no murder. 
 
 Thou shalt not commit adultery. 
 60 
 
The Prairie 
 
 " Thou shalt not steal." 
 
 And to each command Susan s was the only 
 voice that answered, falling sweet and delicately 
 clear on the silence : 
 
 " Lord have mercy upon us and incline our 
 hearts to keep this law." 
 
 Susan praying for power to resist such scarlet 
 sins! It was fantastic and David wished he dared 
 join his voice to hers and not let her kneel there 
 alone as if hers was the only soul that needed 
 strengthening. Susan, the young, the innocent- 
 eyed, the pure. 
 
 He had come again the next Sunday Leff went 
 hunting that morning and felt that some day, not 
 so far distant, he would dare to kneel too and re 
 spond. He thought of it when alone, another port 
 that his dreams were taking him to his voice and 
 Susan s, the bass and the treble, strength and sweet 
 ness, symbol of the male and the female, united in 
 one harmonious strain that would stream upward 
 to the throne of the God who, watching over them, 
 neither slumbered nor slept. 
 
 It was on the afternoon of this Sunday, that 
 David started out to walk to an Indian village, of 
 which a passing emigrant had told him, lying in a 
 hollow a mile to the westward. He left the camp 
 sunk in the somnolence of its seventh-day rest, 
 Susan not to be seen anywhere, Leff asleep under 
 the wagon, the doctor writing his diary in the shade 
 of the cotton-woods, and Daddy John lying on the 
 grass among the whiteness of the week s wash. 
 
 61 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The hour was hot and breathless, the middle dis 
 tance quivering through a heat haze, and the re 
 moter reaches of the prairie an opalescent blur. 
 
 The Indian village was deserted and he wan 
 dered through its scattered lodges of saplings wat 
 tled with the peeled bark of willows. The Indians 
 had not long departed. The ash of their fires was 
 still warm, tufts of buffalo hair and bright scraps 
 of calico were caught on the bushes, yet it already 
 had an air of desolation, the bleakness of the hu 
 man habitation when the dweller has crossed the 
 threshold and gone. 
 
 Shadows were filling the hollow like a thin cold 
 wine rising on the edges of a cup, when he left it 
 and gained the upper levels. Doubtful of his 
 course he stood for a moment looking about, con 
 scious of a curious change in the prospect, a deep 
 ening of its colors, a stillness no longer dreamy, 
 but heavy with suspense. The sky was sapphire 
 clear, but on the western horizon a rampart of cloud 
 edged up, gray and ominous, against the blue. As 
 he looked it mounted, unrolled and expanded, 
 swelling into forms of monstrous aggression. A 
 faint air, fresh and damp, passed across the grass, 
 and the clouds swept, like smoke from a world on 
 fire, over the sun. 
 
 With the sudden darkening, dread fell on the face 
 of the land. It came first in a hush, like a holding 
 of the breath, attentive, listening, expectant. Then 
 this broke and a quiver, the goose-flesh thrill of 
 fear, stirred across the long ridges. The small, 
 
 62 
 
The Prairie 
 
 close growing leafage cowered, a frightened trem 
 bling seized the trees. David saw the sweep of the 
 landscape growing black under the blackness above. 
 He began to run, the sky sinking lower like a lid 
 shutting down on the earth. He thought that it 
 was hard to get it on right, for in front of him a 
 line of blue still shone over which the lid had not 
 yet been pressed down. The ground was pale with 
 the whitened terror of upturned leaves, the high 
 branches of the cotton-woods whipping back and 
 forth in wild agitation. He felt the first large 
 drops, far apart, falling with a reluctant splash, 
 and he ran, a tiny figure in the tragic and tre 
 mendous scene. 
 
 When he reached the camp the rush of the rain 
 had begun. Through a network of boughs he 
 caught the red eye of the fire and beyond had a 
 vision of stampeding mules with the men in pur 
 suit. Then crashing through the bushes he saw 
 why the fire still burned Susan was holding an 
 umbrella over it, the rain spitting in the hot ash, a 
 pan of biscuits balanced in the middle. Behind her 
 the tent, one side concave, the other bellying out 
 from restraining pegs, leaped and jerked at its 
 moorings. A rumble of thunder rolled across the 
 sky and the rain came at them in a slanting wall. 
 
 :< We re going to have biscuits for supper if the 
 skies fall," Susan shouted at him, and he had a 
 glimpse of her face, touched with firelight, laugh 
 ing under the roof of the umbrella. 
 
 A furious burst of wind cut off his answer, the 
 
 63 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 blue glare of lightning suddenly drenched them, 
 and the crackling of thunder tore a path across the 
 sky. The umbrella was wrenched from Susan and 
 her wail as the biscuits fell pierced the tumult with 
 the thin, futile note of human dole. He had no 
 time to help her, for the tent with an exultant 
 wrench tore itself free on one side, a canvas wing 
 boisterously leaping, while the water dived in at the 
 blankets. As he sped to its rescue he had an im 
 pression of the umbrella, handle up, filling with 
 water like a large black bowl and Susan groveling 
 in the ashes for her biscuits. 
 
 " The tent s going," he cried back ; " all your 
 things will be soaked. Never mind the supper, come 
 and help me." And it seemed in this moment of 
 tumult, that Susan ceased to be a woman to be 
 cared for and protected and became his equal, fight 
 ing with him against the forces of the primitive 
 world. The traditions of her helplessness were 
 stripped from her, and he called her to his aid as 
 the cave man called his woman when the storm fell 
 on their bivouac. 
 
 They seized on the leaping canvas, he feeling in 
 the water for the tent pegs, she snatching at the 
 ropes. He tried to direct her, shouting orders, 
 which were beaten down in the stuttering explosion 
 of the thunder. Once a furious gust sent her 
 against him. The wind wrapped her damp skirts 
 round him and he felt her body soft and pliable. 
 The grasp of her hands was tight on his arms and 
 close to his ear he heard her laughing. For a sec- 
 
The Prairie 
 
 ond the quick pulse of the lightning showed her to 
 him, her hair glued to her cheeks, her wet bodice 
 like a thin web molding her shoulders, and as the 
 darkness shut her out he again heard her laughter 
 broken by panting breaths. 
 
 " Isn t it glorious," she cried, struggling away 
 from him. " That nearly took me off my feet. My 
 skirts are all twined round you." 
 
 They got the tent down, writhing and leaping 
 like a live thing frantic to escape. Conquered, a 
 soaked mass on the ground, he pulled the bedding 
 from beneath it and she grasped the blankets in her 
 arms and ran for the wagon. She went against the 
 rain, leaning forward on it, her skirts torn back 
 and whipped up by the wind into curling eddies. 
 Her head, the hair pressed flat to it, was sleek and 
 wet as a seal s, and as she ran she turned and looked 
 at him over her shoulder, a wild, radiant look that 
 he never forgot. 
 
 They sat in the wagon and watched the storm. 
 Soaked and tired they curled up by the rear open 
 ing while the rain threshed against the canvas and 
 driblets of water came running down the sides. 
 The noise made talking difficult and they drew 
 close together exclaiming as the livid lightning sat 
 urated the scene, and holding their breaths when 
 the thunder broke and split its furious way over 
 their heads. They watched it, conscious each in the 
 other of an increased comforting friendliness, a 
 gracious reassurance where Nature s transports 
 made man seem so small. 
 
 65 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE Vermilion was swollen. With a bluff on 
 one side and a wide bottom on the other it ran a 
 prosperous, busy stream, brown and ripple-ridged. 
 The trail lay like a line of tape along the high land, 
 then down the slope, and across the bottom to the 
 river. Here it seemed to slip under the current and 
 come up on the other side where it climbed a steep 
 bank, and thence went on, thin and pale, rising and 
 dropping to the ridges till the tape became a thread. 
 
 They had been waiting a day for the water to 
 fall. Camped in the bottom under a scattering of 
 trees with the animals grazing on the juicy river 
 grass and the song of the stream in their ears, it 
 had been a welcome break in the monotony of the 
 march. There was always a choice of occupation 
 in these breathing spells. On the first afternoon 
 everybody had sat on the grass at the tent doors 
 mending. To-day the men had revolted and wan 
 dered off but Susan continued industriously intent 
 over patches and darns. She sat on a log, her 
 spools and scissors beside her, billows of homespun 
 and calico about her feet. 
 
 As she sewed she sung in a low undervoice, not 
 looking up. Beyond her in the shade Daddy John 
 mended a piece of harness. Daddy John was not 
 
 66 
 
The Prairie 
 
 a garrulous person and when she paused in her sew 
 ing to speak to him, he answered with a monosyl 
 lable. It was one of the old man s self-appointed 
 duties to watch over her when the others were 
 absent. If he did not talk much to his " Missy " 
 he kept a vigilant eye upon her, and to-day he 
 squatted in the shade beside her because the doctor 
 and David had gone after antelope and Leff was off 
 somewhere on an excursion of his own. 
 
 Susan, sewing, her face grave above her work, 
 was not as pretty as Susan smiling. She drew her 
 eyebrows, thick and black, low over her eyes with 
 her habitual concentration in the occupation of the 
 moment, and her lips, pressed together, pouted, but 
 not the disarming baby pout which, when she was 
 angry, made one forget the sullenness of her brows. 
 Her looks however, were of that fortunate kind 
 which lose nothing from the open air and large 
 backgrounds. Dress added but little to such at 
 tractions as she had. Fineness and elegance were 
 not hers, but her healthy, ripe brownness fitted into 
 this sylvan setting where the city beauty would 
 have soon become a pale and draggled thing. 
 
 The robust blood of her French Canadian fore 
 bears was quickening to the call of the trail. Was 
 it the spirit of her adventurous ancestors that made 
 her feel a kinship with the wild, an indifference to 
 its privations, a joy in its rude liberty? She was 
 thinner, but stronger and more vigorous than when 
 the train had started. She talked less and yet her 
 whole being seemed more vibrantly alive, her 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 glance to have gained the gleaming quietness of 
 those whose eyes scan vague horizons. She 
 who had been heavy on her feet now stepped 
 with a light noiselessness, and her body showed its 
 full woman s outlines straightened and lengthened 
 to the litheness of a boy. Her father noticed that 
 the Gallic strain in her seemed to be crowding out 
 the other. In Rochester, under city roofs, she had 
 been at least half his. On the trail, with the arch 
 of the sky above and the illimitable earth around 
 her, she was throwing back to her mother s 
 people. 
 
 Susan herself had no interest in these atavistic 
 developments. She was a healthy, uncomplicated, 
 young animal, and she was enjoying herself as she 
 had never done before. Behind her the life of 
 Rochester stretched in a tranquil perspective of dull 
 and colorless routine. Nothing had ever happened. 
 From her seventh year her father and Daddy John 
 had brought her up, made her the pet and plaything 
 of their lonely lives, rejoiced in her, wondered at 
 her, delighted in the imperious ways she had 
 learned from their spoiling. There had been teach 
 ers to educate her, but it was an open secret that 
 they had not taught her much. Susan did not take 
 kindly to books. No one had ever been able to 
 teach her how to cipher and learning the piano had 
 been a fruitless effort abandoned in her fifteenth 
 year. It is only just to her to say that she had her 
 little talents. She was an excellent housekeeper, 
 and she could cook certain dishes better, the doctor 
 
 68 
 
The Prairie 
 
 said, than the chefs in some of the fine restaurants 
 in New York City. 
 
 But what were the sober pleasures of housekeep 
 ing and cooking beside the rough, deep-living ex 
 hilaration of gypsy life on the plains ! She looked 
 back pityingly at those days of stagnant peace, 
 compared the entertainment to be extracted from 
 embroidering a petticoat frill to the exultant joy of 
 a ride in the morning over the green swells. Who 
 would sip tea in the close curtained primness of 
 the parlor when they could crouch by the camp 
 fire and eat a corn cake baked on the ashes or drink 
 brown coffee from a tin cup? And her buffalo 
 robe on the ground, the blanket tucked round her 
 shoulder, the rustling of furtive animal life in the 
 grass outside the tent wall was there any com 
 parison between its comfort and that of her narrow 
 white bed at home, between the clean sheets of 
 which she had snuggled so luxuriously ? 
 
 There were other matters of charm and interest 
 in the wilderness, matters that Susan did not speak 
 about hardly admitted to herself, for she was a 
 modest maid. She had never yet had a lover; no 
 man had ever kissed her or held her hand longer 
 than a cool, impersonal respect dictated. In Roch 
 ester no one had turned to look at the doctor s 
 daughter as she walked by, for, in truth, there were 
 many girls much prettier and more piquant than 
 Susan Gillespie. But, nevertheless, she had had her 
 dreams about the lover that some day was to come 
 and carry her off under a wreath of orange blos- 
 
 69 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 soms and a white veil. She did not aspire to a 
 struggling hoard of suitors, but she thought it 
 would be only fair and entirely within the realm of 
 the possible if she had two; most girls had two. 
 
 Now she felt the secret elation that follows on 
 the dream realized. She did not tell herself that 
 David and LefT were in love with her. She would 
 have regarded all speculations on such a sacred sub- 
 pect as low and unmaidenly. But the conscious 
 ness of it permeated her being with a gratified sense 
 of her worth as a woman. It made her feel her 
 value. Like all girls of her primitive kind she 
 estimated herself not by her own measure, but by 
 the measure of a man s love for her. Now that men 
 admired her she felt that she was taking her place 
 as a unit of importance. Her sense of achievement 
 in this advent of the desiring male was not alone 
 pleased vanity, it went back through the ages to the 
 time when woman won her food and clothing, her 
 right to exist, through the power of her sex, when 
 she whose attraction was strongest had the best 
 corner by the fire, the choicest titbit from the hunt, 
 and the strongest man to fight off rivals and keep 
 her for himself. 
 
 Her perceptions, never before exercised on these 
 subjects, were singularly keen. Neither of the young 
 men had spoken a word of love to her, yet she in 
 tuitively knew that they were both under her spell. 
 The young girl so stupid at her books, who could 
 never learn arithmetic and found history a bore, 
 had a deeper intelligence in the reading of the hu- 
 
 70 
 
The Prairie 
 
 man heart than anyone of the party. More than 
 the doctor who was a man of education, more than 
 David who thought so much and loved to read, 
 more than Left who, if his brain was not sharp, 
 might be supposed to have accumulated some slight 
 store of experience, more than Daddy John who 
 was old and had the hoar of worldly knowledge 
 upon him. Compared to her they were as novices 
 to a nun who has made an excursion into the world 
 and taken a bite from the apple Eve threw away. 
 
 She had no especial liking for Left. It amused 
 her to torment him, to look at him with an artless, 
 inquiring stare when he was overwhelmed by con 
 fusion and did not know what to say. When she 
 felt that he had endured sufficiently she would be 
 come merciful, drop her eyes, and end what was to 
 her an encounter that added a new zest to her sense 
 of growing power. 
 
 With David it was different. Here, too, she felt 
 her mastery, but the slave was of another fiber. 
 He acknowledged her rule, but he was neither 
 clumsy nor dumb before her. She respected his in 
 telligence and felt a secret jealousy of it, as of a 
 part of him which must always be beyond her in 
 fluence. His devotion was a very dear and gra 
 cious thing and she was proud that he should care 
 for her. Love had not awakened in her, but some 
 times when she was with him, her admiration soft 
 ened to a warm, invading gentleness, a sense of 
 weakness glad of itself, happy to acknowledge his 
 greater strength. Had David s intuitions been as 
 
 71 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 true as hers he would have known when these mo 
 ments came and spoken the words. But on such 
 matters he had no intuitions, was a mere, unen 
 lightened male trying to win a woman by standing 
 at a distance and kneeling in timid worship. 
 
 Now sitting, sewing on the log, Susan heard a 
 step on the gravel, and without looking up gave it 
 a moment s attention and knew it was Left s. She 
 began to sing softly, with an air of abstraction. 
 The steps drew near her, she noted that they lagged 
 as they approached, finally stopped. She gave her 
 work a last, lingering glance and raised her eyes 
 slowly as if politeness warred with disinclination. 
 Leff was standing before her, scowling at her as at 
 an object of especial enmity. He carried a small 
 tin pail full of wild strawberries. She saw it at 
 once, but forebore looking at it, keeping her eyes 
 on his face, up which the red color ran. 
 
 " Oh, Leff," she said with careless amiability, 
 " so you ve got back." 
 
 Leff grunted an agreeing monosyllable and 
 moved the strawberries to a position where they in 
 truded into the conversation like a punctuation 
 mark in the middle of a sentence. Her glance 
 dropped to the pail, and she looked at it saying 
 nothing, amused to thus tease him and covertly 
 note his hopeless and impotent writhings. 
 
 He thrust the pail almost against her knee and 
 she was forced to say : 
 
 " What fine strawberries, a whole pail full. Can 
 I have one? " 
 
 72 
 
The Prairie 
 
 He nodded and she made a careful choice, giving 
 the pail a little shake to stir its contents. Leff glared 
 at the top of her head where her hair was twisted 
 into a rough knot. 
 
 " Thank you," she said. " I ve found a beauty. 
 You must have been all afternoon getting so 
 many," and she put the strawberry in her mouth 
 and picked up her sewing as though that ended the 
 matter. 
 
 Leff stood shifting from foot to foot, hoping 
 that she might extend a helping hand. 
 
 " The river s falling," he said at length. " It s 
 gone down two feet. We can cross this even- 
 ing." 
 
 " Then I must hurry and finish my mending." 
 
 She evidently was not going to extend so much 
 as the tip of a finger. In his bashful misery his 
 mind worked suddenly and unexpectedly. 
 
 " I ve got to go and get the horses," he said, and, 
 setting the pail on the log beside her, turned and 
 ran. 
 
 But Susan was prepared for this move. It was 
 what she expected. 
 
 "Oh, Leff," she called, lazily. "Come back, 
 you ve forgotten your strawberries." 
 
 And he had to come back, furious and helpless, 
 he had to come back. He had not courage for a 
 word, did not dare even to meet her gaze lifted 
 mildly to his. He snatched up the pail and lurched 
 off and Susan returned to her sewing, smiling to 
 herself. 
 
 73 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " He wanted you to take the berries," said Dad 
 dy John, who had been watching. 
 
 " Did he? " she queried with the raised brows of 
 innocent surprise. " Why didn t he say so ? " 
 
 " Too bashful ! " 
 
 " He couldn t expect me to take them unless he 
 offered them." 
 
 " I should think you d have guessed it." 
 
 She laughed at this, dropping her sewing and 
 looking at the old man with eyes almost shut. 
 
 " Oh, Daddy John," she gurgled. " How clever 
 you are ! " 
 
 An hour later they began the crossing. The ford 
 of the Vermilion was one of the most difficult be 
 tween the Kaw and the Platte Valley. After 
 threading the swift, brown current, the trail zig 
 zagged up a clay bank, channeled into deep ruts by 
 the spring s fleet of prairie schooners. It would be 
 a hard pull to get the doctor s wagon up and David 
 rode over with Bess and Ben to double up with the 
 mules. It was late afternoon and the bottom lay 
 below the sunshine steeped in a still transparent 
 light, where every tint had its own pure value. The 
 air was growing cool after a noon of blistering 
 heat and from an unseen backwater frogs had al 
 ready begun a hoarse, tentative chanting. 
 
 The big wagon had already crossed when David 
 on Bess, with Ben at the end of a trail rope, started 
 into the stream. Susan watched him go, his tall, 
 high-shouldered figure astride the mare s broad 
 back, one arm flung outward with the rope dipping 
 
 74 
 
The Prairie 
 
 to the current. As the water rose round his feet, 
 he gave a wild, jubilant shout and went forward, 
 plowing deeper with every step, his cries swelling 
 over the river s low song. 
 
 Susan, left on the near bank to wait till the wag 
 ons were drawn up, lifted herself into the crotch 
 of a cottonwood tree. The pastoral simplicity of 
 the scene, the men and animals moving through the 
 silver-threaded water with the wagons waiting and 
 after the work the camp to be pitched, exhilarated 
 her with a conviction of true living, of existence 
 flowing naturally as the stream. And for the mo 
 ment David seemed the great figure in hers. With 
 a thrill at her heart she watched him receding 
 through the open wash of air and water, shouting 
 in the jubilance of his manhood. The mischievous 
 pleasure of her coquetries was forgotten, and in a 
 rush of glad confidence she felt a woman s pride in 
 him. This was the way she should see the man 
 who was to win her, not in stuffy rooms, not 
 dressed in stiff, ungainly clothes, not saying un 
 meaning things to fill the time. This tale of la 
 borious days bounded by the fires of sunrise and 
 sunset, this struggle with the primal forces of 
 storm and flood, this passage across a panorama 
 unrolling in ever wilder majesty, was the setting 
 for her love idyl. The joy of her mounting spirit 
 broke out in an answering cry that flew across the 
 river to David like the call of an animal to its mate. 
 
 She watched them yoking on Bess and Ben and 
 men and animals bracing their energies for the 
 
 75 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 start. David drove the horses, walking beside 
 them, the reins held loose in hands that made up 
 ward, urging gestures as the team breasted the 
 ascent. It was a savage pull. The valiant little 
 mules bent their necks, the horses straining, iron 
 muscled, hoofs grinding down to the solid clay. 
 The first charge carried them half way up, then 
 there was a moment of slackened effort, a relaxing, 
 recuperative breath, and the wagon came to a 
 standstill. Leff ran for the back, shouting a warn 
 ing. The branch he thrust under the wheel was 
 ground to splinters and the animals grew rigid in 
 their effort to resist the backward drag. 
 
 Leff gripped the wheel, cursing, his hands 
 knotted round the spokes, his back taut and muscle- 
 ridged under the thin shirt. The cracked voice of 
 Daddy John came from beyond the canvas hood and 
 David s urgent cries filled the air. The mules, 
 necks outstretched, almost squatting in the agony 
 of their endeavor, held their ground, but could do 
 no more. Bess and Ben began to plunge in a wel 
 ter of slapping harness as the wheels ground slowly 
 downward. 
 
 Susan watched, her neck craned, her eyes staring. 
 Her sentimental thoughts had vanished. She was 
 one with the struggling men and beasts, lending 
 her vigor to theirs. Her eyes were on David, wait 
 ing to see him dominate them like a general carry 
 ing his troops to victory. She could see him, arms 
 outstretched, haranguing his horses as if they were 
 human beings, but not using the whip. A burst of 
 
The Prairie 
 
 astonishing profanity came from Leff and she 
 heard him cry : 
 
 " Lay it on to em, David. What s the matter 
 with you? Beat em like hell." 
 
 The mule drivers used a long-lashed whip which 
 could raise a welt on the thickest hide. David flung 
 the lash afar and brought it down on Ben s back. 
 The horse leaped as if he had been burned, jerking 
 ahead of his mate, and rearing in a madness of 
 unaccustomed pain. With a passionate gesture 
 David threw the whip down. 
 
 Susan saw that it was not accidental. She gave 
 a sound of angry astonishment and stood up in the 
 crotch of the tree. 
 
 " David ! " she screamed, but he did not hear, 
 and then louder : " Daddy John, quick, the whip, 
 he s dropped it." 
 
 The old man came running round the back of the 
 wagon, quick and eager as a gnome. He snatched 
 up the whip and let the lash curl outward with a 
 hissing rush. It flashed like the flickering dart of 
 a snake s tongue, struck, and the horses sprang for 
 ward. It curled again, hung suspended for the 
 fraction of a moment, then licked along the sweat 
 ing flanks, and horses and mules, bowed in a su 
 preme effort, wrenched the wagon upward. Susan 
 slid from her perch, feeling a sudden apathy, not 
 only as from a tension snapped, but as the result of 
 a backwash of disillusion. David was no longer 
 the proud conqueror, the driver of man and brute. 
 The tide of pride had ebbed. 
 
 77 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Later, when the camp was pitched and she was 
 building the fire, he came to offer her some wood 
 which was scarce on this side of the river. He 
 knelt to help her, and, his face close to hers, she 
 said in a low voice : 
 
 " Why did you throw the whip down ? " 
 
 He reddened consciously and looked quickly at 
 her, a look that was apprehensive as if ready to 
 meet an accusation. 
 
 " I saw you do it," she said, expecting a denial. 
 
 " Yes, I did it," he answered. " I wasn t going 
 to say I didn t." 
 
 " Why did you ? " she repeated. 
 
 " I can t beat a dumb brute when it s doing its 
 best," he said, looking away from her, shy and 
 ashamed. 
 
 " But the wagon would have gone down to the 
 bottom of the hill. It was going." 
 
 "What would that have mattered? We could 
 have taken some of the things out and carried them 
 up afterwards. When a horse does his best for 
 you, what s the sense of beating the life out of him 
 when the load s too heavy. I can t do that." 
 
 " Was that why you threw it down ? " 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 : You d rather have carried the things up ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 She laid the sticks one on the other without 
 replying and he said with a touch of pleading in his 
 tone: 
 
 " You understand that, don t you ? " 
 
 78 
 
The Prairie 
 
 She answered quickly: 
 
 " Oh, of course, perfectly." 
 
 But nevertheless she did not quite. Daddy 
 John s action was the one she really did understand, 
 and she even understood why Leff swore so vio 
 lently. 
 
 79 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IT was Sunday again and they lay encamped 
 near the Little Blue. The country was changing, 
 the trees growing thin and scattered and sandy 
 areas were cropping up through the trail. At night 
 they unfolded the maps and holding them to the 
 firelight measured the distance to the valley of the 
 Platte. Once there the first stage of the journey 
 would be over. When they started from Inde 
 pendence the Platte had shone to the eyes of their 
 imaginations as a threadlike streak almost as far 
 away as California. Now they would soon be 
 there. At sunset they stood on eminences and 
 pointed in its direction, let their mental vision con 
 jure up Grand Island and sweep forward to the 
 buffalo-darkened plains and the river sunk in its 
 league-wide bottom, even peered still further and 
 saw Fort Laramie, a faint, white dot against the 
 cloudy peaks of mountains. 
 
 The afternoon was hot and the camp drowsed. 
 Susan moving away from it was the one point of 
 animation in the encircling quietude. She was not 
 in spirit with its lethargy, stepping rapidly in a stir 
 ring of light skirts, her hat held by one string, fan 
 ning back and forth from her hanging hand. Her 
 goal was a spring hidden in a small arroyo that 
 
 80 
 
The Prairie 
 
 made a twisted crease in the land s level face. It 
 was a little dell in which the beauty they were 
 leaving had taken a last stand, decked the ground 
 with a pied growth of flowers, spread a checkered 
 roof of boughs against the sun. From a shelf on 
 one side the spring bubbled, clear as glass, its wa 
 ters caught and held quivering in a natural basin 
 of rock. 
 
 As she slipped over the margin, the scents im 
 prisoned in the sheltered depths rose to meet her, 
 a sweet, cool tide of fragrance into which she sank. 
 After the glaring heat above it was like stepping 
 into a perfumed bath. She lay by the spring, her 
 hands clasped behind her head, looking up at the 
 trees. The segments of sky between the boughs 
 were as blue as a turquoise and in this thick intense 
 color the little leaves seemed as if inlaid. Then a 
 breeze came and the bits of inlaying shook loose 
 and trembled into silvery confusion. Small secre 
 tive noises came from them as if minute confidences 
 were passing from bough to bough, and through 
 their murmurous undertone the drip of the spring 
 fell with a thin, musical tinkle. 
 
 Nature was dreaming and Susan dreamed with 
 it. But her dreaming had a certain definiteness, a 
 distinct thought sustained its diffused content. She 
 was not self-consciously thinking of her lovers, not 
 congratulating herself on their acquirement, but the 
 consciousness that she had achieved them lay gra 
 ciously round her heart, gave the soft satisfaction 
 to her musings that comes to one who has accom- 
 
 81 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 plished a duty. With all modesty she felt the grati 
 fication of the being who approaches his Destiny. 
 She had advanced a step in her journey as a 
 woman. 
 
 A hail from the bank above broke upon her rev 
 erie, but when she saw it was David, she sat up 
 smiling. That he should find out her hiding place 
 without word or sign from her was an action right 
 and fitting. It was a move in the prehistoric game 
 of flight and pursuit, in which they had engaged 
 without comprehension and with the intense earn 
 estness of children at their play. David dropped 
 down beside her, a spray of wild roses in his hand, 
 and began at once to chide her for thus stealing 
 away. Did she not remember they were in the 
 country of the Pawnees, the greatest thieves on the 
 plains? It was not safe to stray alone from the 
 camp. 
 
 Susan smiled : 
 
 " The Pawnees steal horses, but I never heard 
 anyone say they stole girls." 
 
 " They steal anything they can get," said the 
 simple young man. 
 
 " Oh, David," now she was laughing " so 
 they might steal me if they couldn t get a horse, or 
 a blanket, or a side of bacon! Next time I go 
 wandering I ll take the bacon with me and then I ll 
 be perfectly safe." 
 
 " Your father wouldn t like it. I ve heard him 
 tell you not to go off this way alone." 
 
 "Well, who could I take? I don t like to ask 
 82 
 
The Prairie 
 
 father to go out into the sun and Daddy John was 
 asleep, and Leff I didn t see Leff anywhere." 
 
 " I was there/ he said, dropping his eyes. 
 
 " You were under the wagon reading Byron. I 
 wouldn t for the world take you away from 
 Byron." 
 
 She looked at him with a candid smile, her eyes 
 above it dancing with delighted relish in her teas 
 ing. 
 
 " I would have come in a minute," he said low, 
 sweeping the surface of the spring with the spray 
 of roses. Susan s look dwelt on him, gently 
 thoughtful in its expression in case he should look 
 up and catch it. 
 
 " Leave Byron," she said, " leave the Isles of 
 Greece where that lady, whose name I ve forgotten, 
 loved and sung, and walk in the sun with me just 
 because I wanted to see this spring! Oh, David, I 
 would never ask it of you." 
 
 " You know I would have loved to do it." 
 
 " You would have been polite enough to do it. 
 You re always polite." 
 
 " I would have done it because I wanted to," said 
 the victim with the note of exasperation in his 
 voice. 
 
 She stretched her hand forward and very gently 
 took the branch of roses from him. 
 
 " Don t tell stories," she said in the cajoling voice 
 used to children. " This is Sunday." 
 
 " I never tell stories," he answered, goaded to 
 open irritation, " on Sunday or any other day. You 
 
 83 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 know I would have liked to come with you and 
 Byron could have have 
 
 " What? " the branch upright in her hand. 
 
 "Gone to the devil!" 
 
 " David ! " in horror, " I never thought youd 
 talk that way." 
 
 She gave the branch a shake and a shower of 
 drops fell on him. 
 
 " There, that s to cool your anger. For I see 
 you re angry though I haven t got the least idea 
 what it s about." 
 
 He made no answer, wounded by her lack of un 
 derstanding. She moved the rose spray against her 
 face, inhaling its fragrance, and watching him 
 through the leaves. After a moment she said with 
 a questioning inflection: 
 
 " You were angry ? " 
 
 He gave her a quick glance, met her eyes, shin 
 ing between the duller luster of the leaves, and sud 
 denly dumb before their innocent provocation, 
 turned his head away. The sense of his disturb 
 ance trembled on the air and Susan s smile died. 
 She dropped the branch, trailing it lightly across 
 the water, and wondering at the confusion that had 
 so abruptly upset her self-confident gayety. Held 
 in inexplicable embarrassment she could think of 
 nothing to say. It was he who broke the silence 
 with a change of subject: 
 
 " In a few days more we ll be at the Platte. 
 When we started that seemed as if it was half the 
 journey, didn t it ? " 
 
The Prairie 
 
 " We ll get there just about a month from the 
 time we left Independence. Before we started I 
 thought a month out of doors this way would be 
 like a year. But it really hasn t seemed long at all. 
 I suppose it s because I ve enjoyed it so." 
 
 This again stirred him. Was there any hope 
 that his presence might have been the cause of some 
 small fraction of that enjoyment? He put out a 
 timid feeler : 
 
 " I wonder why you enjoyed it. Perhaps Leff 
 and I amused you a little." 
 
 It was certainly a humble enough remark, but it 
 caused a slight stiffening and withdrawal in the 
 young girl. She instinctively felt the pleading for 
 commendation and resented it. It was as if a slave, 
 upon whose neck her foot rested, were to squirm 
 round and recommend himself to her tolerance. 
 David, trying to extort from her flattering admis 
 sions, roused a determination to keep the slave with 
 his face in the dust. 
 
 " I just like being out of doors," she said care 
 lessly. " And it s all the more odd as I was always 
 wanting to hurry on and catch up the large train." 
 
 This was a grinding in of the heel. The large 
 train into which the Gillespies were to be absorbed 
 and an end brought to their independent journey 
 ing, had at first loomed gloomily before David s 
 vision. But of late it had faded from the conver 
 sation and his mind. The present was so good it 
 must continue, and he had come to accept that first 
 bright dream of his in which he and Susan were to 
 
 85 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 go riding side by side across the continent as a per 
 manent reality. His timidity was swept away in a 
 rush of stronger feeling and he sat erect, looking 
 sharply at her: 
 
 " I thought you d given up the idea of joining 
 with that train? " 
 
 Susan raised the eyebrows of mild surprise : 
 
 " Why did you think that? " 
 
 " You ve not spoken of it for days." 
 
 " That doesn t prove anything. There are lots 
 of important things I don t speak of." 
 
 " You ought to have spoken of that." 
 
 The virile note of authority was faint in his 
 words, the first time Susan had ever heard it. Her 
 foot was in a fair way to be withdrawn from the 
 slave s neck. The color in her cheeks deepened and 
 it was she who now dropped her eyes. 
 
 " We had arranged to join the train long before 
 we left Rochester," she answered. " Everybody 
 said it was dangerous to travel in a small party. Dr. 
 Whitman told my father that." 
 
 " There s been nothing dangerous so far." 
 
 " No, it s later when we get into the country of 
 the Sioux and the Black-feet. They often attack 
 small parties. It s a great risk that people oughtn t 
 to run. They told us that in Independence, too." 
 
 He made no answer and she eyed him with 
 stealthy curiosity. He was looking on the ground, 
 his depression apparent. At this evidence of her 
 ability to bring joy or sorrow to her slave she re 
 lented. 
 
 86 
 
The Prairie 
 
 "You ll join it, too, won t you?" she said 
 gently. 
 
 " I don t know. The big trains move so slowly." 
 
 " Oh, you must. It would be dreadfully dreary 
 to separate our parties after we d traveled so long 
 together." 
 
 " Maybe I will. I haven t thought about it." 
 
 " But you must think about it. There s no know 
 ing now when we may come upon them almost 
 any day. You don t want to go on and leave us 
 behind, do you ? " 
 
 He again made no answer and she stole another 
 quick look at him. This mastery of a fellow crea 
 ture was by far the most engrossing pastime life 
 had offered her. There was something about him, 
 a suggestion of depths hidden and shut away from 
 her that filled her with the venturesome curiosity 
 of Fatima opening the cupboards in Bluebeard s 
 castle. 
 
 " We d feel so lonely if you went on and left us 
 behind with a lot of strange people," she said, with 
 increasing softness. " We d miss you so." 
 
 The young man turned quickly on her, leaned 
 nearer, and said huskily : 
 
 "Would you?" 
 
 The movement brought his face close to hers, 
 and she shrank back sharply, her hand ready to hold 
 him at a distance. Her laughing expression 
 changed into one of offended dignity, almost aver 
 sion. At the same time his agitation, which had 
 paled his cheeks and burst through his shy reserve, 
 
 87 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 filled her with repulsion. For the moment she dis 
 liked him. If he had tried to put his hand upon her 
 she would have struck him in quick rage at his 
 presumption. He had not the slightest intention of 
 doing so, but the sudden rush of feeling that her 
 words had evoked, made him oblivious to the star 
 tled withdrawal of her manner. 
 
 " Answer me," he said. " Would you miss me ? 
 Am I anything to you ? " 
 
 She leaped to her feet, laughing not quite 
 naturally, for her heart was beating hard and she 
 had suddenly shrunk within herself, her spirit alert 
 and angrily defensive in its maiden stronghold. 
 
 " Miss you," she said in a matter-of-fact tone 
 that laid sentiment dead at a blow, " of course I d 
 miss you," then backed away from him, brushing 
 off her skirt. 
 
 He rose and stood watching her with a lover s 
 hang-dog look. She glanced at him, read his face 
 and once more felt secure in her ascendency. Her 
 debonair self-assurance came back with a lowering 
 of her pulse and a remounting to her old position 
 of condescending command. But a parting lesson 
 would not be amiss and she turned from him, say 
 ing with a carefully tempered indifference : 
 
 " And Leff, too. I d miss Leff dreadfully. Come, 
 it s time to go." 
 
 Before he could answer she was climbing the 
 bank, not looking back, moving confidently as one 
 who had no need of his aid. He followed her 
 slowly, sore and angry, his eyes on her figure which 
 
 88 * 
 
The Prairie 
 
 flitted in advance clean-cut against the pale, enor 
 mous sky. 
 
 He had just caught up with her when from a 
 hollow near the roadside Leff came into view. He 
 had been after antelope and carried his rifle and a 
 hunting knife in his belt. During the chase he had 
 come upon a deserted Pawnee settlement in a de 
 pression of the prairie. Susan was instantly inter 
 ested and wanted to see it and David stood by, 
 listening in sulky silence while Leff pointed out the 
 way. The sun was sinking and they faced it, the 
 young man s indicating finger moving back and 
 forth across the vagaries of the route. The prairie 
 was cut by long undulations, naked of verdure, save 
 a spot in the foreground where, beside a round 
 greenish pool, a single tree lifted thinly clad 
 boughs. Something of bleakness had crept into the 
 prospect, its gay greenness was giving place to an 
 austere pallor of tint, a dry economy of vegetation. 
 The summits of the swells were bare, the streams 
 shrunk in sandy channels. It was like a face from 
 which youth is withdrawing. 
 
 The Indian encampment lay in a hollow, the 
 small wattled huts gathered on both sides of a 
 runlet that oozed from the slope and slipped be 
 tween a line of stepping stones. The hollow was 
 deep for the level country, the grassed sides sweep 
 ing abruptly to the higher reaches above. They 
 walked through it, examining the neatly made huts 
 and speculating on the length of time the Indians 
 had left. David remembered that the day before, 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 the trail had been crossed by the tracks of a village 
 in transit, long lines graven in the dust by the drag 
 ging poles of the travaux. He felt uneasy. The 
 Indians might not be far and they themselves were 
 at least a mile from the camp, and but one of them 
 armed. The others laughed and Susan brought 
 the blood into his face by asking him if he was 
 afraid. 
 
 He turned from her, frankly angry and then 
 stood rigid with fixed glance. On the summit of the 
 opposite slope, black against the yellow west, were 
 a group of mounted figures. They were massed 
 together in a solid darkness, but the outlines of the 
 heads were clear, heads across which bristled an 
 upright crest of hair like the comb of a rooster. 
 
 For a long, silent moment the two parties re 
 mained immovable, eying each other across the hol 
 low. Then David edged closer to the girl. He felt 
 his heart thumping, but his first throttling grip of 
 fear loosened as his mind realized their helpless 
 ness. Leff was the only one with arms. They 
 must get in front of Susan and tell her to run and 
 the camp was a mile off! He felt for her hand 
 and heard her whisper: 
 
 " Indians there are six of them." 
 
 As she spoke the opposite group broke and fig 
 ures detached themselves. Three, hunched in 
 shapeless sack-forms, were squaws. They made no 
 movement, resting immobile as statues, the sunset 
 shining between the legs of their ponies. The men 
 spoke together, their heads turning from the trio 
 
 90 
 
The Prairie 
 
 below to one another. David gripped the hand he 
 held and leaned forward to ask Leff for his knife. 
 
 " Don t be frightened," he said to Susan. " It s 
 all right." 
 
 " I m not frightened," she answered quietly. 
 
 " Your knife," he said to Leff and then stopped, 
 staring. Leff very slowly, step pressing stealthily 
 behind step, was creeping backward up the slope. 
 His face was chalk white, his eyes fixed on the In 
 dians. In his hand he held his rifle ready, and the 
 long knife gleamed in his belt. For a moment 
 David had no voice wherewith to arrest him, but 
 Susan had. 
 
 :< Where are you going? " she said loudly. 
 
 It stopped him like a blow. His terrified eyes 
 shifted to her face. 
 
 " I wasn t going," he faltered. 
 
 " Come back," she said. " You have the rifle 
 and the knife." 
 
 He wavered, his loosened lips shaking. 
 
 " Back here to us," she commanded, " and give 
 David the rifle." 
 
 He crept downward to them, his glance always 
 on the Indians. They had begun to move forward, 
 leaving the squaws on the ridge. Their approach 
 was prowlingly sinister, the ponies stepping gin 
 gerly down the slope, the snapping of twigs be 
 neath their hoofs clear in the waiting silence. As 
 they dipped below the blazing sunset the rider s fig 
 ures developed in detail, their bodies bare and 
 bronzed in the subdued light. Each face, held high 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 on a craning neck, was daubed with vermilion, the 
 high crest of hair bristling across the shaven 
 crowns. Grimly impassive they came nearer, not 
 speaking nor moving their eyes from the three 
 whites. One of them, a young man, naked save 
 for a breech clout and moccasins, was in the lead. 
 As he approached David saw that his eyelids were 
 painted scarlet and that a spot of silver on his 
 breast was a medal hanging from a leathern 
 thong. 
 
 At the bottom of the slope they reined up, stand 
 ing in a group, with lifted heads staring. The trio 
 opposite stared as fixedly. Behind Susan s back 
 Left had passed David the rifle. He held it in one 
 hand, Susan by the other. He was conscious of 
 her rigidity and also of her fearlessness. The hand 
 he held was firm. Once, breathing a phrase of en 
 couragement, he met her eyes, steady and unafraid. 
 All his own fear had passed. The sense of danger 
 was thrillingly acute, but he felt it only in its rela 
 tion to her. Dropping her hand he stepped a pace 
 forward and said loudly: 
 
 " How ! " 
 
 The Indian with the medal answered him, a deep, 
 gutteral note. 
 
 " Pawnee? " David asked. 
 
 The same man replied with a word that none of 
 them understood. 
 
 " My camp is just here," said David, with a 
 backward jerk of his head. " There are many men 
 there." 
 
 92 
 
The Prairie 
 
 There was no response to this and he stepped 
 back and said to Susan : 
 
 " Go slowly up the hill backward and keep your 
 eyes on them. Don t look afraid." 
 
 She immediately began to retreat with slow, 
 short steps. Left, gasping with fear, moved with 
 her, his speed accelerating with each moment. 
 David a few paces in advance followed them. The 
 Indians watched in a tranced intentness of ob 
 servation. At the top of the slope the three squaws 
 sat as motionless as carven images. The silence 
 \vas profound. 
 
 Into it, dropping through it like a plummet 
 through space, came the report of a rifle. It was 
 distant but clear, and as if the bullet had struck a 
 taut string and severed it, it cut the tension sharp 
 and life flowed back. A movement, like a resumed 
 quiver of vitality, stirred the bronze stillness of the 
 squaws. The Indians spoke together a low mur 
 mur. David thought he saw indecision in their col 
 loquy, then decision. 
 
 " They re going," he heard Susan say a little 
 hoarse. 
 
 " Oh, God, they re going! " Left gasped, as one 
 reprieved of the death sentence. 
 
 Suddenly they wheeled, and a rush of wild fig 
 ures, galloped up the slope. The group of squaws 
 broke and fled with them. The light struck the 
 bare backs, and sent splinters from the gun barrels 
 and the noise of breaking bushes was loud under 
 the ponies feet. 
 
 93 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Once again on the road David and Susan stood 
 looking at one another. Each was pale and short of 
 breath, and it was difficult for the young girl to 
 force her stiffened lips into a smile. The sunset 
 struck with fierce brilliancy across the endless 
 plain, and against it, the Indians bending low, fled 
 in a streak of broken color. In the other direction 
 Leff s running figure sped toward the camp. From 
 the distance a rifle shot again sundered the quiet. 
 After silence had reclosed over the rift a puff of 
 smoke rose in the air. They knew now it was 
 Daddy John, fearing they had lost the way, show 
 ing them the location of the camp. 
 
 Spontaneously, without words, they joined 
 hands and started to where the trail of smoke still 
 hung, dissolving to a thread. The fleeing figure of 
 Leff brought no comments to their lips. They did 
 not think about him, his cowardice was as unim 
 portant to them in their mutual engrossment as his 
 body was to the indifferent self-sufficiency of the 
 landscape. They knew he was hastening that he 
 might be first in the camp to tell his own story and 
 set himself right with the others before they came. 
 They did not care. They did not even laugh at it. 
 They would do that later when they had returned 
 to the plane where life had regained its familiar 
 aspect. 
 
 Silently, hand in hand, they walked between the 
 low bushes and across the whitened patches of 
 sandy soil. When the smoke was gone the pool 
 with the lone tree guided them, the surface now 
 
 94 
 
The Prairie 
 
 covered with a glaze of gold. A deep content lay 
 upon them. The shared peril had torn away a veil 
 that hung between them and through which they 
 had been dodging to catch glimpses of one another. 
 Susan s pride in her ascendency was gone. She 
 walked docilely beside the man who, in the great 
 moment, had not failed. She was subdued, not by 
 the recent peril, but by the fact that the slave had 
 shown himself the master. David s chance had 
 come, but the moment was too completely beautiful, 
 the sudden sense of understanding too lovely for 
 him to break it with words. He wanted to savor 
 it, to take joy of its delicate sw r eetness. It was his 
 voluptuousness to delight in it, not brush its bloom 
 away with a lover s avowal. He was the idealist, 
 moving in an unexpectedly realized dream, too ex 
 quisite for words to intrude upon. So they walked 
 onward, looking across the long land, hand clasped 
 in hand. 
 
 END OF PART I 
 
 95 
 
PART II 
 
 The River 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE Emigrant Trail struck the Platte at Grand 
 Island. From the bluffs that walled in the river 
 valley the pioneers could look down on the great 
 waterway, a wide, thin current, hardly more than 
 a glistening veil, stretched over the sandy bottom. 
 Sometimes the veil was split by islands, its trans 
 parent tissue passing between them in sparkling 
 strands as if it were sewn with silver threads. 
 These separated streams slipped along so quietly, 
 so without noise or hurry, they seemed to share in 
 the large unconcern of the landscape. It was a 
 still, unpeopled, spacious landscape, where there 
 was no work and no time and the morning and the 
 evening ma de the day. 
 
 Many years ago the Frenchmen had given the 
 river its name, Platte, because of its lack of depths. 
 There were places where a man could walk across 
 it and not be wet above the middle ; and, to make 
 up for this, there were quicksands stirring beneath 
 it where the same man would sink in above his 
 waist, above his shoulders, above his head. The 
 islands that broke its languid currents were close 
 grown with small trees, riding low in the water 
 like little ships freighted deep with greenery. To 
 ward evening, looking to the West, with the dazzle 
 
 98 
 
The River 
 
 of the sun on the water, they were a fairy fleet 
 drifting on the silver tide of dreams. 
 
 The wide, slow stream ran in the middle of a 
 wide, flat valley. Then came a line of broken hills, 
 yellowish and sandy, cleft apart by sharp indenta 
 tions, and dry, winding arroyos, down which the 
 buffalo trooped, thirsty, to the river. When the 
 sun sloped westward, shadows lay clear in the hol 
 lows, violet and amethyst and sapphire blue, trans 
 parent washes of color as pure as the rays of the 
 prism. The hills rolled back in a turbulence of cone 
 and bluff and then subsided, fell away as if all dis 
 turbance must cease before the infinite, subduing 
 calm of The Great Plains. 
 
 Magic words, invoking the romance of the un- 
 conquered West, of the earth s virgin spaces, of the 
 buffalo and the Indian. In their idle silence, tree 
 less, waterless, clothed as with a dry pale hair with 
 the feathered yellow grasses, they looked as if the 
 monstrous creatures of dead epochs might still 
 haunt them, might still sun their horny sides among 
 the sand hills, and wallow in the shallows of the 
 river. It was a bit of the early world, as yet be 
 yond the limit of the young nation s energies, the 
 earth as man knew it when his eye was focused for 
 far horizons, when his soul did not shrink before 
 vast solitudes. 
 
 Against this sweeping background the Indian 
 loomed, ruler of a kingdom whose borders faded 
 into the sky. He stood, a blanketed figure, watch 
 ing the flight of birds across the blue; he rode, a 
 
 99 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 painted savage, where the cloud shadows blotted 
 the plain, and the smoke of his lodge rose over the 
 curve of the earth. Here tribe had fought with 
 tribe, old scores had been wiped out till the grass 
 was damp with blood, wars of extermination had 
 raged. Here the migrating villages made a mov 
 ing streak of color like a bright patch on a map 
 where there were no boundaries, no mountains, and 
 but one gleaming thread of water. In the quiet 
 ness of evening the pointed tops of the tepees 
 showed dark against the sky, the blur of smoke 
 tarnishing the glow in the West. When the dark 
 ness came the stars shone on this spot of life in 
 the wilderness, circled with the howling of wolves. 
 
 The buffalo, driven from the East by the white 
 man s advance and from the West by the red man s 
 pursuit, had congregated in these pasture lands. 
 The herds numbered thousands upon thousands, 
 diminishing in the distance to black dots on the 
 fawn-colored face of the prairie. Twice a day they 
 went to the river to drink. Solemnly, in Indian 
 file, they passed down the trails among the sand 
 hills, worn into gutters by their continuous hoofs. 
 From the wall of the bluffs they emerged into the 
 bottom, line after line, moving slowly to the water. 
 Then to the river edge the valley was black with 
 them, a mass of huge, primordial forms, from 
 which came bellowings and a faint, sharp smell of 
 musk. 
 
 The valley was the highway to the West the 
 far West, the West of the great fur companies. It 
 
 100 
 
The River 
 
 led from the Missouri, whose turbid current was 
 the boundary between the frontier and the wild, to 
 the second great barrier, the mountains which 
 blocked the entrance to the unknown distance, 
 where the lakes were salt and there were deserts 
 rimed with alkali. It stretched a straight, plain 
 path, from the river behind it to the peaked white 
 summits in front. 
 
 Along it had come a march of men, first a scat 
 tered few, then a broken line, then a phalanx the 
 winners of the West. 
 
 They were bold men, hard men, men who held 
 life lightly and knew no fear. In the van were the 
 trappers and fur traders with their beaver traps and 
 their long-barreled rifles. They went far up into 
 the mountains where the rivers rose snow-chilled 
 and the beavers built their dams. There were moun 
 tain men in fringed and beaded buckskins, long 
 haired, gaunt and weather scarred; men whose 
 pasts were unknown and unasked, who trapped 
 and hunted and lived in the lodges with their 
 squaws. There were black-eyed Canadian voya- 
 geurs in otter-skin caps and coats made of blankets, 
 hardy as Indian ponies, gay and light of heart, who 
 poled the keel boats up the rivers to the chanting of 
 old French songs. There were swarthy half- 
 breeds, still of tongue, stolid and eagle-featured, 
 wearing their blankets as the Indians did, noiseless 
 in their moccasins as the lynx creeping on its prey. 
 And then came the emigrants, the first white- 
 covered wagons, the first white women, looking out 
 
 101 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 from the shade of their sunbonnets. The squaw 
 wives wondered at their pale faces and bright hair. 
 They came at intervals, a few wagons crawling 
 down the valley and then the long, bare road with 
 the buffaloes crossing it to the river and the occa 
 sional red spark of a trapper s camp fire. In 43 
 came the first great emigration, when 1,000 people 
 went to Oregon. The Indians, awed and uneasy, 
 watched the white line of wagon tops. " Were 
 there so many pale faces as this in the Great 
 Father s country?" one of the chiefs asked. 
 
 Four years later the Mormons emigrated. It 
 was like the moving of a nation, an exodus of 
 angry fanatics, sullen, determined men burning 
 with rage at the murder of their prophet, cursing 
 his enemies and quoting his texts. The faces of 
 women and children peered from the wagons, the 
 dust of moving flocks and herds rose like a column 
 at the end of the caravan. Their camps at night 
 were like the camps of the patriarchs, many women 
 to work for each man, thousands of cattle grazing 
 in the grass. From the hills above the Indians 
 watched the red circle of their fires and in the gray 
 dawn saw the tents struck and the trains " roll 
 out." There were more people from the Great 
 Father s country, more people each year, till the 
 great year, 49, when the cry of gold went forth 
 across the land like a trumpet call. 
 
 Then the faces on the Emigrant Trail were as 
 the faces on the populous streets of cities. The 
 trains of wagons were unbroken, one behind the 
 
 1 02 
 
The River 
 
 other, straight to the sunset. A cloud of dust 
 moved with them, showed their coming far away 
 as they wheeled downward at Grand Island, hid 
 their departure as they doubled up for the fording 
 of the Platte. All the faces were set westward, all 
 the eyes were strained to that distant goal where 
 the rivers flowed over golden beds and the flakes 
 lay yellow in the prospector s pan. 
 
 The Indians watched them, cold at the heart, for 
 the people in the Great Father s Country were nu 
 merous as the sands of the sea, terrible as an army 
 with banners. 
 
 103 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE days were very hot. Brilliant, dewless morn 
 ings, blinding middays, afternoons held breathless 
 in the remorseless torrent of light. The caravan 
 crawled along the river s edge at a footspace, the 
 early shadows shooting far ahead of it, then dwin 
 dling to a blot beneath each moving body, then slant 
 ing out behind. There was speech in the morning 
 which died as the day advanced, all thought sinking 
 into torpor in the monotonous glare. In the late 
 afternoon the sun, slipping down the sky, peered 
 through each wagon s puckered canvas opening 
 smiting the drivers into lethargy. Propped against 
 the roof supports, hats drawn low over their brows 
 they slept, the riders pacing on ahead stooped and 
 silent on their sweating horses. There was no sound 
 but the creaking of the wheels, and the low whis 
 perings of the river into which, now and then, an 
 undermined length of sand dropped with a splash. 
 
 But in the evening life returned. When the dusk 
 stole out of the hill rifts and the river flowed thick 
 gold from bank to bank, when the bluffs grew 
 black against the sunset fires, the little party 
 shook off its apathy and animation revived. 
 Coolness came with the twilight, sharpening into 
 coldness as the West burned from scarlet and gold 
 
 104 
 
The River 
 
 to a clear rose. The fire, a mound of buffalo chips 
 into which glowing tunnels wormed, was good. 
 Overcoats and blankets were shaken out and the 
 fragrance of tobacco was on the air. The recru 
 descence of ideas and the need to interchange them 
 came on the wanderers. Hemmed in by Nature s 
 immensity, unconsciously oppressed by it, they felt 
 the want of each other, of speech, of sympathy, and 
 crouched about the fire telling anecdotes of their 
 life " back home," that sounded trivial but drew 
 them closer in the bond of a nostalgic wistfulness. 
 One night they heard a drum beat. It came out 
 of the distance faint but distinct, throbbing across 
 the darkness like a frightened heart terrified by its 
 own loneliness. The hand of man was impelling 
 it, an unseen hand, only telling of its presence by 
 the thin tattoo it sent through the silence. Words 
 died and they sat rigid in the sudden alarm that 
 comes upon men in the wilderness. The doctor 
 clutched his daughter s arm, Daddy John reached 
 for his rifle. Then, abruptly as it had come, it 
 stopped and they broke into suggestions emi 
 grants on the road beyond them, an Indian war 
 drum on the opposite bank. 
 
 But they were startled, their apprehensions 
 roused. They sat uneasy, and half an hour later 
 the pad of horses hoofs and approaching voices 
 made each man grip his gun and leap to his feet. 
 They sent a hail through the darkness and an an 
 swering voice came back : 
 " It s all right. Friends." 
 105 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The figures that advanced into the firelight were 
 those of four men with a shadowy train of pack 
 mules extending behind them. In fringed and 
 greasy buckskins, with long hair and swarthy faces, 
 their feet noiseless in moccasins, they were so much 
 of the wild, that it needed the words, " Trappers 
 from Laramie," to reassure the doctor and make 
 Leff put down his rifle. 
 
 The leader, a lean giant, bearded to the cheek 
 bones and with lank locks of hair falling from a 
 coon-skin cap, gave his introduction briefly. They 
 were a party of trappers en route from Fort Lara 
 mie to St. Louis with the winter s catch of skins. 
 In skirted, leather hunting shirt and leggings, knife 
 and pistols in the belt and powder horn, bullet 
 mold, screw and awl hanging from a strap across 
 his chest, he was the typical " mountain man." 
 While he made his greetings, with as easy an as 
 surance as though he had dropped in upon a party 
 of friends, his companions picketed the animals 
 which moved on the outskirts of the light in a spec 
 tral band of drooping forms. 
 
 The three other men, were an ancient trapper 
 with a white froth of hair framing a face, brown 
 and wrinkled as a nut, a Mexican, Indian-dark, 
 who crouched in his scrape, rolled a cigarette and 
 then fell asleep, and a French Canadian voyageur 
 in a coat made of blanketing and with a scarlet 
 handkerchief tied smooth over his head. He had a 
 round ruddy face, and when he smiled, which he did 
 all the time, his teeth gleamed square and white 
 
 1 06 
 
The River 
 
 from the curly blackness of his beard. He got out 
 his pans and buffalo meat, and was dropping pieces 
 of hardtack into the spitting tallow when Susan 
 addressed him in his own tongue, the patois of the 
 province of Quebec. He gave a joyous child s 
 laugh and a rattling fire of French followed, and 
 then he must pick out for her the daintiest morsel 
 and gallantly present it on a tin plate, wiped clean 
 on the grass. 
 
 They ate first and then smoked and over the pipes 
 engaged in the bartering which was part of the 
 plainsman s business. The strangers were short of 
 tobacco and the doctor s party wanted buffalo skins. 
 Fresh meat and bacon changed hands. David 
 threw in a measure of corn meal and the old man 
 they called him Joe bid for it with a hind quarter 
 of antelope. Then, business over, they talked of 
 themselves, their work, the season s catch, and the 
 life far away across the mountains where the bea 
 ver streams are. 
 
 They had come from the distant Northwest, 
 threaded with ice-cold rivers and where lakes, sunk 
 between rocky bulwarks, mirrored the whitened 
 peaks. There the three Tetons raised their giant 
 heads and the hollows were spread with a grassy 
 carpet that ran up the slopes like a stretched green 
 cloth. There had once been the trapper s paradise 
 where the annual " rendezvous " was held and the 
 men of the mountains gathered from creek and 
 river and spent a year s earnings in a wild week. 
 But the streams were almost empty now and the 
 
 107 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 great days over. There was a market but no furs. 
 Old Joe could tell what it had once been like, old 
 Joe who years ago had been one of General Ash 
 ley s men. 
 
 The old man took his pipe out of his mouth and 
 shook his head. 
 
 The times is dead," he said, with the regret of 
 great days gone, softened by age which softens all 
 things. There ain t anything in it now. When 
 Ashley and the Sublettes and Campbell ran the big 
 companies it w r as a fine trade. The rivers was 
 swarmin with beaver and if the Indians ud let us 
 alone every man of us ud come down to rendez 
 vous with each mule carrying two hundred pound 
 of skins. Them was the times." 
 
 The quick, laughing patter of the voyageur s 
 French broke in on his voice, but old Joe, casting 
 a dim eye back over the splendid past, was too pre 
 occupied to mind. 
 
 " I ve knowed the time when the Powder River 
 country and the rivers that ran into Jackson s Hole 
 was as thick with beaver as the buffalo range is 
 now with buffalo. We d follow up a new stream 
 and where the ground was marshy we d know the 
 beaver was there, for they d throw dams across till 
 the water d soak each side, squeezin through the 
 willow roots. Then we d cut a tree and scoop out a 
 canoe, and when the shadders began to stretch go 
 nosin along the bank, keen and cold and the sun 
 settin red and not a sound but the dip of the pad 
 dle. We d set the traps seven to a man and at 
 
 108 
 
The River 
 
 sun-up out again in the canoe, clear and still in the 
 gray of the morning, and find a beaver in every 
 trap." 
 
 " Nothin but buffalo now to count on," said the 
 the other man. " And what s in that? " 
 
 David said timidly, as became so extravagant a 
 suggestion, that a mountain man he had met in In 
 dependence told him he thought the buffalo would 
 be eventually exterminated. The trappers looked 
 at one another, and exchanged satiric smiles. Even 
 the Canadian stopped in his chatter with Susan to 
 exclaim in amaze : " Sacre Tonnerre! " 
 
 Old Joe gave a lazy cast of his eye at David. 
 
 " Why, boy," he said, " if they d been killin 
 them varmints since Bunker Hill they couldn t do no 
 more with em than you could with your little pop 
 gun out here on the plains. The Indians has druv 
 em from the West and the white man s druv em 
 from the East and it don t make no difference. I 
 knowed Captain Bonneville and he s told me how 
 he stood on the top of Scotts Bluffs and seen the 
 country black with em millions of em. That s 
 twenty-five years ago and he ain t seen no more 
 than I have on these plains not two seasons back. 
 Out as far as your eye could reach, crawlin with 
 buffalo, till you couldn t see cow nor bull, but just a 
 black mass of em, solid to the horizon." 
 
 David felt abashed and the doctor came to his 
 rescue with a question about Captain Bonneville 
 and Joe forgot his scorn of foolish young men in 
 reminiscences of that hardy pathfinder. 
 
 109 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The old trapper seemed to have known everyone 
 of note in the history of the plains and the fur 
 trade, or if he didn t know them he said he did 
 which was just as good. Lying on a buffalo skin, 
 the firelight gilding the bony ridges of his face, a 
 stub of black pipe gripped between his broken teeth, 
 he told stories of the men who had found civiliza 
 tion too cramped and taken to the wilderness. 
 Some had lived and died there, others come back, 
 old and broken, to rest in a corner of the towns 
 they had known as frontier settlements. Here they 
 could look out to the West they loved, strain their 
 dim eyes over the prairie, where the farmer s plow 
 was tracing its furrow, to the Medicine Way of The 
 Pale Face that led across the plains and up the long 
 bright river and over the mountains to the place of 
 the trapper s rendezvous. 
 
 He had known Jim Beckwourth, the mulatto 
 who was chief of the Crows, fought their battles 
 and lived in their villages with a Crow wife. Joe 
 described him as "a powerful liar," but a man with 
 out fear. Under his leadership the Crows had be 
 come a great nation and the frontiersmen laid it to 
 his door that no Crow had ever attacked a white 
 man except in self-defense. Some said he was still 
 living in California. Joe remembered him well 
 a tall man, strong and fleet-footed as an Indian, 
 with mighty muscles and a skin like bronze. He 
 always wore round his neck a charm of a per 
 forated bullet set between two glass beads hanging 
 from a thread of sinew. 
 
 no 
 
The River 
 
 He had known Rose, another white chief of the 
 Crows, an educated man who kept his past secret 
 and of whom it was said that the lonely places and 
 the Indian trails were safer for him than the popu 
 lous ways of towns. The old man had been one of 
 the garrison in Fort Union when the terrible Alex 
 ander Harvey had killed Isidore, the Mexican, and 
 standing in the courtyard cried to the assembled 
 men : " I, Alexander Harvey, have killed the Span 
 iard. If there are any of his friends who want to 
 take it up let them come on " ; and not a man in 
 the fort dared to go. He had been with Jim 
 Bridger, when, on a wager, he went down Bear 
 River in a skin boat and came out on the waters of 
 the Great Salt Lake. 
 
 Susan, who had stopped her talk with the voya- 
 geur to listen to this minstrel of the plains, now 
 said: 
 
 " Aren t you lonely in those quiet places where 
 there s no one else? " 
 
 The old man nodded, a gravely assenting eye on 
 hers: 
 
 " Powerful lonely, sometimes. There ain t a 
 mountain man that ain t felt it, some of em often, 
 others of em once and so scairt that time they 
 won t take the risk again. It comes down suddint, 
 like a darkness then everything round that- was so 
 good and fine, the sound of the pines and the bub 
 ble of the spring and the wind blowing over the 
 grass, seems like they d set you crazy. You d give 
 a year s peltries for the sound of a man s voice. 
 
 in 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Just like when some one s dead that you set a heap 
 on and you feel you d give most everything you got 
 to see em again for a minute. There ain t nothin 
 you wouldn t promise if by doin it you could hear 
 a feller hail you just one shout as he comes 
 ridin up the trail." 
 
 " That was how Jim Cockrell felt when he 
 prayed for the dog," said the tall man. 
 
 "Did he get the dog?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "That s what he said anyway. He was took 
 with just such a lonesome spell once when he was 
 trapping in the Mandans country. He was a pious 
 critter, great on prayer and communing with the 
 Lord. And he felt I ve heard him tell about it- 
 just as if he d go wild if he didn t get something 
 for company. What he wanted was a dog and you 
 might just as well want an angel out there with 
 nothin but the Indian villages breakin the dazzle 
 of the snow and you as far away from them as you 
 could get. But that didn t stop Jim. He just got 
 down and prayed, and then he waited and prayed 
 some more and ud look around for the dog, as cer 
 tain he d come as that the sun ud set. Bimeby he 
 fell asleep and when he woke there was the dog, a 
 little brown varmint, curled up beside him on the 
 blanket. Jim used to say an angel brought it. I m 
 not contradictin , but " 
 
 " Wai," said old Joe, " he most certainly come 
 back into the fort with a dog. I was there and seen 
 him." 
 
 112 
 
The River 
 
 Left snickered, even the doctor s voice showed 
 the incredulous note when he asked : 
 
 " Where could it have come from ? " 
 
 The tall man shrugged. 
 
 " Don t ask me. All I know is that Jim Cock- 
 rell swore to it and I ve heard him tell it drunk and 
 sober and always the same way. He held out for 
 the angel. I m not saying anything against that, 
 but whatever it was it must have had a pretty 
 powerful pull to get a dog out to a trapper in the 
 dead o winter." 
 
 They wondered over the story, offering explana 
 tions, and as they talked the fire died low and the 
 moon, a hemisphere clean-halved as though sliced 
 by a sword, rose serene from a cloud bank. Its 
 coming silenced them and for a space they watched 
 the headlands of the solemn landscape blackening 
 against the sky, and the river breaking into silvery 
 disquiet. Separating the current, which girdled it 
 with a sparkling belt, was the dark blue of an is 
 land, thick plumed with trees, a black and mysteri 
 ous oblong. Old Joe pointed to it with his pipe. 
 
 " Brady s Island," he said. " Ask Hy to tell you 
 about that. He knew Brady." 
 
 The tall man looked thoughtfully at the crested 
 shape. 
 
 " That s it," he said. " That s where Brady was 
 murdered." 
 
 And then he told the story : 
 
 " It was quite a while back in the 3O s, and the 
 free trappers and mountain men brought their pelts 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 down in bull boats and mackinaws to St. Louis. 
 There were a bunch of men workin down the river 
 and when they got to Brady s Island, that s out 
 there in the stream, the water was so shallow the 
 boats wouldn t float, so they camped on the island. 
 Brady was one of em, a cross-tempered man, and 
 he and another feller d been pickin at each other 
 day by day since leavin the mountains. They d got 
 so they couldn t get on at all. Men do that some 
 times on the trail, get to hate the sight and sound 
 of each other. You can t tell why. 
 
 " One day the others went after buffalo and left 
 Brady and the man that hated him alone on the 
 island. When the hunters come home at night 
 Brady was dead by the camp fire, shot through the 
 head and lyin stiff in his blood. The other one 
 had a slick story to tell how Brady cleanin his 
 gun, discharged it by accident and the bullet struck 
 up and killed him. They didn t believe it, but it 
 weren t their business. So they buried Brady there 
 on the island and the next day each man shoul 
 dered his pack and struck out to foot it to the Mis 
 souri. 
 
 " It was somethin of a walk and the ones that 
 couldn t keep up the stride fell behind. They was 
 all strung out along the river bank and some of em 
 turned off for ways they thought was shorter, and 
 first thing you know the party was scattered, and 
 the man that hated Brady was left alone, lopin 
 along on a side trail that slanted across the prairie 
 to the country of the Loup Fork Pawnees. 
 
 114 
 
The River 
 
 " That was the last they saw of him and it was 
 a long time news traveled slow on the plains in 
 them days before anybody heard of him for he 
 never come to St. Louis to tell. Some weeks later a 
 party of trappers passin near the Pawnee villages 
 on the Loup Fork was hailed by some Indians and 
 told they had a paleface sick in the chief s tent. 
 The trappers went there and in the tent found a 
 white man, clear headed, but dyin fast. 
 
 " It was the man that killed Brady. Lyin there 
 on the buffalo skin, he told them all about it how 
 he done it and the lie he fixed up. Death was corn- 
 in , and the way he d hated so he couldn t keep his 
 hand from murder was all one now. He wanted to 
 get it off his mind and sorter square himself. When 
 he d struck out alone he went on for a spell, killin 
 enough game and always hopin for the sight of 
 the river. Then one day he caught his gun in a 
 willow tree and it went off, sending the charge into 
 his thigh and breaking the bone. He was stunned 
 for a while and then tried to move on, tried to 
 crawl. He crawled for six days and at the end of 
 the sixth found a place with water and knowed he d 
 come to the end of his rope. He tore a strip off his 
 blanket and tied it to the barrel of his rifle and 
 stuck it end up. The Pawnees found him there and 
 treated him kind, as them Indians will do some 
 times. They took him to their village and cared 
 for him, but it was too late. He wanted to see a 
 white man and tell and then die peaceful, and that s 
 what he done. While the trappers was with him he 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 died and they buried him there decent outside the 
 village." 
 
 The speaker s voice ceased and in the silence the 
 others turned to look at the black shape of the 
 island riding the gleaming waters like a funeral 
 barge. In its dark isolation, cut off from the land 
 by the quiet current, it seemed a fitting theater for 
 the grim tragedy. They gazed at it, chilled into 
 dumbness, thinking of the murderer moving to 
 freedom under the protection of his lie, then over 
 taken, and in his anguish, alone in the silence, meet 
 ing the question of his conscience. 
 
 Once more the words came back to David : " Be 
 hold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber 
 nor sleep/ 
 
 Susan pressed against her father, awed and cold, 
 and from old Joe, stretched in his blanket, came a 
 deep and peaceful snore. 
 
 116 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SUSAN was riding alone on the top of the bluffs. 
 The evening before, three men returning from the 
 Oregon country to the States, had bivouacked with 
 them and told them that the New York Company 
 was a day s march ahead, so she had gone to the 
 highlands to reconnoiter. 
 
 Just here the bluffs swept inward toward the 
 river, contracting the bottom to a valley only a few 
 miles in width. Through it the road lay, a well- 
 worn path crossed as with black stripes by the buf 
 falo runs. Susan s glance, questing ahead for the 
 New York train, ran to the distance where the crys 
 tal glaze of the stream shrunk to a silver thread 
 imbedded in green velvet. There was a final point 
 where green and silver converged in a blinding 
 dazzle, and over this the sun hung, emerging from 
 a nebulous glare to a slowly defining sphere. 
 
 Turning to the left her gaze lost itself in the end 
 lessness of the plains. It was like looking over the 
 sea, especially at the horizon where the land was 
 drawn in a straight, purplish line. She could al 
 most see sails there, small sails dark against a sky 
 that was so remote its color had faded to an aerial 
 pallor. As the journey had advanced the influence 
 of these spacious areas had crept upon her. In the 
 
 117 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 beginning there had been times when they woke in 
 her an unexplained sadness. Now that was gone 
 and she loved to ride onward, the one item of life 
 in the silence, held in a new correspondence with 
 the solemn immensity. It affected her as prayer 
 does the devotee. Under its inspiration she won 
 dered at old worries and felt herself impervious to 
 new ones. 
 
 With eyes on the purple horizon her thoughts 
 went back to her home in Rochester with the green 
 shutters and the brasses on the door. How far 
 away it seemed! Incidents in its peaceful routine 
 were like the resurgences of memory from a previ 
 ous incarnation. There was no tenderness in her 
 thoughts of the past, no sentiment clung to her 
 recollections of what was now a dead phase of her 
 life. She was slightly impatient of its contented 
 smallness, of her satisfaction with such things as 
 her sewing, her cake making, her childish confer 
 ences with girl friends on the vine-grown porch. 
 They seemed strangely trivial and unmeaning 
 compared to the exhilarating present. She was 
 living now, feeling the force of a rising growth, 
 her horizon widening to suit that which her eyes 
 sought, the dependence of her sheltered girlhood 
 gone from her as the great adventure called upon 
 untouched energies and untried forces. It was like 
 looking back on another girl, or like a woman look 
 ing back on a child. 
 
 She had often spoken to David of these past 
 days, and saw that her descriptions charmed him. 
 
 118 
 
The River 
 
 He had asked her questions about it and been sur 
 prised that she did not miss the old existence more. 
 To him it had seemed ideal, and he told her that 
 that was the way he should like to live and some 
 day would, with just such a servant as Daddy John, 
 and a few real friends, and a library of good books. 
 His enthusiasm made her dimly realize the gulf be 
 tween them the gulf between the idealist and the 
 materialist that neither had yet recognized and 
 that only she, of the two, instinctively felt. The 
 roughness of the journey irked David. The toil 
 of the days wore on his nerves. She could see 
 that it pained him to urge the tired animals for 
 ward, to lash them up the stream banks and drive 
 them past the springs. And only half understand 
 ing his character fine where she was obtuse, sen 
 sitive where she was invulnerable, she felt the 
 continued withdrawal from him, the instinctive 
 shrinking from the man who was not her mate. 
 
 She had silently acquiesced in the idea, enter 
 tained by all the train, that she would marry him. 
 The doctor had intimated to her that he wished it 
 and from her childhood her only real religion had 
 been to please her father. Yet half a dozen times 
 she had stopped the proposal on the lover s lips. 
 And not from coquetry either. Loth and reluctant 
 she clung to her independence. A rival might have 
 warmed her to a more coming-on mood, but there 
 was no rival. When by silence or raillery she had 
 shut off the avowal she was relieved and yet half 
 despised him for permitting her to take the lead. 
 
 119 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Why had he not forced her to listen? Why had 
 he not seized her and even if she struggled, held 
 her and made her hear him? She knew little of 
 men, nothing of love, but she felt, without putting 
 her thoughts even to herself, that to a man who 
 showed her he was master she would have listened 
 and surrendered. 
 
 Riding back to the camp she felt a trifle remorse 
 ful about her behavior. Some day she would marry 
 him she had got far enough to admit that and 
 perhaps it was unkind of her not to let the matter 
 be settled. And at that she gave a petulant wriggle 
 of her shoulders under her cotton blouse. Wasn t 
 that his business? Wasn t he the one to end it, 
 not wait on her pleasure? Were all men so easily 
 governed, she wondered. 
 
 Looking ahead across the grassed bottom land, 
 she saw that the train had halted and the camp was 
 pitched. She could see David s tall stooping figure, 
 moving with long strides between the tents and the 
 wagons. She laid a wager with herself that he 
 would do certain things and brought her horse to 
 a walk that she might come upon him noiselessly 
 and watch. Of course he did them, built up her 
 fire and kindled it, arranged her skillets beside it 
 and had a fresh pail of water standing close by. It 
 only remained for him to turn as he heard the 
 sound of her horse s hoofs and run to help her dis 
 mount. This, for some reason, he did not do and 
 she was forced to attract his attention by saying in 
 a loud voice : 
 
 1 20 
 
The River 
 
 " There was nothing to be seen. Not a sign of 
 a wagon from here to the horizon." 
 
 He looked up from his cooking and said : " Oh, 
 you re back, Susan," and returned to the pan of 
 buffalo tallow. 
 
 This was a strange remissness in the slave and 
 she was piqued. Contrary to precedent it was her 
 father who helped her off. She slid into his arms 
 laughing, trying to kiss him as she slipped down, 
 then standing with her hands on his shoulders told 
 him of her ride. She was very pretty just then, 
 her hair loose on her sunburned brow, her face all 
 love and smiles. But David bent over his fire, did 
 not raise his eyes to the charming tableau, that had 
 its own delightfulness to the two participants, and 
 that one of the participants intended should show 
 him how sweet Susan Gillespie could be when she 
 wanted. 
 
 All of which trivial matter combined to the mak 
 ing of momentous matter, momentous in the future 
 for Susan and David. Shaken in her confidence in 
 the subjugation of her slave, Susan agreed to his 
 suggestion to ride to the bluffs after supper and see 
 the plains under the full moon. So salutary had 
 been his momentary neglect of her that she went in 
 a chastened spirit, a tamed and gentle maiden. 
 They had orders not to pass out of sight of the twin 
 fires whose light followed them like the beams of 
 two, watchful, unwinking eyes. 
 
 They rode across the bottom to where the bluffs 
 rose, a broken bulwark. That afternoon Susan had 
 
 121 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 found a ravine up which they could pass. She 
 knew it by a dwarfed tree, a landmark in the naked 
 country. The moonlight lay white on the barrier 
 indented with gulfs of darkness, from each of 
 which ran the narrow path of the buffalo. The line 
 of hills, silver-washed and black-caverned, was like 
 a rampart thrown across the entrance to the land of 
 mystery, and they like the pygmy men of fairyland 
 come to gain an entry. It was David who thought 
 of this. It reminded him of Jack and the Bean 
 stalk, where Jack, reaching the top of the vine, 
 found himself in a strange country. Susan did not 
 remember much about Jack. She was engrossed in 
 recognizing the ravine, scanning the darkling hol 
 lows for the dwarf tree. 
 
 It was a steep, winding cut, the tree, halfway up 
 its length, spreading skeleton arms against a sky 
 clear as a blue diamond. They turned into it and 
 began a scrambling ascent, the horses hoofs slip 
 ping into the gutter that the buffaloes had trodden 
 out. It was black dark in the depths with the 
 moonlight slanting white on the walls. 
 
 " We re going now to find the giants," David 
 called over his shoulder. " Doesn t this seem as if 
 it ought to lead us up right in front of Blunder- 
 bore s Castle?" 
 
 " The buffalo runs are like trenches," she an 
 swered. " If you don t look out your horse may 
 fall." 
 
 They tied their horses to the tree and climbed on 
 foot to the levels above. On the earth s floor, un- 
 
 122 
 
The River 
 
 broken by tree or elevation, there was not a shadow. 
 It lay silver frosted in the foreground, darkening as 
 it receded. In the arch above no cloud filmed the 
 clearness, the moon, huge and mottled, dominating 
 the sky. The silence was penetrating; not a breath 
 or sound disturbed it. It was the night of the 
 primitive world, which stirred the savage to a sense 
 of the infinite and made him, from shell or clay or 
 stone, carve out a God. 
 
 Without speaking they walked forward to a jut 
 ting point and looked down on the river. The cur 
 rent sparkled like a dancer s veil spread on the 
 grass. They could not hear its murmur or see the 
 shifting disturbance of its shallows, only received 
 the larger impression of the flat, gleaming tide split 
 by the black shapes of islands. David pointed to 
 the two sparks of the camp fires. 
 
 " See, they re looking after us as if they were 
 alive and knew they mustn t lose sight of us." 
 
 " They look quite red in the moonlight," she an 
 swered, interested. 
 
 " As if they belonged to man and a drop of hu 
 man blood had colored them." 
 
 " What a queer idea. Let s walk on along the 
 bluffs." 
 
 They turned and moved away from the lights, 
 slipping down into the darkness of the channeled 
 ravines and emerging onto the luminous highlands. 
 The solemnity of the night, its brooding aloofness 
 in which they held so small a part, chilled the girl s 
 high self-reliance. Among her fellows, in a setting 
 
 123 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 of light and action, she was all proud independence. 
 Deprived of them she suffered a diminution of con 
 fidence and became if not clinging, at least a fem 
 inine creature who might some day be won. Feel 
 ing small and lonely she insensibly drew closer to 
 the man beside her, at that moment the only con 
 necting link between her and the living world with 
 which her liens were so close. 
 
 The lover felt the change in her, knew that the 
 barrier she had so persistently raised was down. 
 They were no longer mistress and slave, but man 
 and maid. The consciousness of it gave him a new 
 boldness. The desperate daring of the suitor car 
 ried him beyond his familiar tremors, his dread of 
 defeat. He thrust his hand inside her arm, timidly, 
 it is true, ready to snatch it back at the first rebuff. 
 But there was none, so he kept it there and they 
 walked on. Their talk was fragmentary, mur 
 mured sentences that they forgot to finish, phrases 
 trailing off into silence as if they had not clear 
 enough wits to fit words together, or as if words 
 were not necessary when at last their spirits com 
 muned. Responding to the instigation of the ro 
 mantic hour the young girl felt an almost sleepy 
 content. The arm on which she leaned spoke of 
 strength, it symbolized a protection she would have 
 repudiated in the practical, sustaining sunshine, but 
 that now was very sweet. 
 
 David walked in a vision. Was it Susan, this 
 soft and docile being, close against his side, her 
 head moving slowly as her eyes ranged over the 
 
 124 
 
The River 
 
 magical prospect? He was afraid to speak for fear 
 the spell would break. He did not know which 
 way his feet bore him, but blindly went on, look 
 ing down at the profile almost against his shoulder, 
 at the hand under which his had slid, small and 
 white in the transforming light. His silence was 
 not like hers, the expression of a temporary, lulled 
 tranquility. He had passed the stage when he 
 could delay to rejoice in lovely moments. He was 
 no longer the man fearful of the hazards of his 
 fate, but a vessel of sense ready to overflow at the 
 slightest touch. 
 
 It came when a ravine opened at their feet and 
 she drew herself from him to gather up her skirts 
 for the descent. Then the tension broke with a 
 tremulous " Susan, wait ! " She knew what was 
 coming and braced herself to meet it. The mystical 
 hour, the silver-bathed wonder of the night, a girl s 
 frightened curiosity, combined to win her to a 
 listening mood. She felt on the eve of a painful 
 but necessary ordeal, and clasped her hands to 
 gether to bear it creditably. Through the per 
 turbation of her mind the question flashed Did all 
 women feel this w r ay? and then the comment, How 
 much they had to endure that they never told ! 
 
 It was the first time any man had made the great 
 demand of her. She had read of it in novels and 
 other girls had told her. From this data she had 
 gathered that it was a happy if disturbing experi 
 ence. She felt only the disturbance. Seldom in 
 her life had she experienced so distracting a sense 
 
 125 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 of discomfort. When David was half way through 
 she would have given anything to have stopped 
 him, or to have run away. But she was determined 
 now to stand it, to go through with it and be en 
 gaged as other girls were and as her father wished 
 her to be. Besides there was nowhere to run to 
 and she could not have stopped him if she had tried. 
 He was launched, the hour had come, the, to him, 
 supreme and awful hour, and all the smothered pas 
 sion and hope and yearning of the past month burst 
 out. 
 
 Once she looked at him and immediately looked 
 away, alarmed and abashed by his appearance. 
 Even in the faint light she could see his pallor, the 
 drops on his brow, the drawn desperation of his 
 face. She had never in her life seen anyone so 
 moved and she began to share his agitation and 
 wish that anything might happen to bring the inter 
 view to an end. 
 
 " Do you care ? Do you care ? " he urged, try 
 ing to look into her face. She held it down, not 
 so much from modesty as from an aversion to see 
 ing him so beyond himself, and stammered: 
 
 " Of course I care. I always have. Quite a 
 great deal. You know it." 
 
 " I never knew/ he cried. " I never was sure. 
 Sometimes I thought so and the next day you were 
 all different. Say you do. Oh, Susan, say you 
 do." 
 
 He was as close to her as he could get without 
 touching her, which, the question now fairly put, 
 
 126 
 
The River 
 
 he carefully avoided doing. Taller than she he 
 loomed over her, bending for her answer, quivering 
 and sweating in his anxiety. 
 
 The young girl was completely subdued by him. 
 She was frightened, not of the man, but of the 
 sudden revelation of forces which she did not in 
 the least comprehend and which made him another 
 person. Though she vaguely understood that she 
 still dominated him, she saw that her dominion came 
 from something much more subtle than verbal com 
 mand and imperious bearing. All confusion and 
 bewildered meekness, she melted, partly because she 
 had meant to, partly because his vehemence over 
 powered her, and partly because she wanted to end 
 the most trying scene she had ever been through. 
 
 " Will you say yes? Oh, you must say yes," she 
 heard him imploring, and she emitted the monosyl 
 lable on a caught breath and then held her head 
 even lower and felt an aggrieved amazement that it 
 was all so different from what she had thought it 
 would be. 
 
 He gave an exclamation, a sound almost of 
 pain, and drew away from her. She glanced up at 
 him, her eyes full of scared curiosity, not knowing 
 what extraordinary thing was going to happen 
 next. He had dropped his face into his hands, and 
 stood thus for a moment without moving. She 
 peered at him uneasily, like a child at some one suf 
 fering from an unknown complaint and giving evi 
 dence of the suffering in strange ways. He let his 
 hands fall, closed his eyes for a second, then opened 
 
 127 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 them and came toward her with his face beatified. 
 Delicately, almost reverently, he bent down and 
 touched her cheek with his lips. 
 
 The lover s first kiss! This, too, Susan had 
 heard about, and from what she had heard she had 
 imagined that it was a wonderful experience caus 
 ing unprecedented joy. She was nearly as agitated 
 as he, but through her agitation, she realized with 
 keen disappointment that she had felt nothing in 
 the least resembling joy. An inward shrinking as 
 the bearded lips came in contact with her skin was 
 all she was conscious of. There was no rapture, 
 no up-gush of anything lovely or unusual. In fact, 
 it left her with the feeling that it was a duty duly 
 discharged and accepted this that she had heard 
 was one of life s crises, that you looked back on 
 from the heights of old age and told your grand 
 children about. 
 
 They were silent for a moment, the man so filled 
 and charged with feeling that he had no breath to 
 speak, no words, if he had had breath, to express 
 the passion that was in him. Inexperienced as she, 
 he thought it sweet and beautiful that she should 
 stand away from him with averted face. He gazed 
 at her tenderly, wonderingly, won, but still a thing 
 too sacred for his touch. 
 
 Susan, not knowing what to do and feeling 
 blankly that something momentous had happened 
 and that she had not risen to it, continued to look 
 on the ground. She wished he would say some 
 thing simple and natural and break the intolerable 
 
 128 
 
The River 
 
 silence. Finally, she felt that she could endure it no 
 longer, and putting her hand to her forehead, 
 pushed back her hair and heaved a deep sigh. He 
 instantly moved to her all brooding, possessive in 
 quiry. She became alarmed lest he meant to kiss 
 her again and edged away from him, exclaiming 
 hastily : 
 
 " Shall we go back ? We ve been a long time 
 away." 
 
 Without speech he slid his hand into the crook 
 of her arm and they began to retrace their steps. 
 She could feel his heart beating and the warm, 
 sinewy grasp of his fingers clasped about hers. 
 The plain was a silver floor for their feet, in the 
 starless sky the great orb soared. The girl s em 
 barrassment left her and she felt herself peacefully 
 settling into a contented acquiescence. She looked 
 up at him, a tall shape, black between her and the 
 moon. Her glance called his and he gazed down 
 into her eyes, a faint smile on his lips. His arm 
 w-as strong, the way was strangely beautiful, and 
 in the white light and the stillness, romance walked 
 with them. 
 
 There was no talk between them till they reached 
 the horses. In the darkness of the cleft, hidden 
 from the searching radiance, he drew her to him, 
 pressing her head with a trembling hand against his 
 heart. She endured it patiently but was glad when 
 he let her go and she w r as in the saddle, a place 
 where she felt more at home than in a man s arms 
 with her face crushed against his shirt, turning to 
 
 129 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 avoid its rough texture and uncomfortably con 
 scious of the hardness of his lean breast. She de 
 cided not to speak to him again, for she was afraid 
 he might break forth into those protestations of 
 love that so embarrassed her. 
 
 At the camp Daddy John was up, sitting by the 
 fire, waiting for them. Of this, too, she was glad. 
 Good-bys between lovers, even if only to be separ 
 ated by a night, were apt to contain more of that 
 distressful talk. She called a quick " Good night " 
 to him, and then dove into her tent and sat down on 
 the blankets. The firelight shone a nebulous blotch 
 through the canvas and she stared at it, trying to 
 concentrate her thoughts and realize that the great 
 event had happened. 
 
 " I m engaged," she kept saying to herself, and 
 waited for the rapture, which, even if belated, 
 ought surely to come. But it did not. The words 
 obstinately refused to convey any meaning, brought 
 nothing to her but a mortifying sensation of being 
 inadequate to a crisis. She heard David s voice 
 exchanging a low good night with the old man, and 
 she hearkened anxiously, still hopeful of the thrill. 
 But again there was none, and she could only gaze 
 at the blurred blot of light and whisper " I m en 
 gaged to be married," and wonder what was the 
 matter with her that she should feel just the same 
 as she did before. 
 
 130 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE dawn was gray when Susan woke the next 
 morning. It was cold and she cowered under her 
 blankets, watching the walls of the tent grow light, 
 and the splinter between the flaps turn from white 
 to yellow. She came to consciousness quickly, 
 waking to an unaccustomed depression. 
 
 At first it had no central point of cause, but was 
 reasonless and all-permeating like the depression 
 that comes from an unlocated physical ill. Her 
 body lay limp under the blankets as her mind lay 
 limp under the unfamiliar cloud. Then the mem 
 ory of last night took form, her gloom suddenly 
 concentrated on a reason, and she sunk beneath it, 
 staring fixedly at the crack of growing light. When 
 she heard the camp stirring and sat up, her heart 
 felt so heavy that she pressed on it with her finger 
 tips as if half expecting they might encounter a 
 strange, new hardness through the soft envelope 
 of her body. 
 
 She did not know that this lowering of her crest, 
 hitherto held so high and carried so proudly, was 
 the first move of her surrender. Her liberty was 
 over, she was almost in the snare. The strong 
 feminine principle in her impelled her like an in 
 exorable fate toward marriage and the man. The 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 children that were to be, urged her toward their 
 creator. And the unconquered maidenhood that 
 was still hers, recoiled with trembling reluctance 
 from its demanded death. Love had not yet come 
 to lead her into a new and wonderful world. She 
 only felt the sense of strangeness and fear, of leav 
 ing the familiar ways to enter new ones that led 
 through shadows to the unknown. 
 
 When she rode out beside her father in the red 
 splendors of the morning, a new gravity marked 
 her. Already the first suggestion of the woman 
 like the first breath of the season s change was on 
 her face. The humility of the great abdication was 
 in her eyes. 
 
 David left them together and rode away to the 
 bluffs. She followed his figure with a clouded 
 glance as she told her father her news. Her de 
 pression lessened when he turned upon her with a 
 radiant face. 
 
 " If you had searched the world over you 
 couldn t have found a man to please me better. 
 Seeing David this way, day by day, I ve come to 
 know him through and through and he s true, 
 straight down to the core." 
 
 " Of course he is," she answered, tilting her chin 
 with the old sauciness that this morning looked a 
 little forlorn. " I wouldn t have liked him if he 
 hadn t been." 
 
 " Oh, Missy, you re such a wise little woman." 
 
 She glanced at him quickly, recognizing the tone, 
 and to-day, with her new heavy heart, dreading it. 
 
 132 
 
The River 
 
 " Now, father, don t laugh at me. This is all 
 very serious." 
 
 " Serious ! It s the most serious thing that ever 
 happened in the world, in our world. And if I was 
 smiling I ll lay a wager I wasn t laughing it 
 was because I m so happy. You don t know what 
 this means to me. I ve wanted it so much that I ve 
 been afraid it wasn t coming off. And then I 
 thought it must, for it s my girl s happiness and 
 David s and back of theirs mine." 
 
 " Well, then, if you re happy, I m happy." 
 
 This time his smile was not bantering, only lov 
 ing and tender. He did not. dream that her spirit 
 might not be as glad as his looking from the 
 height of middle-age to a secured future. He 
 had been a man of a single love, ignorant save 
 of that one woman, and she so worshiped and 
 wondered at that there had been no time to un 
 derstand her. Insulated in the circle of his own 
 experience he did not guess that to an unawakened 
 girl the engagement morn might be dark with 
 clouds. 
 
 " Love and youth," he said dreamily, " oh, Su 
 san, it s so beautiful! It s Eden come again when 
 God walked in the garden. And it s so short. Eheu 
 Fugaces! You ve just begun to realize how won 
 derful it is, just said to yourself This is life this 
 is what I was born for/ when it s over. And then 
 you begin to understand, to look back, and see that 
 it was not what you were born for. It was only 
 the beginning that was to give you strength for the 
 
 133 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 rest the prairie all trees and flowers, with the sun 
 light and the breeze on the grass." 
 
 " It sounds like this journey, like the Emigrant 
 Trail." 
 
 " That s what I was thinking. The beautiful 
 start gives you courage for the mountains. The 
 memory of it carries you over the rough places, 
 gives you life in your heart when you come to the 
 desert where it s all parched and bare. And you 
 and your companion go on, fighting against the 
 hardships, bound closer and closer by the struggle. 
 You learn to give up, to think of the other one, and 
 then you say, This is what I was born for/ and 
 you know you re getting near the truth. To have 
 some one to go through the fight for, to do the 
 hard work for that s the reality after the vision 
 and the dream." 
 
 The doctor, thinking of the vanished years of 
 his married life, and his daughter, of the unknown 
 ones coming, were not looking at the subject from 
 the same points of view. 
 
 " I don t think you make it sound very pleasant," 
 she said, from returning waves of melancholy. 
 " It s nothing but hardships and danger." 
 
 " California s at the end of it, dearie, and they 
 say that s the most beautiful country in the world." 
 
 " It will be a strange country," she said wist 
 fully, not thinking alone of California. 
 
 " Not for long." 
 
 " Do you think we ll ever feel at home in it ? " 
 
 The question came in a faint voice. Why did 
 134 
 
The River 
 
 California, once the goal of her dreams, now seem 
 an alien land in which she always would be a 
 stranger ? 
 
 " We re bringing our home with us carrying 
 some of it on our backs like snails and the rest in 
 our hearts like all pioneers. Soon it will cease 
 being strange, when there are children in it. Where 
 there s a camp fire and a blanket and a child, that s 
 home, Missy." 
 
 He leaned toward her and laid his hand on hers 
 as it rested on the pommel. 
 
 " You ll be so happy in it," he said softly. 
 
 A sudden surge of feeling, more poignant than 
 anything she had yet felt, sent a pricking of tears 
 to her eyes. She turned her face away, longing in 
 sudden misery for some one to whom she could 
 speak plainly, some one who once had felt as she 
 did now. For the first time she wished that there 
 was another woman in the train. Her instinct told 
 her that men could not understand. Unable to bear 
 her father s glad assurance she said a hasty word 
 about going back and telling Daddy John and 
 wheeled her horse toward the prairie schooner be 
 hind them. 
 
 Daddy John welcomed her by pushing up against 
 the roof prop and giving her two thirds of the 
 driver s seat. With her hands clipped between her 
 knees she eyed him sideways. 
 
 "What do you think s going to happen?" she 
 said, trying to compose her spirits by teasing 
 him. 
 
 135 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " It s going to rain," he answered. 
 
 This was not helpful or suggestive of future 
 sympathy, but at any rate, it was not emotional. 
 
 " Now, Daddy John, don t be silly. Would I get 
 off my horse and climb up beside you to ask you 
 about the weather ? " 
 
 " I don t know what you d do, Missy, you ve got 
 that wild out here on the plains just like a little 
 buffalo calf." 
 
 He glimpsed obliquely at her, his old face full of 
 whimsical tenderness. She smiled bravely and he 
 saw above the smile, her eyes, untouched by it. He 
 instantly became grave. 
 
 " Well, what s goin to happen ? " he asked so 
 berly. 
 
 " I m going to be married." 
 
 He raised his eyebrows and gave a whistle. 
 
 "That is somethin ! And which is it?" 
 
 " What a question ! David, of course. Who else 
 could it be ? " 
 
 " Well, he s the best," he spoke slowly, with con 
 sidering phlegm. " He s a first-rate boy as far as 
 he goes." 
 
 " I don t think that s a very nice way to speak of 
 him. Can t you say something better ? " 
 
 The old man looked over the mules backs for a 
 moment of inward cogitation. He was not sur 
 prised at the news but he was surprised at some 
 thing in his Missy s manner, a lack of the joyful- 
 ness, that he, too, had thought an attribute of all 
 intending brides. 
 
 136 
 
The River 
 
 " He s a good boy," he said thoughtfully. " No 
 one can say he ain t. But some way or other, I d 
 rather have had a bigger man for you, Missy." 
 
 " Bigger ! " she exclaimed indignantly. " He s 
 nearly six feet. And girls don t pick out their hus 
 bands because of their height." 
 
 " I ain t meant it that way. Bigger in what s in 
 him can get hold o more, got a bigger reach." 
 
 " I don t know what you mean. If you re trying 
 to say he s not got a big mind you re all wrong. He 
 knows more than anybody I ever met except father. 
 He s read hundreds and hundreds of books." 
 
 " That s it too many books. Books is good 
 enough but they ain t the right sort er meat for a 
 feller that s got to hit out for himself in a new 
 country. They re all right in the city where you 
 got the butcher and the police and a kerosene lamp 
 to read em by. David ud be a fine boy in the town 
 just as his books is suitable in the town. But this 
 ain t the town. And the men that are the right 
 kind out here ain t particularly set on books. I d a 
 chose a harder feller for you, Missy, that could 
 have stood up to anything and didn t have no soft 
 feelings to hamper him." 
 
 " Rubbish," she snapped. " Why don t you en 
 courage me ? " 
 
 Her tone drew his eyes, sharp as a squirrel s and 
 charged with quick concern. Her face was partly 
 turned away. The curve of her cheek was devoid 
 of its usual dusky color, her fingers played on her 
 under lip as if it were a little flute. 
 
 137 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " What do you want to be encouraged for ? " he 
 said low, as if afraid of being overheard. 
 
 She did not move her head, but looked at the 
 bluffs. 
 
 " I don t know/ she answered, then hearing her 
 voice hoarse cleared her throat. " It s all so so 
 sort of new. I I feel I don t know just how 
 I think it s homesick." 
 
 Her voice broke in a bursting sob. Her control 
 gone, her pride fell with it. Wheeling on the seat 
 she cast upon him a look of despairing appeal. 
 
 " Oh, Daddy John/ was all she could gasp, and 
 then bent her head so that her hat might hide the 
 shame of her tears. 
 
 He looked at her for a nonplused moment, at 
 her brown arms bent over her shaken bosom, at the 
 shield of her broken hat. He was thoroughly dis 
 comfited for he had not the least idea what was 
 the matter. Then he shifted the reins to his left 
 hand and edging near her laid his right on her 
 knee. 
 
 " Don t you want to marry him? " he said gently. 
 
 " It isn t that, it s something else." 
 
 " What else ? You can say anything you like 
 to me. Ain t I carried you when you were a 
 baby?" 
 
 " I don t know what it is." Her voice came 
 cut by sobbing breaths. " I don t understand. It s 
 like being terribly lonesome." 
 
 The old frontiersman had no remedy ready for 
 this complaint. He, too, did not understand. 
 
 138 
 
The River 
 
 " Don t you marry him if you don t like him," 
 he said. " If you want to tell him so and you re 
 afraid, I ll do it for you." 
 
 " I do like him. It s not that." 
 
 " Well, then, what s making you cry ? " 
 
 " Something else, something way down deep that 
 makes everything seem so far away and strange." 
 
 He leaned forward and spat over the wheel, then 
 subsided against the roof prop. 
 
 "Are you well?" he said, his imagination ex 
 hausted. 
 
 " Yes, very." 
 
 Daddy John looked at the backs of the mules. 
 The off leader was a capricious female by name 
 Julia who required more management and coaxing 
 than the other five put together, and whom he loved 
 beyond them all. In his bewildered anxiety the 
 thought passed through his mind that all creatures 
 of the feminine gender, animal or human, were 
 governed by laws inscrutable to the male, who 
 might never aspire to comprehension and could 
 only strive to please and placate. 
 
 A footfall struck on his ear and, thrusting his 
 head beyond the canvas hood, he saw Leff loafing up 
 from the rear. 
 
 " Saw her come in here," thought the old man, 
 drawing his head in, " and wants to hang round 
 and snoop." 
 
 Since the Indian episode he despised Leff. His 
 contempt was unveiled, for the country lout who 
 had shown himself a coward had dared to raise his 
 
 139 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 eyes to the one star in Daddy John s firmament. 
 He would not have hidden his dislike if he could, 
 Leff was of the outer world to which he relegated 
 all men who showed fear or lied. 
 
 He turned to Susan : 
 
 " Go back in the wagon and lie down. Here 
 comes Leff and I don t want him to see you." 
 
 The young girl thought no better of Leff than he 
 did. The thought of being viewed in her abandon 
 ment by the despised youth made her scramble into 
 the back of the wagon where she lay concealed on a 
 pile of sacks. In the forward opening where the 
 canvas was drawn in a circle round a segment of 
 sky, Daddy John s figure fitted like a picture in 
 a circular frame. As a step paused at the wheel 
 she saw him lean forward and heard his rough 
 tones. 
 
 " Yes, she s here, asleep in the back of the 
 wagon." 
 
 Then Leff s voice, surprised : 
 
 " Asleep ? Why, it ain t an hour since we 
 started." 
 
 : Well, can t she go to sleep in the morning if 
 she wants? Don t you go to sleep every Sunday 
 under the wagon ? " 
 
 " Yes, but that s afternoon." 
 
 " Mebbe, but everybody s not as slow as you at 
 getting at what they want." 
 
 This appeared to put Susan s retirement in a 
 light that gave rise to pondering. There was a 
 pause, then came the young man s heavy footsteps 
 
 140 
 
The River 
 
 slouching back to his wagon. Daddy John settled 
 down on the seat. 
 
 " I m almighty glad it weren t him, Missy," he 
 said, over his shoulder. " I d a known then why 
 you cried." 
 
 141 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 LATE the same day Left", who had been riding on 
 the bluffs, came down to report a large train a few 
 miles ahead of them. It was undoubtedly the long- 
 looked-for New York Company. 
 
 The news was as a tonic to their slackened ener 
 gies. A cheering excitement ran through the train. 
 There was stir and loud talking. Its contagion 
 lifted Susan s spirits and with her father she rode 
 on in advance, straining her eyes against the glare 
 of the glittering river. Men and women, who daily 
 crowded by them unnoted on city streets, now 
 loomed in the perspective as objective points of 
 avid interest. No party Susan had ever been to 
 called forth such hopeful anticipation. To see her 
 fellows, to talk with women over trivial things, to 
 demand and give out the human sympathies she 
 wanted and that had lain withering within herself, 
 drew her from the gloom under which she had lain 
 weeping in the back of Daddy John s wagon. 
 
 They were nearing the Forks of the Platte where 
 the air was dryly transparent and sound carried far. 
 While yet the encamped train was a congeries of 
 broken white dots on the river s edge, they could 
 hear the bark of a dog and then singing, a thin 
 thread of melody sent aloft by a woman s voice. 
 
 142 
 
The River 
 
 It was like a handclasp across space. Drawing 
 nearer the sounds of men and life reached forward 
 to meet them laughter, the neighing of horses, the 
 high, broken cry of a child. They felt as if they 
 were returning to a home they had left and that 
 sometimes, in the stillness of the night or when 
 vision lost itself in the vague distances, they still 
 longed for. 
 
 The train had shaped itself into its night form, 
 the circular coil in which it slept, like a thick, pale 
 serpent resting after the day s labors. The white 
 arched prairie schooners were drawn up in a ring, 
 the defensive bulwark of the plains. The wheels, 
 linked together by the yoke chains, formed a bar 
 rier against Indian attacks. Outside this inter 
 locked rampart was a girdle of fires, that gleamed 
 through the twilight like a chain of jewels flung 
 round the night s bivouac. It shone bright on the 
 darkness of the grass, a cordon of flame that some 
 kindly magician had drawn about the resting place 
 of the tired camp. 
 
 With the night pressing on its edges it was a 
 tiny nucleus of life dropped down between the im 
 memorial plains and the ancient river. Home was 
 here in the pitched tents, a hearthstone in the flame 
 lapping on the singed grass, humanity in the loud 
 welcome that rose to meet the newcomers. The 
 doctor had known but one member of the Company, 
 its organizer, a farmer from the Mohawk Valley. 
 But the men, dropping their ox yokes and water 
 pails, crowded forward, laughing deep-mouthed 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 greetings from the bush of their beards, and ex 
 tending hands as hard as the road they had traveled. 
 
 The women were cooking. Like goddesses of 
 the waste places they stood around the fires, a line 
 of half-defined shapes. Films of smoke blew across 
 them, obscured and revealed them, and round about 
 them savory odors rose. Fat spit in the pans, cof 
 fee bubbled in blackened pots, and strips of buffalo 
 meat impaled on sticks sent a dribble of flame to the 
 heat. The light was strong on their faces, lifted in 
 greeting, lips smiling, eyes full of friendly curi 
 osity. But they did not move from their posts for 
 they were women and the men and the children 
 were waiting to be fed. 
 
 Most of them were middle-aged, or the trail had 
 made them look middle-aged. A few were very 
 old. Susan saw a face carved with seventy years 
 of wrinkles mumbling in the framing folds of a 
 shawl. Nearby, sitting on the dropped tongue of a 
 wagon, a girl of perhaps sixteen, sat ruminant, 
 nursing a baby. Children were everywhere, help 
 ing, fighting, rolling on the grass. Babies lay on 
 spread blankets with older babies sitting by to 
 watch. It was the woman s hour. The day s 
 march was over, but the intimate domestic toil was 
 at its height. The home makers were concentrated 
 upon their share of the activities cooking food, 
 making the shelter habitable, putting their young to 
 bed. 
 
 Separated from Susan by a pile of scarlet embers 
 stood a young girl, a large spoon in her hand. The 
 
 144 
 
The River 
 
 light shot upward along the front of her body, 
 painting with an even red glow her breast, her chin, 
 the under side of her nose and finally transforming 
 into a coppery cloud the bright confusion of her 
 hair. She smiled across the fire and said : 
 
 " I m glad you ve come. We ve been watching 
 for you ever since we struck the Platte. There 
 aren t any girls in the train. I and my sister are 
 the youngest except Mrs. Peebles over there," with 
 a nod in the direction of the girl on the wagon 
 tongue, " and she s married." 
 
 The woman beside her, who had been too busy 
 over the bacon pan to raise her head, now straight 
 ened herself, presenting to Susan s eye a face more 
 buxom and mature but so like that of the speaker 
 that it was evident they were sisters. A band of 
 gold gleamed on her wedding finger and her short 
 skirt and loose calico jacket made no attempt to 
 hide the fact that another baby was soon to be 
 added to the already well-supplied train. She 
 smiled a placid greeting and her eye, lazily sweep 
 ing Susan, showed a healthy curiosity tempered by 
 the self-engrossed indifference of the married wom 
 an to whom the outsider, even in the heart of the 
 wilderness, is forever the outsider. 
 
 " Lucy ll be real glad to have a friend," she said. 
 " She s lonesome. Turn the bacon, Lucy, it makes 
 my back ache to bend " ; and as the sister bowed 
 over the frying pan, " move, children, you re in the 
 way." 
 
 This was directed to two children who lay on the 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 grass by the fire, with blinking eyes, already half 
 asleep. As they did not immediately obey she as 
 sisted them with a large foot, clad in a man s shoe. 
 The movement though peremptory was not rough. 
 It had something of the quality of the mother 
 tiger s admonishing pats to her cubs, a certain gen 
 tleness showing through force. The foot propelled 
 the children into a murmurous drowsy heap. One 
 of them, a little girl with a shock of white hair 
 and a bunch of faded flowers wilting in her tight 
 baby grasp, looked at her mother with eyes glazed 
 with sleep, a deep look as though her soul was 
 gazing back from the mysteries of unconscious 
 ness. 
 
 " Now lie there till you get your supper," said 
 the mother, having by gradual pressure pried them 
 out of the way. " And you," to Susan, " better 
 bring your things over and camp here and use our 
 fire. We ve nearly finished with it." 
 
 In the desolation of the morning Susan had 
 wished for a member of her own sex, not to confide 
 in but to feel that there was some one near, who, if 
 she did know, could understand. Now here were 
 two. Their fresh, simple faces on which an artless 
 interest was so naively displayed, their pleasant 
 voices, not cultured as hers was but women s voices 
 for all that, gave her spirits a lift. Her depression 
 quite dropped away, the awful lonely feeling, all 
 the more whelming because nobody could under 
 stand it, departed from her. She ran back to the 
 camp singing and for the first time that day looked 
 
 146 
 
The River 
 
 at David, whose presence she had shunned, with her 
 old, brilliant smile. 
 
 An hour later and the big camp rested, relaxed in 
 the fading twilight that lay a yellow thread of sep 
 aration between the day s high colors and the dew- 
 less darkness of the night. It was like a scene from 
 the migrations of the ancient peoples when man 
 wandered with a woman, a tent, and a herd. The 
 barrier of the wagons, with its girdle of fire sparks, 
 incased a grassy oval green as a lawn. Here they 
 sat in little groups, collecting in tent openings as 
 they were wont to collect on summer nights at front 
 gates and piazza steps. The crooning of women 
 putting babies to sleep fell in with the babblings of 
 the river. The men smoked in silence. Nature had 
 taught them something of her large reticence in 
 their day-long companionship. Some few lounged 
 across the grass to have speech of the pilot, a griz 
 zled mountain man, who had been one of the Sub- 
 lette s trappers, and had wise words to say of the 
 day s travel and the promise of the weather. But 
 most of them lay on the grass by the tents where 
 they could see the stars through their pipe smoke 
 and hear the talk of their wives and the breathing 
 of the children curled in the blankets. 
 
 A youth brought an accordion from his stores 
 and, sitting cross-legged on the ground, began to 
 play. He played " Annie Laurie," and a woman s 
 voice, her head a black outline against the west, 
 sang the words. Then there was a clamor of ap 
 plause, sounding thin and futile in the evening s 
 
 147 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 suave quietness, and the player began a Scotch 
 reel in the production of which the accordion ut 
 tered asthmatic gasps as though unable to keep up 
 with its own proud pace. The tune was sufficiently 
 good to inspire a couple of dancers. The young 
 girl called Lucy rose with a partner her brother- 
 in-law some one told Susan and facing one an 
 other, hand on hip, heads high, they began to foot 
 it lightly over the blackening grass. 
 
 Seen thus Lucy was handsome, a tall, long- 
 limbed sapling of a girl, with a flaming crest of cop 
 per-colored hair and movements as lithe and supple 
 as a cat s. She danced buoyantly, without losing 
 breath, advancing and retreating with mincing 
 steps, her face grave as though the performance had 
 its own dignity and was not to be taken lightly. 
 Her partner, a tanned and long-haired man, took 
 his part in a livelier spirit, laughing at her, bending 
 his body grotesquely and growing red with his 
 caperings. Meanwhile from the tent door the wife 
 looked on and Susan heard her say to the doctor 
 with whom she had been conferring : 
 
 " And when will it be my turn to dance the reel 
 again? There wasn t a girl in the town could 
 dance it with me/ 
 
 Her voice was weighted with the wistfulness of 
 the woman whose endless patience battles with her 
 unwillingness to be laid by. 
 
 Susan saw David s fingers feeling in the grass for 
 her hand. She gave it, felt the hard stress of his 
 grip, and conquered her desire to draw the hand 
 
 148 
 
The River 
 
 away. All her coquetry was gone. She was cold 
 and subdued. The passionate hunger of his gaze 
 made her feel uncomfortable. She endured it for 
 a space and then said with an edge of irritation on 
 her voice : 
 
 " What are you staring at me for ? Is there 
 something on my face ? " 
 
 He breathed in a roughened voice : 
 
 " No, I love you." 
 
 Her discomfort increased. Tumult and coldness 
 make uncongenial neighbors. The man, all passion, 
 and the woman, who has no answering spark, grope 
 toward each other through devious and unillumined 
 ways. 
 
 He whispered again : 
 
 " I love you so. You don t understand." 
 
 She did not and looked at him inquiringly, hop 
 ing to learn something from his face. His eyes, 
 meeting hers, were full of tears. It surprised her 
 so that she stared speechlessly at him, her head 
 thrown back, her lips parted. 
 
 He looked down, ashamed of his emotion, mur 
 muring : 
 
 " You don t understand. It s so sacred. Some 
 day you will." 
 
 She did not speak to him again, but she let him 
 hold her hand because she thought she ought to and 
 because she was sorry. 
 
 149 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE next morning the rain was pouring. The 
 train rolled out without picturesque circumstance, 
 the men cursing, the oxen, with great heads swing 
 ing under the yokes, plodding doggedly through 
 lakes fretted with the downpour. Breakfast was a 
 farce; nobody s fire would burn and the women 
 were wet through before they had the coffee pots 
 out. One or two provident parties had stoves fitted 
 up in their wagons with a joint of pipe coming out 
 through holes in the canvas. From these, wafts of 
 smoke issued with jaunty assurance, to be beaten 
 down by the rain, which swept them fiercely out of 
 the landscape. 
 
 There was no perspective, the distance invisible, 
 nearer outlines blurred. The world was a uniform 
 tint, walls of gray marching in a slant across a fore 
 ground embroidered with pools. Water ran, or 
 dripped, or stood everywhere. The river, its surface 
 roughened by the spit of angry drops, ran swollen 
 among its islands, plumed shapes seen mistily 
 through the veil. The road emerged in oases of 
 mud from long, inundated spaces. Down the gul 
 lies in the hills, following the beaten buffalo tracks, 
 streams percolated through the grass of the bottom, 
 feeling their way to the river. 
 
 Notwithstanding the weather a goodly company 
 150 
 
The River 
 
 of mounted men rode at the head of the train. They 
 were wet to the skin and quite indifferent to it. 
 They had already come to regard the vagaries of 
 the weather as matters of no import. Mosquitoes 
 and Indians were all they feared. On such nights 
 many of them slept in the open under a tarpaulin, 
 and when the water grew deep about them scooped 
 out a drainage canal with a hand that sleep made 
 heavy. 
 
 When the disorder of the camping ground was 
 still in sight, Susan, with the desire of social inter 
 course strong upon her, climbed into the wagon of 
 her new friends. They were practical, thrifty peo 
 ple, and were as comfortable as they could be under 
 a roof of soaked canvas in a heavily weighted 
 prairie schooner that every now and then bumped 
 to the bottom of a chuck hole. The married sister 
 sat on a pile of sacks disposed in a form that made 
 a comfortable seat. A blanket was spread behind 
 her, and thus enthroned she knitted at a stocking of 
 gray yarn. Seen in the daylight she was young, 
 fresh-skinned, and not uncomely. Placidity seemed 
 to be the dominating note of her personality. It 
 found physical expression in the bland parting of 
 her hair, drawn back from her smooth brow, her 
 large plump hands with their deliberate movements 
 and dimples where more turbulent souls had 
 knuckles, and her quiet eyes, which turned upon 
 anyone who addressed her a long ruminating look 
 before she answered. She had an air of almost 
 oracular profundity but she was merely in the qui- 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 escent state of the woman whose faculties and 
 strength are concentrated upon the coming child. 
 Her sister called her Bella and the people in the 
 train addressed her as Mrs. McMurdo. 
 
 Lucy was beside her also knitting a stocking, and 
 the husband, Glen McMurdo, sat in the front driv 
 ing, his legs in the rain, his upper half leaning back 
 under the shelter of the roof. He looked sleepy, 
 gave a grunt of greeting to Susan, and then lapsed 
 against the saddle propped behind him, his hat 
 pulled low on his forehead hiding his eyes. In this 
 position, without moving or evincing any sign of 
 life, he now and then appeared to be roused to the 
 obligations of his position and shouted a drowsy 
 " Gee Haw," at the oxen. 
 
 He did not interfere with the women and they 
 broke into the talk of their sex, how they cooked, 
 which of their clothes had worn best, what was the 
 right way of jerking buffalo meat. And then on to 
 personal matters : where they came from, what they 
 were at home, whither they were bound. The two 
 sisters were Scotch girls, had come from Scotland 
 twenty years ago when Lucy was a baby. Their 
 home was Cooperstown where Glen was a carpen 
 ter. He had heard wonderful stories of California, 
 how there were no carpenters there and people were 
 flocking in, so he d decided to emigrate. 
 
 " And once he d got his mind set on it, he had to 
 start," said his wife. " Couldn t wait for anything 
 but must be off then and there. That s the way 
 
 152 
 
The River 
 
 " It s a hard trip for you," said Susan, wonder 
 ing at Mrs. McMurdo s serenity. 
 
 " Well, I suppose it is," said Bella, as if she did 
 not really think it was, but was too lazy to disagree. 
 " I hope I ll last till we get to Fort Bridger." 
 
 "What s at Fort Bridger?" 
 
 " It s a big place with lots of trains coming and 
 going and there ll probably be a doctor among 
 them. And they say it s a good place for the ani 
 mals plenty of grass so it ll be all right if I m 
 laid up for long. But I have my children very 
 easily." 
 
 It seemed to the doctor s daughter a desperate 
 outlook and she eyed, with a combination of pity 
 and awe, the untroubled Bella reclining on the 
 throne of sacks. The wagon gave a creaking lurch 
 and Bella nearly lost count of her stitches which 
 made her frown as she was turning the heel. The 
 lurch woke her husband who pushed back his hat, 
 shouted " Gee Haw " at the oxen, and then said to 
 his wife: 
 
 " You got to cut my hair, Bella. These long 
 tags hanging down round my ears worry me." 
 
 " Yes, dear, as soon as the weather s fine. I ll 
 borrow a bowl from Mrs. Peeble s mother so that 
 it ll be cut evenly all the way round." 
 
 Here there was an interruption, a breathless, 
 baby voice at the wheel, and Glen leaned down 
 and dragged up his son Bob, wet, wriggling, and 
 muddy. The little fellow, four years old, had on 
 a homespun shirt and drawers, both dripping. His 
 
 153 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 hair was a wet mop, hanging in rat tails to his eyes. 
 Under its thatch his face, pink and smiling, was as 
 fresh as a dew-washed rose. Tightly gripped in a 
 dirty paw were two wild flowers, and it was to give 
 these to his mother that he had come. 
 
 He staggered toward her, the wagon gave a jolt, 
 and he fell, clasping her knees and rilling the air 
 with the sweetness of his laughter. Then holding 
 to her arm and shoulder, he drew himself higher 
 and pressed the flowers close against her nose. 
 
 "Is it a bu full smell?" he inquired, watching 
 her face with eyes of bright inquiry. 
 
 " Beautiful," she said, trying to see the knitting. 
 
 " Aren t you glad I brought them ? " still anx 
 iously inquiring. 
 
 " Very " she pushed them away. " You re 
 soaked. Take off your things." 
 
 And little Bob, still holding his flowers, was 
 stripped to his skin. 
 
 " Now lie down," said his mother. "-I m turn 
 ing the heel." 
 
 He obeyed, but turbulently, and with much pre 
 tense, making believe to fall and rolling on the 
 sacks, a naked cherub writhing with laughter. Fi 
 nally, his mother had to stop her heel-turning to 
 seize him by one leg, drag him toward her, roll him 
 up in the end of the blanket and with a silencing 
 slap say, " There, lie still." This quieted him. He 
 lay subdued save for a waving hand in which the 
 flowers were still imbedded and with which he 
 made passes at the two girls, murmuring with the 
 
 154 
 
The River 
 
 thick utterance of rising sleep " Bu full flowers." 
 And in a moment he slept, curled against his moth 
 er, his face angelic beneath the wet hair. 
 
 When Susan came to the giving of her personal 
 data the few facts necessary to locate and intro 
 duce her her engagement was the item of most 
 interest. A love story even on the plains, with the 
 rain dribbling in through the cracks of the canvas, 
 possessed the old, deathless charm. The doctor 
 and his philanthropies, on which she would have 
 liked to dilate, were given the perfunctory attention 
 that politeness demanded. By himself the good 
 man is dull, he has to have a woman on his arm to 
 carry weight. David, the lover, and Susan, the ob 
 ject of his love, were the hero and heroine of the 
 story. Even the married woman forgot the turn 
 ing of the heel and fastened her mild gaze on the 
 young girl. 
 
 " And such a handsome fellow," she said. " I 
 said to Lucy she ll tell you if I didn t that there 
 wasn t a man to compare with him in our train. 
 And so gallant and polite. Last night, when I was 
 heating the water to wash the children, he carried 
 the pails for me. None of the men with us do that. 
 They d never think of offering to carry our buckets." 
 Her husband who had appeared to be asleep said : 
 "Why should they?" and then shouted "Gee 
 Haw " and made a futile kick toward the near 
 est ox. 
 
 Nobody paid any attention to him and Lucy said : 
 Yes, he s very fine looking. And you d never 
 
 155 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 met till you started on the trail? Isn t that ro 
 mantic? " 
 
 Susan was gratified. To hear David thus com 
 mended by other women increased his value. If it 
 did not make her love him more, it made her feel 
 the pride of ownership in a desirable possession. 
 There was complacence in her voice as she cited his 
 other gifts. 
 
 " He s very learned. He s read all kinds of books. 
 My father says it s wonderful how much he s read. 
 And he can recite poetry, verses and verses, Byron 
 and Milton and Shakespeare. He often recites to 
 me when we re riding together." 
 
 This acquirement of the lover s did not elicit any 
 enthusiasm from Bella. 
 
 " Well, did you ever ! " she murmured absently, 
 counting stitches under her breath and then pulling 
 a needle out of the heel, " Reciting poetry on horse 
 back!" 
 
 But it impressed Lucy, who, still in the virgin 
 state with fancy free to range, was evidently in 
 clined to romance : 
 
 " When you have a little log house in California 
 and live in it with him he ll recite poetry to you in 
 the evening after the work s done. Won t that be 
 lovely?" 
 
 Susan made no response. Instead she swallowed 
 silently, looking out on the rain. The picture of 
 herself and David, alone in a log cabin somewhere 
 on the other side of the world, caused a sudden re 
 turn of yesterday s dejection. It rushed back upon 
 
 156 
 
The River 
 
 her in a flood under which her heart declined into 
 bottomless depths. She felt as if actually sinking 
 into some dark abyss of loneliness and that she 
 must clutch at her father and Daddy John to stay 
 her fall. 
 
 " We won t be alone," with a note of protest 
 making her voice plaintive. " My father and 
 Daddy John will be there. I couldn t be separated 
 from them. I d never get over missing them. 
 They ve been with me always." 
 
 Bella did not notice the tone, or maybe saw be 
 yond it. 
 
 " You won t miss them when you re married," 
 she said with her benign content. " Your husband 
 will be enough." 
 
 Lucy, with romance instead of a husband, agreed 
 to this, and arranged the programme for the future 
 as she would have had it : 
 
 " They ll probably live near you in tents. And 
 you ll see them often; ride over every few days. 
 But you ll want your own log house just for your 
 selves." 
 
 This time Susan did not answer, for she was 
 afraid to trust her voice. She pretended a sudden 
 interest in the prospect while the unbearable picture 
 rose before her mind she and David alone, while 
 her father and Daddy John were somewhere else in 
 tents, somewhere away from her, out of reach of 
 her hands and her kisses, not there to laugh with 
 her and tease her and tell her she was a tyrant, 
 only David loving her in an unintelligible, discom- 
 
 157 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 forting way and wanting to read poetry and admire 
 sunsets. The misery of it gripped down into her 
 soul. It was as the thought of being marooned on 
 a lone sand bar tb> a free buccaneer. They never 
 could leave her so; they never could have the heart 
 to do it. And anger against David, the cause of it, 
 swelled in her. It was he who had done it all, try 
 ing to steal her away from the dear, familiar ways 
 and the people with whom she had been so happy. 
 
 Lucy looked at her with curious eyes, in which 
 there was admiration and a touch of envy. 
 
 " You must be awfully happy? " she said. 
 
 " Awfully," answered Susan, swallowing and 
 looking at the rain. 
 
 When she went back to her own wagon she 
 found a consultation in progress. Daddy John, 
 streaming from every fold, had just returned from 
 the head of the caravan, where he had been riding 
 with the pilot. From him he had heard that the 
 New York Company on good roads, in fair 
 weather, made twenty miles a day, and that in the 
 mountains, where the fodder was scarce and the 
 trail hard, would fall to a slower pace. The doc 
 tor s party, the cow long since sacrificed to the exi 
 gencies of speed, had been making from twenty-five 
 to thirty. Even with a drop from this in the barer 
 regions ahead of them they could look forward to 
 reaching California a month or six weeks before 
 the New York Company. 
 
 There was nothing to be gained by staying with 
 them, and, so far, the small two-wagon caravan had 
 
 158 
 
The River 
 
 moved with a speed and absence of accident, which 
 gave its members confidence in their luck and gen 
 eralship. It was agreed that they should leave the 
 big train the next morning and move on as rapidly 
 as they could, stopping at Fort Laramie to repair 
 the wagons which the heat had warped, shoe the 
 horses, and lay in the supplies they needed. 
 
 Susan heard it with regret. The comfort of 
 dropping back into the feminine atmosphere, where 
 obvious things did not need explanation, and all 
 sorts of important communications were made by 
 mental telepathy, was hard to relinquish. She 
 would once again have to adjust herself to the dull 
 male perceptions which saw and heard nothing that 
 was not visible and audible. She would have to 
 shut herself in with her own problems, getting no 
 support or sympathy unless she asked for it, and 
 then, before its sources could be tapped, she would 
 have to explain why she wanted it and demonstrate 
 that she was a deserving object. 
 
 And it was hard to break the budding friendship 
 with Lucy and Bella, for friendships were not long 
 making on the Emigrant Trail. One day s compan 
 ionship in the creaking prairie schooner had made 
 the three women more intimate than a year of city 
 visiting would have done. They made promises of 
 meeting again in California. Neither party knew 
 its exact point of destination somewhere on that 
 strip of prismatic color, not too crow r ded and not 
 too wild but that wanderers of the same blood and 
 birth might always find each other. 
 
 159 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 In the evening the two girls sat in Susan s tent 
 enjoying a last exchange of low-toned talk. The 
 rain had stopped. The thick, bluish wool of clouds 
 that stretched from horizon to horizon was here 
 and there rent apart, showing strips of lemon-col 
 ored sky. The ground was soaked, the footprints 
 round the wagons filled with water, the ruts brim 
 ming with it. There was a glow of low fires round 
 the camp, for the mosquitoes were bad and the 
 brown smudge of smoldering buffalo chips kept 
 them away. 
 
 Susan gave the guest the seat of honor her sad 
 dle spread with a blanket and herself sat on a pile 
 of skins. The tent had been pitched on a rise of 
 ground and already the water was draining off. 
 Through the looped entrance they could see the 
 regular lights of the fires, spotted on the twilight 
 like the lamps of huge, sedentary glow worms, and 
 the figures of men recumbent near where the slow 
 smoke spirals wound languidly up. Above the 
 sweet, moist odor of the rain, the tang of the burn 
 ing dung rose, pungent and biting. 
 
 Here as the evening deepened they comfortably 
 gossiped, their voices dropping lower as the camp 
 sunk to rest. They exchanged vows of the friend 
 ship that was to be renewed in California, and then, 
 drawing closer together, watching the fires die 
 down to sulky red sparks and the sentinel s figure 
 coming and going on its lonely beat, came to an ex 
 change of opinions on love and marriage. 
 
 Susan was supposed to know most, her proprie- 
 160 
 
The River 
 
 torship of David giving her words the value of ex 
 perience, but Lucy had most to say. Her tongue 
 loosened by the hour and a pair of listening ears, 
 she revealed herself as much preoccupied with all 
 matters of sentiment, and it was only natural that 
 a love story of her own should be confessed. It 
 was back in Cooperstown, and he had been an ap 
 prentice of Glen s. She hadn t cared for him at all, 
 judging by excerpts from the scenes of his court 
 ship he had been treated with unmitigated harsh 
 ness. But her words and tones still entirely scorn 
 ful with half a continent between her and the 
 adorer gave evidence of a regret, of self-accusing, 
 uneasy doubt, as of one who looks back on lost 
 opportunities. The listener s ear was caught by it, 
 indicating a state of mind so different from her 
 own. 
 
 "Then you did like him?" 
 
 " I didn t like him at all. I couldn t bear him. ? 
 
 " But you seem sorry you didn t marry him." 
 
 " Well No, I m not sorry. But " it was the 
 hour for truth, the still indifference of the night 
 made a lie seem too trivial for the effort of telling 
 " I don t know out here in the wilds whether I ll 
 ever get anyone else." 
 
 161 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 BY noon the next day the doctor s train had left 
 the New York Company far behind. Looking back 
 they could see it in gradual stages of diminishment 
 a white serpent with a bristling head of scattered 
 horsemen, then a white worm, its head a collection 
 of dark particles, then a white thread with a head 
 too insignificant to be deciphered. Finally it was 
 gone, absorbed into the detailless distance where 
 the river coiled through the green. 
 
 Twenty-four hours later they reached the Forks 
 of the Platte. Here the trail crossed the South 
 Fork, slanted over the plateau that lay between the 
 two branches, and gained the North Fork. Up this 
 it passed, looping round the creviced backs of 
 mighty bluffs, and bearing northwestward to Fort 
 Laramie. The easy faring of the grassed bottom 
 was over. The turn to the North Fork was the 
 turn to the mountains. The slow stream with its 
 fleet of islands would lose its dreamy deliberateness 
 and become a narrowed rushing current, sweeping 
 round the bases of sandstone walls as the pioneers 
 followed it up and on toward the whitened crests 
 of the Wind River Mountains, where the snows 
 never melted and the lakes lay in the hollows green 
 as jade. 
 
 It was afternoon when they reached the ford. 
 162 
 
The River 
 
 The hills had sunk away to low up-sweepings of 
 gray soil, no longer hiding the plain which lay yel 
 low against a cobalt sky. As the wagons rolled 
 up on creaking wheels the distance began to darken 
 with the buffalo. The prospect was like a bright- 
 colored map over which a black liquid has been 
 spilled, here in drops, there in creeping streams. 
 Long files flowed from the rifts between the 
 dwarfed bluffs, unbroken herds swept in a wave 
 over the low barrier, advanced to the river, crusted 
 its surface, passed across, and surged up the oppo 
 site bank. Finally all sides showed the moving 
 mass, blackening the plateau, lining the water s 
 edge in an endless undulation of backs and heads, 
 foaming down the faces of the sand slopes. Where 
 the train moved they divided giving it right of way, 
 streaming by, bulls, cows, and calves intent on their 
 own business, the earth tremulous under their tread. 
 Through breaks in their ranks the blue and purple 
 of the hills shone startlingly vivid and beyond the 
 prairie lay like a fawn-colored sea across which 
 dark shadows trailed. 
 
 The ford was nearly a mile wide, a shallow cur 
 rent, in some places only a glaze, but with shifting 
 sands stirring beneath it. Through the thin, glass- 
 like spread of water the backs of sand bars 
 emerged, smooth as the bodies of recumbent mon 
 sters. On the far side the plateau stretched, lilac 
 with the lupine flowers, the broken rear line of the 
 herd receding across it. 
 
 The doctor, feeling the way, was to ride in the 
 
 163 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 lead, his wagon following with Susan and Daddy 
 John on the driver s seat. It seemed an easy mat 
 ter, the water chuckling round the wheels, the 
 mules not wet above the knees. Half way across, 
 grown unduly confident, the doctor turned in his 
 saddle to address his daughter when his horse 
 walked into a quicksand and unseated him. It took 
 them half an hour to drag it out, Susan imploring 
 that her father come back to the wagon and change 
 his clothes. He only laughed at her which made 
 her angry. With frowning brows she saw him 
 mount again, and a dripping, white-haired figure, 
 set out debonairly for the opposite bank. 
 
 The sun was low, the night chill coming on when 
 they reached it. Their wet clothes were cold upon 
 them and the camp pitching was hurried. Susan 
 bending over her fire, blowing at it with expanded 
 cheeks and, between her puffs, scolding at her 
 father, first, for having got wet, then for having 
 stayed wet, and now for being still wet, was to 
 David just as charming as any of the other and 
 milder apotheoses of the Susan he had come to 
 know so well. It merely added a new tang, a 
 fresh spice of variety, to a personality a less rav 
 ished observer might have thought unattractively 
 masterful for a woman. 
 
 Her fire kindled, the camp in shape, she lay down 
 by the little blaze with her head under a lupine plant. 
 Her wrath had simmered to appeasement by the 
 retirement of the doctor into his wagon, and David, 
 glimpsing at her, saw that her eyes, a thread of 
 
 164 
 
The River 
 
 observation between black-fringed lids, dwelt mus 
 ingly on the sky. She looked as if she might be 
 dreaming a maiden s dream of love. He hazarded 
 a tentative remark. Her eyes moved, touched him 
 indifferently, and passed back to the sky, and an 
 unformed murmur, interrogation, acquiescence, 
 casual response, anything he pleased to think it, 
 escaped her lips. He watched her as he could when 
 she was not looking at him. A loosened strand of 
 her hair lay among the lupine roots, one of her 
 hands rested, brown and upcurled, on a tiny weed 
 its weight had broken. She turned her head with 
 a nestling movement, drew a deep, soft breath and 
 her eyelids drooped. 
 
 " David," she said in a drowsy voice, " I m go 
 ing to sleep. Wake me at supper time." 
 
 He became rigidly quiet. When she had sunk 
 deep into sleep, only her breast moving with the 
 ebb and flow of her quiet breath, he crept nearer 
 and drew a blanket over her, careful not to touch 
 her. He looked at the unconscious face for a mo 
 ment, then softly dropped the blanket and stole back 
 to his place ready to turn at the first foot fall and 
 lift a silencing hand. 
 
 It was one of the beautiful moments that had 
 come to him in his wooing. He sat in still reverie, 
 feeling the dear responsibilities of his ownership. 
 That she might sleep, sweet and soft, he would 
 work as no man ever worked before. To guard, 
 to comfort, to protect her that would be his life. 
 He turned and looked at her, his sensitive face 
 
 165 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 softening like a woman s watching the sleep of her 
 child. Susan, all unconscious, with her rich young 
 body showing in faint curves under the defining 
 blanket, and her hair lying loose among the roots 
 of the lupine bush, was so devoid of that imperi 
 ous quality that marked her when awake, was so 
 completely a tender feminine thing, with peaceful 
 eyelids and innocent lips, that it seemed a desecra 
 tion to look upon her in such a moment of aban 
 donment. Love might transform her into this in 
 her waking hours when her body and heart had 
 yielded themselves to their master. 
 
 David turned away. The sacred thought that 
 some day he would be the owner of this complex 
 creation of flesh and spirit, so rich, so fine, with 
 depths unknown to his groping intelligence, made 
 a rush of supplication, a prayer to be worthy, rise 
 in his heart. He looked at the sunset through half- 
 shut eyes, sending his desire up to that unknown 
 God, who, in these wild solitudes, seemed leaning 
 down to listen : 
 
 "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither 
 slumber nor sleep." 
 
 The sun, falling to the horizon like a spinning 
 copper disk, was as a sign of promise and help. 
 The beauty of the hour stretched into the future. 
 His glance, shifting to the distance, saw the scat 
 tered dots of the disappearing buffalo, the shadows 
 sloping across the sand hills, and the long ex 
 panse of lupines blotting into a thick foam of lilac 
 blue. 
 
 166 
 
The River 
 
 Susan stirred, and he woke from his musings 
 with a start. She sat up, the blanket falling from 
 her shoulders, and looking at him with sleep-filled 
 eyes, smiled the sweet, meaningless smile of a half- 
 awakened child. Her consciousness had not yet 
 fully returned, and her glance, curiously clear and 
 liquid, rested on his without intelligence. The 
 woman in her was never more apparent, her seduc 
 tion never more potent. Her will dormant, her 
 bounding energies at low ebb, she looked a thing to 
 nestle, soft and yielding, against a man s heart. 
 
 "Have I slept long?" she said stretching, and 
 then, " Isn t it cold." 
 
 " Come near the fire," he answered. " I ve built 
 it up while you were asleep." 
 
 She came, trailing the blanket in a languid hand, 
 and sat beside him. He drew it up about her shoul 
 ders and looked into her face. Meeting his eyes 
 she broke into low laughter, and leaning nearer to 
 him murmured in words only half articulated : 
 
 " Oh, David, I m so sleepy." 
 
 He took her hand, and it stayed unresisting 
 against his palm. She laughed again, and then 
 yawned, lifting her shoulders with a supple move 
 ment that shook off the blanket. 
 
 " It takes such a long time to wake up," she mur 
 mured apologetically. 
 
 David made no answer, and for a space they sat 
 silent looking at the sunset. As the mists of sleep 
 dispersed she became aware of his hand pressure, 
 and the contentment that marked her awakening 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 was marred. But she felt in a kindly mood and 
 did not withdraw her hand. Instead, she wanted to 
 please him, to be as she thought he would like her 
 to be, so she made a gallant effort and said : 
 
 " What a wonderful sunset all yellow to the 
 middle of the sky." 
 
 He nodded, looking at the flaming west. She 
 went on : 
 
 " And there are little bits of gold cloud floating 
 over it, like the melted lead that you pour through 
 a key on all Hallowe en." 
 
 He again made no answer, and leaning nearer 
 to spy into his face, she asked naively : 
 
 "Don t you think it beautiful?" 
 
 He turned upon her sharply, and she drew back 
 discomposed by his look. 
 
 " Let me kiss you," he said, his voice a little 
 husky. 
 
 He was her betrothed and had never kissed her 
 but once in the moonlight. It was his right, and 
 after all, conquering the inevitable repugnance, it 
 did not take long. Caught thus in a yielding 
 mood she resolved to submit. She had a comfort 
 ing sense that it was a rite to which in time one 
 became accustomed. With a determination to per 
 form her part graciously she lowered her eyelids 
 and presented a dusky cheek. As his shoulder 
 touched hers she felt that he trembled and was in 
 stantly seized with the antipathy that his emotion 
 woke in her. But it was too late to withdraw. His 
 arms closed round her and he crushed her against 
 
 168 
 
The River 
 
 his chest. When she felt their strength and the 
 beating of his heart against the unstirred calm of 
 her own, her good resolutions were swept away in 
 a surge of abhorrence. She struggled for freedom, 
 repelling him with violent, pushing hands, and ex 
 claiming breathlessly : 
 
 " Don t, David! Stop! I won t have it! Don t! " 
 
 He instantly released her, and she shrunk away, 
 brushing off the bosom of her blouse as if he had 
 left dust there. Her face was flushed and frowning. 
 
 " Don t. You mustn t," she repeated, with 
 heated reproof. " I don t want you to." 
 
 David smiled a sheepish smile, looking foolish, 
 and not knowing what to say. At the sight of his 
 crestfallen expression she averted her eyes, sorry 
 that she had hurt him but not sufficiently sorry to 
 risk a repetition of the unpleasant experience. He, 
 too, turned his glance from her, biting his lip to 
 hide the insincerity of his smile, irritated at her 
 unmanageableness, and in his heart valuing her 
 more highly that she was so hard to win. Both 
 were exceedingly conscious, and with deepened 
 color sat gazing in opposite directions like children 
 who have had a quarrel. 
 
 A step behind them broke upon their embarrass 
 ment, saving them from the necessity of speech. 
 Daddy John s voice came with it : 
 
 " Missy, do you know if the keg of whisky was 
 moved? It ain t where I put it." 
 
 She turned with a lightning quickness. 
 
 "Whisky! Who wants whisky?" 
 169 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Daddy John looked uncomfortable. 
 
 " Well, the doctor s took sort of cold, got a 
 shiver on him like the ague, and he thought a nip 
 o whisky d warm him up." 
 
 She jumped to her feet. 
 
 " There ! " flinging out the word with the rage 
 of a disregarded prophet, " a chill ! I knew it ! " 
 
 In a moment all the self-engrossment of her 
 bashfulness was gone. Her mind had turned on 
 another subject with such speed and complete 
 ness that David s kiss and her anger might have 
 taken place in another world in a previous age. 
 Her faculties leaped to the sudden call like a liber 
 ated spring, and her orders burst on Daddy John: 
 
 " In the back of the wagon, under the corn meal. 
 It was moved when we crossed the Big Blue. Take 
 out the extra blankets and the medicine chest. 
 That s in the front corner, near my clothes, under 
 the seat. A chill out here in the wilderness ! " 
 
 David turned to soothe her: 
 
 " Don t be worried. A chill s natural enough 
 after such a wetting." 
 
 She shot a quick, hard glance at him, and he felt 
 ignominiously repulsed. In its preoccupation her 
 face had no recognition of him, not only as a lover 
 but as a human being. Her eyes, under low-drawn 
 brows, stared for a second into his with the unsee 
 ing intentness of inward thought. Her struggles 
 to avoid his kiss were not half so chilling. Further 
 solacing words died on his lips. 
 
 " It s the worst possible thing that could happen 
 170 
 
The River 
 
 to him. Everybody knows that " then she looked 
 after Daddy John. " Get the whisky at once/ she 
 called. " I ll find the medicines." 
 
 " Can t I help ? " the young man implored. 
 
 Without answering she started for the wagon, 
 and midway between it and the fire paused to cry 
 back over her shoulder : 
 
 " Heat water, or if you can find stones heat them. 
 We must get him warm." 
 
 And she ran on. 
 
 David looked about for the stones. The " we " 
 consoled him a little, but he felt as if he were ex 
 cluded into outer darkness, and at a moment when 
 she should have turned to him for the aid he 
 yearned to give. He could not get over the sudden 
 ness of it, and watched them forlornly, gazing envi 
 ously at their conferences over the medicine chest, 
 once straightening himself from his search for 
 stones to call longingly: 
 
 " Can t I do something for you over there ? " 
 
 " Have you the stones ? " she answered without 
 raising her head, and he went back to his task. 
 
 In distress she had turned from the outside 
 world, broken every lien of interest with it, and 
 gone back to her own. The little circle in which 
 her life had always moved snapped tight upon her, 
 leaving the lover outside, as completely shut out 
 from her and her concerns as if he had been a 
 stranger camped by her fire. 
 
 171 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE doctor was ill. The next day he lay in the 
 wagon, his chest oppressed, fever burning him to 
 the dryness of an autumn leaf. To the heads that 
 looked upon him through the circular opening with 
 a succession of queries as to his ailment, he in 
 variably answered that it was nothing, a bronchial 
 cold, sent to him as a punishment for disobeying his 
 daughter. But the young men remembered that 
 the journey had been undertaken for his health, and 
 Daddy John, in the confidential hour of the 
 evening smoke, told them that the year before an 
 attack of congestion of the lungs had been almost 
 fatal. 
 
 Even if they had not known this, Susan s de 
 meanor would have told them it was a serious mat 
 ter. She was evidently wracked by anxiety which 
 transformed her into a being so distant, and at 
 times so cross, that only Daddy John had the temer 
 ity to maintain his usual attitude toward her. She 
 would hardly speak to Leff, and to David, the 
 slighting coldness that she had shown in the begin 
 ning continued, holding him at arm s length, freez 
 ing him into stammering confusion. When he 
 tried to offer her help or cheer her she made him 
 feel like a foolish and tactless intruder, forcing his 
 
 172 
 
The River 
 
 way into the place that was hers alone. He did 
 not know whether she was prompted by a cruel per 
 versity, or held in an absorption so intense she had 
 no warmth of interest left for anybody. He tried 
 to explain her conduct, but he could only feel its 
 effect, wonder if she had grown to dislike him, re 
 view the last week in a search for a cause. In the 
 daytime he hung about the doctor s wagon, miser 
 ably anxious for a word from her. He was grate 
 ful if she asked him to hunt for medicine in the 
 small, wooden chest, or to spread the blankets to 
 air on the tops of the lupine bushes. 
 
 And while she thus relegated him to the outer 
 places where strangers hovered, a sweetness, so 
 gentle, so caressing, so all pervading that it made 
 of her a new and lovely creature, marked her man 
 ner to the sick man. There had always been love 
 in her bearing to her father, but this new tender 
 ness was as though some hidden well of it, sunk 
 deep in the recesses of her being, had suddenly over 
 flowed. David saw the hardness of the face she 
 turned toward him transmute into a brooding pas 
 sion of affection as she bent over the doctor s bed. 
 The fingers he did not dare to touch lifted the sick 
 man s hand to her cheek and held it there while she 
 smiled down at him, her eyes softening with a light 
 that stirred the lover s soul. The mystery of this 
 feminine complexity awed him. Would she ever 
 look at him like that? What could he do to make 
 her? He knew of no other way than by serving 
 her, trying unobtrusively to lighten her burden, 
 
 173 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 effacing himself, as that seemed to be what she 
 wanted. And in the night as he lay near the wagon, 
 ready to start at her call, he thought with exalted 
 hope that some day he might win such a look for 
 himself. 
 
 The doctor was for going on. There was no 
 necessity to stay in camp because one man happened 
 to wheeze and cough, he said, and anyway, he could 
 do that just as well when they were moving. So 
 they started out and crossed the plateau to where 
 the road dropped into the cleft of Ash Hollow. 
 Here they stopped and held a conference. The 
 doctor was worse. The interior of the wagon, the 
 sun beating on the canvas roof, was like a furnace, 
 where he lay sweltering, tossed this way and that 
 by the jolting wheels. Their dust moved with 
 them, breezes lifting it and carrying it careening 
 back to them where it mingled with new dust, 
 hanging dense like a segment of fog in the scene s 
 raw brilliancy. 
 
 Ash Hollow looked a darkling descent, the thin 
 pulsations of the little leaves of ash trees flickering 
 along its sides. The road bent downward in sharp 
 zigzags, and somewhere below the North Fork ran. 
 The plain was free, blue clothed and blue vaulted, 
 with " the wonderful winds of God " flowing be 
 tween. The conference resulted in a unanimous de 
 cision to halt where they were, and stay in camp till 
 the doctor improved, moving him from the wagon 
 to a tent. 
 
 For four days he lay parched with fever, each 
 
The River 
 
 breath drawn with a stifled inner rustling, numer 
 ous fine wrinkles traced in a network on his dried 
 cheeks. Then good care, the open air, and the 
 medicine chest prevailed. He improved, and Susan 
 turned her face again to the world and smiled. 
 Such was the changefulness of her mood that her 
 smiles were as radiant and generously bestowed as 
 her previous demeanor had been repelling. Even 
 Leff got some of them, and they fell on David 
 prodigal and warming as the sunshine. Words to 
 match went with them. On the morning of the 
 day when the doctor s temperature fell and he could 
 breathe with ease, she said to her betrothed : 
 
 " Oh, David, you ve been so good, you ve made 
 me so fond of you." 
 
 It was the nearest she had yet come to the lan 
 guage of lovers. It made him dizzy ; the wonderful 
 look was in his mind. 
 
 " You wouldn t let me be good/ was all he could 
 stammer. " You didn t seem as if you wanted me 
 at all." 
 
 " Stupid ! " she retorted with a glance of beam 
 ing reproach, " I m always like that when my 
 father s sick." 
 
 It was noon of the fifth day that a white spot 
 on the plain told them the New York Company was 
 in sight. The afternoon was yet young when the 
 dust of the moving column tarnished the blue- 
 streaked distance. Then the first wagons came into 
 view, creeping along the winding ribbon of road. 
 As soon as the advance guard of horsemen saw the 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 camp, pieces of it broke away and were deflected 
 toward the little group of tents from which a tiny 
 spiral of smoke went up in an uncoiling, milky 
 skein. Susan had many questions to answer, and 
 had some ado to keep the inquirers away from the 
 doctor, who was still too weak to be disturbed. 
 She was sharp and not very friendly in her efforts 
 to preserve him from their sympathizing curiosity. 
 
 Part of the train had gone by when she heard 
 from a woman who rode up on a foot-sore nag that 
 the McMurdo s were some distance behind. A bull 
 boat in which the children were crossing the river 
 had upset, and Mrs. McMurdo had been frightened 
 and " took faint." The children were all right 
 only a wetting but it was a bad time for their 
 mother to get such a scare. 
 
 " I m not with the women who think it s all right 
 to take such risks. Stay at home then," she said, 
 giving Susan a sage nod out of the depths of her 
 sunbonnet. 
 
 The news made the young girl uneasy. A new 
 reticence, the " grown-up " sense of the wisdom of 
 silence that she had learned on the trail, made her 
 keep her own council. Also, there was no one to 
 tell but her father, and he was the last person who 
 ought to know. The call of unaided suffering 
 would have brought him as quickly from his buf 
 falo skins in the tent as from his bed in the old 
 home in Rochester. Susan resolved to keep it from 
 him, if she had to stand guard over him and fight 
 them off. Her philosophy was primitive her own 
 
The River 
 
 first, and if, to save her own, others must be sacri 
 ficed, then she would aid in the sacrifice and weep 
 over its victims, weep, but not yield. 
 
 When the train had disappeared into the shad 
 ows of Ash Hollow, curses, shouts, and the crack 
 ing of whips rising stormily over its descent, the 
 white dot of the McMurdo s wagon was moving 
 over the blue and green distance. As it drew near 
 they could see that Glen walked beside the oxen, 
 and the small figure of Bob ran by the wheel. Nei 
 ther of the women were to be seen. " Lazy and 
 riding," Daddy John commented, spying at them 
 with his far-sighted old eyes. " Tired out and gone 
 to sleep," David suggested. Susan s heart sank 
 and she said nothing. It looked as if something 
 was the matter, and she nerved herself for a 
 struggle. 
 
 When Glen saw them, his shout came through 
 the clear air, keen-edged as a bird s cry. They an 
 swered, and he raised a hand in a gesture that 
 might have been a beckoning or merely a hail. 
 David leaped on a horse and went galloping through 
 the bending heads of the lupines to meet them. 
 Susan watched him draw up at Glen s side, lean 
 from his saddle for a moment s parley, then turn 
 back. The gravity of his face increased her dread. 
 He dismounted, looking with scared eyes from one 
 to the other. Mrs. McMurdo was sick. Glen was 
 glad he couldn t say how glad that it was their 
 camp. He d camp there with them. His wife 
 wasn t able to go on. 
 
 177, 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Susan edged up to him, caught his eye and said 
 stealthily : 
 
 " Don t tell my father." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " They they seemed to want him." 
 
 " I ll see to that," she answered. " Don t you 
 let him know that anything s the matter, or I ll 
 never forgive you." 
 
 It was a command, and the glance that went with 
 it accented its authority. 
 
 The prairie schooner was now close at hand, and 
 they straggled forward to meet it, one behind the 
 other, through the brushing of the knee-high bushes. 
 The child recognizing them ran screaming toward 
 them, his hands out-stretched, crying out their 
 names. Lucy appeared at the front of the wagon, 
 climbed on the tongue and jumped down. She 
 was pale, the freckles on her fair skin showing 
 like a spattering of brown paint, her flaming hair 
 slipped in a tousled coil to one side of her 
 head. 
 
 "It s you!" she cried. "Glen didn t know 
 whose camp it was till he saw David. Oh, I m so 
 glad ! " and she ran to Susan, clutched her arm 
 and said in a hurried lower key, " Bella s sick. She 
 feels terribly bad, out here in this place with noth 
 ing. Isn t it dreadful ? " 
 
 " I ll speak to her," said Susan. " You stay 
 here." 
 
 The oxen, now at the outskirts of the camp, had 
 come to a standstill. Susan stepping on the wheel 
 
The River 
 
 drew herself up to the driver s seat. Bella sat 
 within on a pile of sacks, her elbows on her knees, 
 her forehead in her hands. By her side, leaning 
 against her, stood the little girl, blooming and 
 thoughtful, her thumb in her mouth. She with 
 drew it and stared fixedly at Susan, then smiled a 
 slow, shy smile, full of meaning, as if her mind 
 held a mischievous secret. At Susan s greeting the 
 mother lifted her head. 
 
 " Oh, Susan, isn t it a mercy we ve found you ? " 
 she exclaimed. " We saw the camp hours ago, but 
 we didn t know it was yours. It s as if God had 
 delayed you. Yes, my dear, it s come. But I m 
 not going to be afraid. With your father it ll be 
 all right." 
 
 The young girl said a few consolatory words and 
 jumped down from the wheel. She was torn both 
 ways. Bella s plight was piteous, but to make her 
 father rise in his present state of health and attend 
 such a case, hours long, in the chill, night breath 
 of the open it might kill him ! She turned toward 
 the camp, vaguely conscious of the men standing 
 in awkward attitudes and looking thoroughly un 
 comfortable as though they felt a vicarious sense 
 of guilt that the entire male sex had something 
 to answer for in Bella s tragic predicament. Be 
 hind them stood the doctor s tent, and as her 
 eyes fell on it she saw Lucy s body standing in 
 the opening, the head and shoulders hidden with 
 in the inclosure. Lucy was speaking with the 
 doctor. 
 
 179 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Susan gave a sharp exclamation and stopped. It 
 was too late to interfere. Lucy withdrew her head 
 and came running back, crying triumphantly : 
 
 " Your father s coming. He says he s not sick at 
 all. He s putting on his coat." 
 
 Following close on her words came the doctor, 
 emerging slowly, for he was weak and unsteady. 
 In the garish light of the afternoon he looked sin 
 gularly white and bleached, like a man whose 
 warm, red-veined life is dried into a sere grayness 
 of blood and tissue. He was out of harmony with 
 the glad living colors around him, ghostlike amid 
 the brightness of the flowering earth and the deep- 
 dyed heaven. He met his daughter s eyes and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Your prisoner has escaped you, Missy." 
 
 She tried to control herself, to beat down the 
 surge of anger that shook her. Meeting him she 
 implored with low-toned urgence : 
 
 " Father, you can t do it. Go back. You re too 
 sick." 
 
 He pushed her gently away, his smile gone. 
 
 " Go back, Missy ? The woman is suffering, 
 dear." 
 
 " I know it, and I don t care. You re suffering, 
 you re sick. She should have known better than to 
 come. It s her fault, not ours. Because she was so 
 foolhardy is no reason why you should be victim 
 ized." 
 
 His gravity was crossed by a look of cold, dis 
 pleased surprise, a look she had not seen directed 
 
 1 80 
 
The River 
 
 upon her since once in her childhood when she had 
 told him a lie. 
 
 " I don t want to feel ashamed of you, Missy/ 
 he said quietly, and putting her aside went on to 
 the wagon. 
 
 She turned away blinded with rage and tears. 
 She had a dim vision of David and fled from it, 
 then felt relief at the sight of Daddy John. He 
 saw her plight, and hooking his hand in her arm 
 took her behind the tent, where she burst into furi 
 ous words and a gush of stifled weeping. 
 
 " No good," was the old man s consolation. 
 " Do you expect the doctor to lie comfortable in his 
 blanket when there s some one around with a 
 pain?" 
 
 "Why did she come? Why didn t she stay at 
 home?" 
 
 That ain t in the question," he said, patting her 
 arm ; " she s here, and she s got the pain, and you 
 and I know the doctor." 
 
 The McMurdo s prairie schooner rolled off to a 
 place where the lupines were high, and Glen pitched 
 the tent. The men, not knowing what else to do 
 to show their sympathy, laid the fires and cleaned 
 the camp. Then the two younger ones shouldered 
 their rifles and wandered away to try and get some 
 fresh buffalo meat, they said; but it was obvious 
 that they felt out of place and alarmed in a situa 
 tion where those of their sex could only assume an 
 apologetic attitude and admit the blame. 
 
 The children were left to Susan s care. She 
 181 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 drew them to the cleared space about the fires, and 
 as she began the preparations for supper asked 
 them to help. They took the request very seriously, 
 and she found a solace in watching them as they 
 trotted up with useless pans, bending down to see 
 the smile of thanks to which they were accustomed, 
 and which made them feel proud and important. 
 Once she heard Bob, in the masterful voice of the 
 male, tell his sister the spoon she was so trium 
 phantly bringing was not wanted. The baby s joy 
 was stricken from her, she bowed to the higher in 
 telligence, and the spoon slid from her limp hand 
 to the ground, while she stood a figure of blank 
 disappointment. Susan had to set down her pan 
 and call her over, and kneeling with the soft body 
 clasped close, and the little knees pressing against 
 her breast, felt some of the anger there melting 
 away. After that they gathered broken twigs of 
 lupine, and standing afar threw them at the flames. 
 There was a moment of suspense when they 
 watched hopefully, and then a sad awakening when 
 the twigs fell about their feet. They shuffled back, 
 staring down at the scattered leaves in a stupor of 
 surprise. 
 
 Sunset came and supper was ready. Daddy John 
 loomed up above the lip of Ash Hollow with a load 
 of roots and branches for the night. Lucy emerged 
 from the tent and sat down by her cup and plate, 
 harrassed and silent. Glen said he wanted no sup 
 per. He had been sitting for an hour on the pole of 
 David s wagon, mute and round-shouldered in his 
 
 182 
 
The River 
 
 dusty homespuns. No one had offered to speak to 
 him. It was he who had induced the patient woman 
 to follow him on the long journey. They all knew 
 this was now the matter of his thoughts. His rag 
 ged figure and down-drooped, miserable face were 
 dignified with the tragedy of a useless remorse. As 
 Lucy passed him he raised his eyes, but said noth 
 ing. Then, as the others drew together round the 
 circle of tin cups and plates, a groan came suddenly 
 from the tent. He leaped up, made a gesture of 
 repelling something unendurable, and ran away, 
 scudding across the plain not looking back. The 
 group round the fire were silent. But the two chil 
 dren did not heed. With their blond heads touch 
 ing, they held their cups close together and argued 
 as to which one had the most coffee in it. 
 
 When the twilight came there was no one left by 
 the fire but Susan and the children. She gathered 
 them on a buffalo robe and tucked a blanket round 
 them watching as sleep flowed over them, invaded 
 and subdued them even while their lips moved with 
 belated, broken murmurings. The little girl s 
 hand, waving dreamily in the air, brushed her 
 cheek with a velvet touch, and sank languidly, up- 
 curled like a rose petal. With heads together and 
 bodies nestled close they slept, exhaling the fra 
 grance of healthy childhood, two sparks of matter 
 incased in an envelope of exquisite flesh, pearly tis 
 sue upon which life would trace a pattern not yet 
 selected. 
 
 Darkness closed down on the camp, pressing on 
 
 183 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 the edges of the firelight like a curious intruder. 
 There was no wind, and the mound of charring 
 wood sent up a line of smoke straight as a thread, 
 which somewhere aloft widened and dissolved. 
 The stillness of the wilderness brooded close and 
 deep, stifling the noises of the day. When the 
 sounds of suffering from the tent tore the airy veil 
 apart, it shuddered full of the pain, then the torn 
 edges delicately adhered, and it was whole again. 
 Once Lucy came, haggard and tight-lipped, and 
 asked Susan to put on water to heat. Bella was 
 terribly sick, the doctor wouldn t leave her. The 
 other children were nothing to this. But the Emi 
 grant Trail was molding Lucy. She made no com 
 plaints, and her nerves were steady as a taut string. 
 It was one of the hazards of the great adventure 
 to be taken as it came. 
 
 After she had gone, and the iron kettle was bal 
 anced on a bed of heat, Susan lay down on her 
 blanket. Fear and loathing were on her. For the 
 first time a shrinking from life and its require 
 ments came coldly over her, for the first time her 
 glad expectancy knew a check, fell back before tre 
 mendous things blocking the path. Her dread for 
 her father was submerged in a larger dread of 
 the future and what it might bring, of what might 
 be expected of her, of pains and perils once so far 
 away they seemed as if she would never reach them, 
 now suddenly close to her, laying a gripping hand 
 on her heart. 
 
 Her face was toward the camp, and she could 
 184 
 
The River 
 
 not see on the plain behind her a moving shadow 
 bearing down on the fire s glow, visible for miles 
 in that level country. It advanced noiselessly 
 through the swaying bushes, till, entering the lim 
 its of the light, it detached itself from the darkness, 
 taking the form of a mounted man followed by a 
 pack animal. The projected rays of red played 
 along the barrel of a rifle held across the saddle, 
 and struck answering gleams from touches of metal 
 on the bridle. So soundless was the approach that 
 Susan heard nothing till a lupine stalk snapped un 
 der the horse s hoof. She sat up and turned. Over 
 the horse s ears she saw a long swarthy face 
 framed in hanging hair, and the glint of narrowed 
 eyes looking curiously at her. She leaped to her 
 feet with a smothered cry, Indians in her mind. 
 The man raised a quick hand, and said : 
 
 " It s all right. It s a white man." 
 
 He slid off his horse and came toward her. He 
 was so like an Indian, clad in a fringed hunting 
 shirt and leggings, his movements lithe and light, 
 his step noiseless, his skin copper dark, that she 
 stood alert, ready to raise a warning cry. Then 
 coming into the brighter light she saw he was 
 white, with long red hair hanging from the edge 
 of his cap, and light-colored eyes that searched her 
 face with a hard look. He was as wild a figure as 
 any the plains had yet given up, and she drew away 
 looking fearfully at him. 
 
 " Don t be afraid," he said in a deep voice. " I m 
 the same kind as you." 
 
 185 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Who are you? " she faltered. 
 
 " A mountain man. I ll camp with you." Then 
 glancing about, " Where are the rest of them? " 
 
 " They re round somewhere," she answered. 
 " We have sickness here." 
 
 "Cholera?" quickly. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 Without more words he went back and picketed 
 his horses, and took the pack and saddle off. She 
 could see his long, pale-colored figure moving from 
 darkness into light, and the animals drooping with 
 stretched necks as their bonds were loosened. 
 When he came back to the fire he dropped a blan 
 ket and laid his gun close to it, then threw himself 
 down. The rattle of the powder horn and bullet 
 mold he wore hanging from his shoulder came with 
 the movement. He slipped the strap off and threw 
 it beside the gun. Then drew one foot up and un 
 fastened a large spur attached to his moccasined 
 heel. He wore a ragged otter-skin cap, the ani 
 mal s tail hanging down on one side. This he took 
 off too, showing his thick red hair, damp and mat 
 ted from the. heat of the fur. With a knotted hand 
 he pushed back the locks pressed down on his fore 
 head. The skin there was untanned and lay like a 
 white band above the darkness of his face, thin, 
 edged with a fringe of red beard and with blue 
 eyes set high above prominent cheek bones. He 
 threw his spur on the other things, and looking up 
 met Susan s eyes staring at him across the fire. 
 
 " Where are you going? " he asked. 
 186 
 
The River 
 
 "To California." 
 
 " So am I." 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 " Were you asleep when I came ? " 
 
 " No, I was thinking." 
 
 A sound of anguish came from the tent, and 
 Susan set her teeth on her underlip stiffening. He 
 looked in its direction, then back at her. 
 
 "What s the matter there?" he asked. 
 
 " A child is being born." 
 
 He made no comment, swept the background of 
 tents and wagon roofs with an investigating eye 
 that finally came to a stop on the sleeping children. 
 
 " Are these yours? " 
 
 " No, they belong to the woman who is sick." 
 
 His glance left them as if uninterested, and he 
 leaned backward to pull his blanket out more fully. 
 His body, in the sleekly pliant buckskins, was lean 
 and supple. As he twisted, stretching an arm to 
 draw out the crumpled folds, the lines of his long 
 back and powerful shoulders showed the sinuous 
 grace of a cat. He relaxed into easeful full length, 
 propped on an elbow, his red hair coiling against 
 his neck. Susan stole a stealthy glance at him. As 
 if she had spoken, he instantly raised his head and 
 looked into her eyes. 
 
 His were clear and light with a singularly pene 
 trating gaze, not bold but intent, eyes not used to 
 the detailed observation of the peopled ways, but 
 trained to unimpeded distances and to search the 
 faces of primitive men. They held hers, seeming 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 to pierce the acquired veneer of reserve to the 
 guarded places beneath. She felt a slow stir of an 
 tagonism, a defensive gathering of her spirit as 
 against an intruder. Her pride and self-sufficiency 
 responded, answering to a hurried summons. She 
 was conscious of a withdrawal, a closing of doors, 
 a shutting down of her defenses in face of aggres 
 sion and menace. And while she rallied to this 
 sudden call-to-arms the strange man held her glance 
 across the fire. It was she who spoke slowly in a 
 low voice : 
 
 " Where do you come from? " 
 
 " From Taos, and after that Bent s Fort." 
 
 :t What is your name ? " 
 
 " Low Courant." 
 
 Then with an effort she turned away and bent 
 over the children. When she looked back at him he 
 was rolled in his blanket, and with his face to the 
 fire was asleep. 
 
 Lucy came presently for the hot water with a 
 bulletin of progress growing each moment more 
 direful. Her eyes fell on the sleeping man, and she 
 said, peering through the steam of the bubbling 
 water : 
 
 "Who s that?" 
 
 " A strange man." 
 
 "From where?" 
 
 Taos, and after that Bent s Fort," Susan re 
 peated, and Lucy forgot him and ran back to the 
 tent. 
 
 There was a gray line in the east when she re- 
 188 
 
The River 
 
 turned to say the child was born dying as it entered 
 the world, and Bella was in desperate case. She 
 fell beside her friend, quivering and sobbing, bury 
 ing her face in Susan s bosom. Shaken and sick 
 ened by the dreadful night they clung together 
 holding to each other, as if in a world where love 
 claimed such a heavy due, where joy realized itself 
 at such exceeding cost, nothing was left but the 
 bond of a common martyrdom. Yet each of them, 
 knowing the measure of her pain, would move to 
 the head of her destiny and take up her heavy en 
 gagement without fear, obeying the universal law. 
 But now, caught in the terror of the moment, 
 they bowed their heads and wept together while the 
 strange man slept by the fire. 
 
PART III 
 The Mountains 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 FORT LARAMIE stood where the eastern roots of 
 the mountains start in toothed reef and low, pre 
 monitory sweep from the level of the plains. 
 Broken chains and spurs edged up toward it. Far 
 beyond, in a faint aerial distance, the soaring solid 
 ity of vast ranges hung on the horizon, cloudy 
 crests painted on the sky. Laramie Peak loomed 
 closer, a bold, bare point, gold in the morning, pur 
 ple at twilight And the Black Hills, rock-ribbed 
 and somber, dwarf pines clutching their lodges, 
 rose in frowning ramparts to the North and West. 
 
 It was a naked country, bleak and bitter. In 
 winter it slept under a snow blanket, the lights of 
 the fort encircled by the binding, breathless cold. 
 Then the wandering men that trapped and traded 
 with the Indians came seeking shelter behind the 
 white walls, where the furs were stacked in store 
 rooms, and the bourgeois table was hospitable 
 with jerked meat and meal cakes. When the 
 streams began to stir under the ice, and a thin 
 green showed along the bottoms, it opened its gates 
 and the men of the mountains went forth with their 
 traps rattling at the saddle horn. Later, when the 
 spring was in waking bloom, and each evening the 
 light stayed longer on Laramie Peak, the Indians 
 
 193 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 came in migrating villages moving to the summer 
 hunting grounds, and in painted war parties, for 
 there was a season when the red man, like the He 
 brew kings, went forth to battle. 
 
 It was midsummer now, the chalk-white walls 
 of the fort were bathed in a scorching sunshine, 
 and the nomads of the wilderness met and picked 
 up dropped threads in its courtyard. It stood up 
 warlike on a rise of ground with the brown swift 
 ness of a stream hurrying below it. Once the fac 
 tors had tried to cultivate the land, but had given 
 it up, as the Indians carried off the maize and corn 
 as it ripened. So the short-haired grass grew to 
 the stockade. At this season the surrounding plain 
 was thick with grazing animals, the fort s own sup 
 ply, the ponies of the Indians, and the cattle of the 
 emigrants. Encampments were on every side, clus 
 tering close under the walls, whence a cannon poked 
 its nose protectingly from the bastion above the 
 gate. There was no need to make the ring of 
 wagons here. White man and red camped to 
 gether, the canvas peaks of the tents showing be 
 side the frames of lodge poles, covered with dried 
 skins. The pale face treated his red brother to cof 
 fee and rice cakes, and the red brother offered in 
 return a feast of boiled dog. 
 
 Just now the fort was a scene of ceaseless anima 
 tion. Its courtyard was a kaleidoscopic whirl of 
 color, shifting as the sun shifted and the shadow 
 of the walls offered shade. Indians with bodies 
 bare above the dropped blankets, moved stately or 
 
 194 
 
The Mountains 
 
 squatted on their heels watching the emigrants as 
 they bartered for supplies. Trappers in fringed 
 and beaded leather played cards with the plainsmen 
 in shady corners or lounged in the cool arch of the 
 gateway looking aslant at the emigrant girls. 
 Their squaws, patches of color against the walls, 
 sat docile, with the swarthy, half-breed children 
 playing about their feet. There were French Cana 
 dians, bearded like pirates, full of good humor, fill 
 ing the air with their patois, and a few Mexicans, 
 who passed the days sprawled on scrapes and smok 
 ing sleepily. Over all the bourgeois ruled, kindly 
 or crabbedly, according to his make, but always 
 absolutely the monarch of a little principality. 
 
 The doctor s train had reached the fort by slow 
 stages, and now lay camped outside the walls. 
 Bella s condition had been serious, and they had 
 crawled up the valley of the North Platte at a 
 snail s pace. The gradual change in the country 
 told them of their advance the intrusion of giant 
 bluffs along the river s edge, the disappearance of 
 the many lovely flower forms, the first glimpses of 
 parched areas dotted with sage. From the top of 
 Scotts Bluffs they saw the mountains, and stood, a 
 way-worn company, looking at those faint and for 
 midable shapes that blocked their path to the Prom 
 ised Land. It was a sight to daunt the most high 
 hearted, and they stared, dropping ejaculations that 
 told of the first decline of spirit. Only the sick 
 woman said nothing. Her languid eye swept the 
 prospect indifferently, her spark of life burning too 
 
 195 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 feebly to permit of any useless expenditure. It was 
 the strange man who encouraged them. They 
 would pass the mountains without effort, the ascent 
 was gradual, South Pass a plain. 
 
 The strange man had stayed with them, and all 
 being well, would go on to Fort Bridger, probably 
 to California, in their company. It was good news. 
 He was what they needed, versed in the lore of the 
 wilderness, conversant with an environment of 
 which they were ignorant. The train had not 
 passed Ash Hollow when he fell into command, 
 chose the camping grounds, went ahead in search 
 of springs, and hunted with Daddy John, bringing 
 back enough game to keep them supplied with 
 fresh meat. They began to rely upon him, to 
 defer to him, to feel a new security when they 
 saw his light, lean-flanked figure at the head of the 
 caravan. 
 
 One morning, as the doctor rode silently beside 
 him, he broke into a low-toned singing. His voice 
 was a mellow baritone, and the words he sung, each 
 verse ending with a plaintive burden, were French : 
 
 " II y a longtemps que je t ai aime jamais je ne 
 t oublierai." 
 
 Long ago the doctor had heard his wife sing the 
 same words, and he turned with a start : 
 
 " Where did you learn that song ? " 
 
 " From some voyageur over yonder," nodding 
 toward the mountains. " It s one of their songs." 
 You have an excellent accent, better than the 
 Canadians." 
 
The Mountains 
 
 The stranger laughed and addressed his com 
 panion in pure and fluent French. 
 
 " Then you re a Frenchman ? " said the elder 
 man, surprised. 
 
 " Not I, but my people were. They came from 
 New Orleans and went up the river and settled in 
 St. Louis. My grandfather couldn t speak a sen 
 tence in English when he first went there." 
 
 When the doctor told his daughter this he w r as 
 a little triumphant. They had talked over Courant 
 and his antecedents, and had some argument about 
 them, the doctor maintaining that the strange 
 man was a gentleman, Susan quite sure that he 
 was not. Dr. Gillespie used the word in its old- 
 fashioned sense, as a term having reference as 
 much to birth and breeding as to manners and 
 certain, ineradicable instincts. The gentleman ad 
 venturer was not unknown on the plains. Some 
 times he had fled from a dark past, sometimes 
 taken to the wild because the restraints of civ 
 ilization pressed too hard upon the elbows qf his 
 liberty. 
 
 " He s evidently of French Creole blood," said 
 the doctor. " Many of those people who came up 
 from New Orleans and settled in St. Louis were 
 of high family and station." 
 
 " Then why should he be out here, dressed like 
 an Indian and wandering round with all sorts of 
 waifs and strays? I believe he s just the same kind 
 of person as old Joe, only younger. Or, if he does 
 come from educated people, there s something 
 
 197 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 wrong about him, and he s had to come out here 
 and hide." 
 
 " Oh, what a suspicious little Missy ! Nothing 
 would make me believe that. He may be rough, 
 but he s not crooked. Those steady, straight-look 
 ing eyes never belonged to any but an honest man. 
 No, my dear, there s no discreditable past behind 
 him, and he s a gentleman." 
 
 " Rubbish ! " she said pettishly. " You ll be say 
 ing Leff s a gentleman next." 
 
 From which it will be seen that Low Courant 
 had not been communicative about himself. Such 
 broken scraps of information as he had dropped, 
 when pieced together made a scanty narrative. His 
 grandfather had been one of the early French set 
 tlers of St. Louis, and his father a prosperous fur 
 trader there. But why he had cut loose from them 
 he did not vouchsafe to explain. Though he was 
 still young thirty perhaps it was evident that he 
 had wandered far and for many years. He knew 
 the Indian trails of the distant Northwest, and 
 spoke the language of the Black Feet and Crows. 
 He had passed a winter in the old Spanish town 
 of Santa Fe, and from there joined a regiment of 
 LTnited States troops and done his share of fighting 
 in the Mexican War. Now the wanderlust was on 
 him, he was going to California. 
 
 " Maybe to settle," he told the doctor. " If I 
 don t wake up some morning and feel the need to 
 move once more." 
 
 When they reached the fort he was hailed joy- 
 
The Mountains 
 
 ously by the bourgeois himself. The men clustered 
 about him, and there were loud-voiced greetings 
 and much questioning, a rumor having filtered to 
 his old stamping ground that he had been killed in 
 the siege of the Alamo. The doctor told the bour 
 geois that Courant was to go with his train to 
 California, and the apple-cheeked factor grinned 
 and raised his eyebrows : 
 
 " Vous-avez de la chance! He s a good guide. 
 Even Kit Carson, who conducted the General Fre 
 mont, is no better." 
 
 The general satisfaction did not extend to Susan. 
 The faint thrill of antagonism that the man had 
 roused in her persisted. She knew he was a gain 
 to the party, and said nothing. She was growing 
 rapidly in this new, toughening life, and could set 
 her own small prejudices aside in the wider view 
 that each day s experience was teaching her. The 
 presence of such a man would lighten the burden 
 of work and responsibility that lay on her father, 
 and whatever was beneficial to the doctor was ac 
 cepted by his daughter. But she did not like Low 
 Courant. Had anyone asked her why she could 
 have given no reason. He took little notice of any 
 of the women, treating them alike with a brusque 
 indifference that was not discourteous, but seemed 
 to lump them as necessary but useless units in an 
 important whole. 
 
 The train was the focus of his interest. The 
 acceleration of its speed, the condition of the cattle, 
 the combination of lightness and completeness in 
 
 199 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 its make-up were the matters that occupied him. 
 In the evening hour of rest these were the subjects 
 he talked of, and she noticed that Daddy John was 
 the person to whom he talked most. With averted 
 eyes, her head bent to David s murmurings, she was 
 really listening to the older men. Her admiration 
 was reluctantly evoked by the stranger s dominance 
 and vigor of will, his devotion to the work he had 
 undertaken. She felt her own insignificance and 
 David s also, and chafed under the unfamiliar sen 
 sation. 
 
 The night after leaving Ash Hollow, as they sat 
 by the fire, David at her side, the doctor had told 
 Courant of the betrothal. His glance passed 
 quickly over the two conscious faces, he gave a 
 short nod of comprehension, and turning to Daddy 
 John, inquired about the condition of the mules 
 shoes. Susan reddened. She saw something of 
 disparagement, of the slightest gleam of mockery, 
 in that short look, which touched both faces and 
 then turned from them as from the faces of chil 
 dren playing at a game. Yes, she disliked him, dis 
 liked his manner to Lucy and herself, which set 
 them aside as beings of a lower order, that 
 had to go with them and be taken care of like 
 the stock, only much less important and necessary. 
 Even to Bella he was off-hand and unsympathetic, 
 unmoved by her weakness, as he had been by her 
 sufferings the night he came. Susan had an idea 
 that he thought Bella s illness a misfortune, not so 
 much for Bella as for the welfare of the train. 
 
 200 
 
The Mountains 
 
 They had been at the fort now for four days 
 and were ready to move on. The wagons were re 
 paired, the mules and horses shod, and Bella was 
 mending, though still unable to walk. The doctor 
 had promised to keep beside the McMurdos till she 
 was well, then his company would forge ahead. 
 
 In the heat of the afternoon, comfortable in a 
 rim of shade in the courtyard, the men were ar 
 ranging for the start the next morning. The sun 
 beat fiercely on the square opening roofed by the 
 blue of the sky and cut by the black shadow of 
 walls. In the cooling shade the motley company 
 lay sprawling on the ground or propped against 
 the doors of the store rooms. The open space was 
 brilliant with the blankets of Indians, the bare 
 limbs of brown children, and the bright scrapes of 
 the Mexicans, who were too lazy to move out of 
 the sun. In a corner the squaws played a game 
 with polished cherry stones which they tossed in a 
 shallow, saucerlike basket and let drop on the 
 ground. 
 
 Susan, half asleep on a buffalo skin, watched 
 them idly. The game reminded her of the jack- 
 stones of her childhood. Then her eye slanted to 
 where Lucy stood by the gate talking with a trap 
 per called Zavier Leroux. The sun made Lucy s 
 splendid hair shine like a flaming nimbus, and the 
 dark men of the mountains and the plain watched 
 her with immovable looks. She was laughing, her 
 head drooped sideways. Above the collar of her 
 blouse a strip of neck, untouched by tan, showed 
 
 201 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 in a milk-white band. Conscious of the admiring 
 observation, she instinctively relaxed her muscles 
 into lines of flowing grace, and lowered her eyes 
 till her lashes shone in golden points against her 
 freckled cheeks. With entire innocence she spread 
 her little lure, following an elemental instinct, that, 
 in the normal surroundings of her present life, re 
 leased from artificial restraints, was growing 
 stronger. 
 
 Her companion was a voyageur, a half-breed, 
 with coarse black hair hanging from a scarlet hand 
 kerchief bound smooth over his head. He was of 
 a sinewy, muscular build, his coppery skin, hard 
 black eyes, and high cheek bones showing the blood 
 of his mother, a Crow squaw. His father, long 
 forgotten in the obscurity of mountain history, had 
 evidently bequeathed him the French Canadian s 
 good-humored gayety. Zavier was a light-hearted 
 and merry fellow, and where he came laughter 
 sprang up. He spoke English well, and could sing 
 French songs that were brought to his father s 
 country by the adventurers who crossed the seas 
 with Jacques Carrier. 
 
 The bourgeois, who was aloft on the bastion 
 sweeping the distance with a field glass, suddenly 
 threw an announcement down on the courtyard: 
 
 " Red Feather s village is coming and an emi 
 grant train." 
 
 The space between the four walls immediately 
 seethed into a whirlpool of excitement. It eddied 
 there for a moment, then poured through the gate- 
 
 202 
 
The Mountains 
 
 way into the long drainlike entrance passage and 
 spread over the grass outside. 
 
 Down the face of the opposite hill, separated from 
 the fort by a narrow river, came the Indian vil 
 lage, streaming forward in a broken torrent. Over 
 its barbaric brightness, beads and glass caught the 
 sun, and the nervous fluttering of eagle feathers 
 that fringed the upheld lances played above its 
 shifting pattern of brown and scarlet. It descended 
 the slope in a broken rush, spreading out fanwise, 
 scattered, disorderly, horse and foot together. On 
 the river bank it paused, the web of color thicken 
 ing, then rolled over the edge and plunged in. The 
 current, beaten into sudden whiteness, eddied round 
 the legs of horses, the throats of swimming dogs, 
 and pressed up to the edges of the travaux where 
 frightened children sat among litters of puppies. 
 Ponies bestrode by naked boys struck up showers 
 of spray, squaws with lifted blankets waded stolidly 
 in, mounted warriors, feathers quivering in their 
 inky hair, indifferently splashing them. Here a 
 dog, caught by the current, was seized by a sinewy 
 hand; there a horse, struggling under the weight 
 of a travaux packed with puppies and old women, 
 was grasped by a lusty brave and dragged to shore. 
 The water round them frothing into silvery tur 
 moil, the air above rent with their cries, they 
 climbed the bank and made for the camping ground 
 near the fort. 
 
 Among the first came a young squaw. Her 
 white doeskin dress was as clean as snow, barbar- 
 
 203 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ically splendid with cut fringes and work of bead 
 and porcupine quills. Her mien was sedate, and 
 she swayed to her horse lightly and flexibly as a 
 boy, holding aloft a lance edged with a flutter of 
 feathers, and bearing a round shield of painted 
 skins. Beside her rode the old chief, his blanket 
 falling away from his withered body, his face ex 
 pressionless and graven deep with wrinkles. 
 
 " That s Red Feather and his favorite squaw," 
 said the voice of Courant at Susan s elbow. 
 
 She made no answer, staring at the Indian girl, 
 who was handsome and young, younger than she. 
 
 " And look," came the voice again, " there are 
 the emigrants." 
 
 A long column of wagons had crested the sum 
 mit and was rolling down the slope. They were 
 in single file, hood behind hood, the drivers, beard 
 ed as cave men, walking by the oxen. The line 
 moved steadily, without sound or hurry, as if 
 directed by a single intelligence possessed of a sin 
 gle idea. It was not a congeries of separated par 
 ticles, but a connected whole. As it wound down 
 the face of the hill, it suggested a vast Silurian 
 monster, each wagon top a vertebra, crawling for 
 ward with definite purpose. 
 
 " That s the way they re coming," said the voice 
 of the strange man. " Slow but steady, an endless 
 line of them." 
 
 " Who ? " said Susan, answering him for the first 
 time. 
 
 " The white men. They re creeping along out of 
 204 
 
The Mountains 
 
 their country into this, pushing the frontier for 
 ward every year, and going on ahead of it with 
 their tents and their cattle and their women. 
 Watch the w r ay that train comes after Red Fea 
 ther s village. That was all scattered and broken, 
 going every way like a lot of glass beads rolling 
 down the hill. This conies slow, but it s steady and 
 sure as fate." 
 
 She thought for a moment, watching the emi 
 grants, and then said : 
 
 " It moves like soldiers." 
 
 " Conquerors. That s what they are. They re 
 going to roll over everything crush them out." 
 
 "Over the Indians?" 
 
 " That s it. Drive em away into the cracks of 
 the mountains, wipe them out the way the trappers 
 are wiping out the beaver." 
 
 " Cruel! " she said hotly. " I don t believe it." 
 
 " Cruel? " he gave her a look of half-contemptu 
 ous amusement. " Maybe so, but why should you 
 blame them for that? Aren t you cruel when you 
 kill an antelope or a deer for supper ? They re not 
 doing you any harm, but you just happen to be 
 hungry. Well, those fellers are hungry land 
 hungry and they ve come for the Indian s land. 
 The whole world s cruel. You know it, but 
 you don t like to think so, so you say it isn t. 
 You re just lying because you re afraid of the 
 truth." 
 
 She looked angrily at him and met the gray eyes. 
 In the center of each iris was a dot of pupil so 
 
 205 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 clearly defined and hard that they looked to Susan 
 like the heads of black pins. " That s exactly what 
 he d say," she thought; " he s no better than a sav 
 age." What she said was: 
 
 " I don t agree with you at all." 
 
 " I don t expect you to," he answered, and mak 
 ing an ironical bow turned on his heel and swung 
 off. 
 
 The next morning, in the pallor of the dawn, they 
 started, rolling out into a gray country with the 
 keen-edged cold of early day in the air, and Lara- 
 mie Peak, gold tipped, before them. As the sky 
 brightened and the prospect began to take on 
 warmer hues, they looked ahead toward the profiles 
 of the mountains and thought of the journey to 
 come. At this hour of low vitality it seemed enor 
 mous, and they paced forward a silent, lifeless cara 
 van, the hoof beats sounding hollow on the beaten 
 track. 
 
 Then from behind them came a sound of singing, 
 a man s voice caroling in the dawn. Both girls 
 wheeled and saw Zavier Leroux ambling after 
 them on his rough-haired pony, the pack horse 
 behind. He waved his hand and shouted across the 
 silence : 
 
 " I come to go with you as far as South Pass," 
 and then he broke out again into his singing. It 
 was the song Courant had sung, and as he heard it 
 he lifted up his voice at the head of the train, and 
 the two strains blending, the old French chanson 
 swept out over the barren land: 
 
 206 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " A la claire fontaine! 
 M en allant promener 
 J ai trouve 1 eau si belle 
 Que je me suis baigne! " 
 
 Susan waved a beckoning hand to the voyageur, 
 then turned to Lucy and said joyously : 
 
 " What fun to have Zavier ! He ll keep us 
 laughing all the time. Aren t you glad he s com 
 ing?" 
 
 Lucy gave an unenthusiastic " Yes." After 
 the first glance backward she had bent over her 
 horse smoothing its mane her face suddenly dyed 
 with a flood of red. 
 
 207 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EVERYBODY was glad Zavier had come. He 
 brought a spirit of good cheer into the party which 
 had begun to feel the pressure of the long march 
 behind them, and the still heavier burden that was 
 to come. His gayety was irrepressible, his high 
 spirits unflagging. When the others rode silent in 
 the lifeless hours of the afternoon or drooped in the 
 midday heats, Zavier, a dust-clouded outline on his 
 shaggy pony, lifted up his voice in song. Then the 
 chanted melody of French verses issued from the 
 dust cloud, rising above the rattling of the beaver 
 traps and the creaking of the slow wheels. 
 
 He had one especial favorite that he was wont 
 to sing when he rode between the two girls. It 
 recounted the adventures of trois cavalier es, and 
 had so many verses that Zavier assured them nei 
 ther he nor any other man had ever arrived at the 
 end of them. Should he go to California with them 
 and sing a verse each day, he thought there would 
 still be some left over to give away when he got 
 there. Susan learned the first two stanzas, and 
 Lucy picked up the air and a few words. When 
 the shadows began to slant and the crisp breath 
 of the mountains came cool on their faces, they 
 sang, first Zavier and Susan, then Lucy joining in 
 
The Mountains 
 
 in a faint, uncertain treble, and finally from the 
 front of the train the strange man, not turning his 
 head, sitting straight and square, and booming out 
 the burden in his deep baritone: 
 
 " Dans mon chemin j ai recontre* 
 Trois cavalieres bien montees, 
 L on, ton laridon dane"e 
 L on, ton laridon dai. 
 
 " Trois cavalieres bien montees 
 L une a cheval, Pautre a pied 
 L on, ton, laridon danee 
 L on ton laridon dai." 
 
 Zavier furnished another diversion in the monot 
 ony of the days, injected into the weary routine, 
 a coloring drop of romance, for, as he himself 
 would have said, he was diablemcnt epris with 
 Lucy. This was regarded as one of the best of 
 Zavier s jokes. He himself laughed at it, and his 
 extravagant compliments and gallantries were well 
 within the pale of the burlesque. Lucy laughed 
 at them, too. The only one that took the mat 
 ter seriously was Bella. She was not entirely 
 pleased. 
 
 Talk about it s being just a joke," she said to 
 Susan in the bedtime hour of confidences. " You 
 can joke too much about some things. Zavier s a 
 man just the same as the others, and Lucy s a nice- 
 looking girl when she gets rested up and the 
 freckles go off. But he s an Indian if he does speak 
 
 209 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 French, and make good money with his beaver 
 trapping." 
 
 " He s not all Indian," Susan said soothingly. 
 " He s half white. There are only a few Indian 
 things about him, his dark skin and something high 
 and flat about his cheek bones and the way he turns 
 in his toes when he walks." 
 
 " Indian enough," Bella fumed. " And nobody 
 knows anything about his father. We re respect 
 able people and don t want a man with no name 
 hanging round. I ve no doubt he was born in a 
 lodge or under a pine tree. What right s that kind 
 of man to come ogling after a decent white girl 
 whose father and mother were married in the Pres 
 byterian Church ? " 
 
 Susan did not take it so much to heart. What 
 was the good when Lucy obviously didn t care? 
 As for Zavier, she felt sorry for him, for those 
 keen observing faculties of hers had told her that 
 the voyageur s raillery hid a real feeling. Poor 
 Zavier was in love. Susan was pensive in the con 
 templation of his hopeless passion. He was to 
 leave the train near South Pass and go back into 
 the mountains, and there, alone, camp on the 
 streams that drained the Powder River country. 
 In all probability he would never see one of them 
 again. His trapping did not take him West to the 
 great deserts, and he hated the civilization where 
 man became a luxurious animal of many needs. 
 Like the buffalo and the red man he was restricted 
 to the wild lands that sloped away on either side of 
 
 210 
 
The Mountains 
 
 the continent s mighty spine. His case was sad, 
 and Susan held forth on the subject to Lucy, whom 
 she thought callous and unkind. 
 
 " It s terrible to think you ll never see him 
 again," she said, looking for signs of compassion. 
 " Don t you feel sorry? " 
 
 Lucy looked down. She had been complaining 
 to her friend of Zavier s follies of devotion. 
 
 " There are lots of other men in the world," she 
 said indifferently. 
 
 Susan fired up. If not yet the authorized owner 
 of a man, she felt her responsibilities as a coming 
 proprietor. The woman s passion for interference 
 in matters of sentiment was developing in her. 
 
 " Lucy, you re the most hard-hearted girl ! Poor 
 Zavier, who s going off into the mountains and 
 may be killed by the Indians. Don t you feel any 
 pity for him? And he s in love with you truly 
 in love. I ve watched him and I know." 
 
 She could not refrain from letting a hint of supe 
 rior wisdom, of an advantage over the unengaged 
 Lucy, give solemnity to her tone. 
 
 Lucy s face flushed. 
 
 " He s half an Indian," she said with an edge on 
 her voice. " Doesn t everyone in the train keep 
 saying that every ten minutes? Do you want me 
 to fall in love with a man like that ? " 
 
 " Why no, of course not. You couldn t. That s 
 the sad part of it. He seems as much like other 
 men as those trappers in the fort who were all 
 white. Just because he had a Crow mother it seems 
 
 211 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 unjust that he should be so sort of on the outside of 
 everything. But of course you couldn t marry him. 
 Nobody ever heard of a girl marrying a half- 
 breed." 
 
 Lucy bent over the piece of deer meat that she 
 was cutting apart. They were preparing supper 
 at the flaring end of a hot day, when the wagons 
 had crawled through a loose alkaline soil and over 
 myriads of crickets that crushed sickeningly under 
 the wheels. Both girls were tired, their throats 
 parched, their hair as dry as hemp, and Lucy was 
 irritable, her face unsmiling, her movement quick 
 and nervous. 
 
 " What s it matter what a man s parents are if 
 he s kind to you? " she said, cutting viciously into 
 the meat. " It s a lot to have some one fill the ket 
 tles for you and help you get the firewood, and 
 when you re tired tell you to go back in the wagon 
 and go to sleep. Nobody does that for me but 
 Zavier." 
 
 It was the first time she had shown any appre 
 ciation of her swain s attentions. She expressed 
 the normal, feminine point of view that her friend 
 had been looking for, and as soon as she heard it 
 Susan adroitly vaulted to the other side: 
 
 " But, Lucy, you cant marry him ! " 
 
 " Who says I m going to ? " snapped Lucy. " Do 
 I have to marry every Indian that makes eyes at 
 me? All the men in the fort were doing it. They 
 hadn t a look for anyone else." 
 
 Susan took this with reservations. A good many 
 212 
 
The Mountains 
 
 of the men in the fort had made eyes at her. It 
 was rather grasping of Lucy to take it all to her 
 self, and in her surprise at the extent of her friend s 
 claims she was silent. 
 
 " As for me," Lucy went on, " I m dead sick of 
 this journey. I wish we could stop or go back or 
 do something. But we ve got to keep on and on 
 to the end of nowhere. It seems as if we were 
 going forever in these tiresome old wagons or on 
 horses that get lame every other day, and then you 
 have to walk. I don t mind living in a tent. I 
 like it. But I hate always going on, never having 
 a minute to rest, getting up in the morning when 
 I m only half awake, and having to cook at night 
 when I m so tired I d just like to lie down on the 
 ground without taking my clothes off and go to 
 sleep there. I wish I d never come. I wish I d 
 married the man in Cooperstown that I wouldn t 
 have wiped my feet on then." 
 
 She slapped the frying pan on the fire and threw 
 the meat into it. Her voice and lips were trem 
 bling. With a quick, backward bend she stooped 
 to pick up a fork, and Susan saw her face puckered 
 and quivering like a child s about to cry. 
 
 " Oh, Lucy," she cried in a burst of sympathy. 
 " I didn t know you felt like that," and she tried 
 to clasp the lithe uncorseted waist that flinched 
 from her touch. Lucy s elbow, thrown suddenly 
 out, kept her at a distance, and she fell back re 
 pulsed, but with consolations still ready to be of 
 fered. 
 
 213 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Let me alone," said Lucy, her face averted. 
 " I m that tired I don t know what I m saying. Go 
 and get the children for supper, and don t let them 
 stand round staring at me or they ll be asking 
 questions." 
 
 She snatched the coffee pot and shook it upside 
 down, driblets of coffee running out. With her 
 other hand she brushed the tears off her cheeks. 
 
 " Don t stand there as if you never saw a girl 
 cry before," she said, savagely. " I don t do it 
 often, and it isn t such a wonderful sight. Get the 
 children, and if you tell anyone that I feel this way 
 I ll murder you." 
 
 The children were at some distance lying on the 
 ground. Such unpromising materials as dust and 
 sage brush had not quenched their inventive power 
 or hampered their imaginations. They played with 
 as an absorbed an industry here as in their own 
 garden at home. They had scraped the earth into 
 mounded shapes marked with the print of baby 
 fingers and furrowed with paths. One led to a 
 central mound crowned with a wild sunflower 
 blossom. Up the path to this Bob conducted twigs 
 of sage, murmuring the adventures that attended 
 their progress. When they reached the sunflower 
 house he laid them carefully against its sides, con 
 tinuing the unseen happenings that befell them on 
 their entrance. The little girl lay beside him, her 
 cheek resting on an outflung arm, her eyes fixed 
 wistfully on the personally conducted party. Her 
 creative genius had not risen to the heights of his, 
 
 214 
 
The Mountains 
 
 and her fat little hands were awkward and had 
 pushed the sunflower from its perch. So she had 
 been excluded from active participation, and now 
 looked on, acquiescing in her exclusion, a patient 
 and humble spectator. 
 
 " Look," Bob cried as he saw Susan approaching. 
 " I ve builded a house and a garden, and these are 
 the people," holding up one of the sage twigs, 
 " they walk fru the garden an then go into the 
 house and have coffee and buf lo meat." 
 
 Susan admired it and then looked at the baby, 
 who was pensively surveying her brother s creation. 
 
 " And did the baby play, too? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, no, she couldn t. She doesn t know mif 
 fing, she s too small," with the scorn of one year s 
 superiority. 
 
 The baby raised her solemn eyes to the young 
 girl and made no attempt to vindicate herself. Her 
 expression was that of subdued humility, of one 
 who admits her short-comings. She rose and 
 thrust a soft hand into Susan s, and maintained her 
 silence as they walked toward the camp. The only 
 object that seemed to have power to rouse her from 
 her dejected reverie were the broken sage stalks 
 in the trail. At each of these she halted, hanging 
 from Susan s sustaining grasp, and stubbed her toe 
 accurately and carefully against the protruding root. 
 
 They would have been silent that evening if it 
 had not been for Zavier. His mood was less merry 
 than usual, but a stream of frontier anecdote and 
 story flowed from him, that held them listening 
 
 215 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 with charmed attention. His foreign speech in 
 terlarded with French words added to the pictur- 
 esqueness of his narratives, and he himself sitting 
 crosslegged on his blanket, his hair hanging dense 
 to his shoulders, his supple body leaning forward 
 in the tension of a thrilling climax, was a fitting 
 minstrel for these lays of the wild. 
 
 His final story was that of Antoine Godin, one 
 of the classics of mountain history. Godin was the 
 son of an Iroquois hunter who had been brutally 
 murdered by the Blackfeet. He had become a trap 
 per of the Sublette brothers, then mighty men of 
 the fur trade, and in the expedition of Milton Sub 
 lette against the Blackfeet in 1832 joined the troop. 
 When the two bands met, Godin volunteered to 
 hold a conference with the Blackfeet chief. He 
 chose as his companion an Indian of the Flathead 
 tribe, once a powerful nation, but almost extermi 
 nated by wars with the Blackfeet. From the massed 
 ranks of his warriors the chief rode out for the 
 parley, a pipe of peace in his hand. As Godin and 
 the Flathead started to meet him, the former asked 
 the Indian if his piece was charged, and when the 
 Flathead answered in the affirmative told him to 
 cock it and ride alongside. 
 
 Midway between the two bands they met. Go- 
 din clasped the chief s hand, and as he did so told 
 the Flathead to fire. The Indian levelled his gun, 
 fired, and the Blackfeet chief rolled off his horse. 
 Godin snatched off his blanket and in a rain of 
 bullets fled to the Sublette camp. 
 
 216 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " And so," said the voyageur with a note of ex 
 ultation in his voice, " Godin got revenge on those 
 men who had killed his father." 
 
 For a moment his listeners were silent, suffering 
 from a sense of bewilderment, not so much at the 
 story, as at Zavier s evident approval of Godin s act. 
 
 It was Susan who first said in a low tone, " What 
 an awful thing to do ! " This loosened Bella s 
 tongue, who lying in the opening of her tent had 
 been listening and now felt emboldened to express 
 her opinion, especially as Glen, stretched on his face 
 nearby, had emitted a snort of indignation. 
 
 " Well, of all the wicked things I ve heard since 
 I came out here that s the worst." 
 
 Zavier shot a glance at them in which for one 
 unguarded moment, race antagonism gleamed. 
 
 " Why is it wicked? " he said gently. 
 
 David answered heatedly, the words bursting 
 out: 
 
 "Why, the treachery of it, the meanness. The 
 chief carried the pipe of peace. That s like our 
 flag of truce. You never heard of any civilized 
 man shooting another under the flag of truce." 
 
 Zavier looked stolid. It was impossible to tell 
 whether he comprehended their point of view and 
 pretended ignorance, or whether he was so re 
 stricted to his own that he could see no other. 
 
 "The Blackfeet had killed his father," he an 
 swered. " They were treacherous too. Should he 
 wait to be murdered? It was his chance and he 
 took it." 
 
 217 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Sounds of dissent broke out round the circle. 
 All the eyes were trained on him, some with a wide, 
 expectant fixity, others bright with combative fire. 
 Even Glen sat up, scratching his head, and remark 
 ing sotto voce to his wife : 
 
 " Ain t I always said he was an Indian? " 
 
 " But the Blackfeet chief wasn t the man who 
 killed his father," said the doctor. 
 
 " No, he was chief of the tribe who did." 
 
 " But why kill an innocent man who probably 
 had nothing to do with it ? " 
 
 " It was for vengeance," said Zavier with un 
 moved patience and careful English. " Vengeance 
 for his father s death." 
 
 Several pairs of eyes sought the ground giving 
 up the problem. Others continued to gaze at him 
 either with wonder, or hopeful of extracting from 
 his face some clew to his involved and incompre 
 hensible moral attitude. They suddenly felt as if 
 he had confessed himself of an alien species, a 
 creature as remote from them and their ideals as 
 a dweller in the moon. 
 
 " He had waited long for vengeance," Zavier 
 further explained, moving his glittering glance 
 about the circle, " and if he could not find the right 
 man, he must take such man as he could. The chief 
 is the biggest man, and he comes where Godin has 
 him. My father is avenged at last, he says, and 
 bang ! " Zavier levelled an imaginary engine of de 
 struction at the shadows " it is done and Godin 
 gets the blanket." 
 
 218 
 
The Mountains 
 
 The silence that greeted this was one of hope 
 lessness; the blanket had added the final compli 
 cation. It was impossible to make Zavier see, and 
 this new development in what had seemed a boyish 
 and light-hearted being, full to the brim with the 
 milk of human kindness, was a thing to sink before 
 in puzzled speechlessness. Courant tried to ex 
 plain: 
 
 " You can t see it Zavier s way because it s a 
 different way from yours. It comes out of the past 
 when there weren t any laws, or you had to make 
 em yourself. You ve come from where the 
 courthouse and the police take care of you, and 
 if a feller kills your father, sees to it that 
 he s caught and strung up. It s not your busi 
 ness to do it, and so you ve got to thinking that 
 the man that takes it into his own hands is a des 
 perate kind of criminal. Out here in those days 
 you wiped out such scores yourself or no one did. 
 It seems to you that Godin did a pretty low down 
 thing, but he thought he was doing the right thing 
 for him. He d had a wrong done him and he d got 
 to square it. And it didn t matter to him that the 
 chief wasn t the man. Kill an Indian and it s the 
 tribe s business to settle the account. The Black- 
 feet killed his father and it was Godin s business to 
 kill a Blackfeet whenever he got the chance. I 
 guess when he saw the chief riding out to meet him 
 what he felt most was, that it was the best chance 
 he d ever get." 
 
 The faces turned toward Courant a white man 
 219 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 like themselves! So deep was their disapproving 
 astonishment that nobody could say anything. For 
 a space they could only stare at him as though he, 
 too, were suddenly dropping veils that had hidden 
 unsuspected, baleful depths. 
 
 Then argument broke out and the clamor of 
 voices was loud on the night. Courant bore the 
 brunt of the attack, Zavier s ideas being scanty, 
 his mode of procedure a persistent, reiteration of 
 his original proposition. Interruptions were fur 
 nished in a sudden, cracked laugh from Daddy 
 John, and phrases of dissent or approval from Glen 
 and Bella stretching their ears from the front of 
 the tent. Only Lucy said nothing, her head 
 wrapped in a shawl, her face down-drooped and 
 pale. 
 
 Late that night Susan was waked by whispering 
 sounds which wound stealthily through her . sleep 
 feeling for her consciousness. At first she lay with 
 her eyes shut, breathing softly, till the sounds per 
 colated through the stupor of her fatigue and she 
 woke, disentangling them from dreams. She threw 
 back her blankets and sat alert thinking of Indians. 
 
 The moon was full, silver tides lapping in below 
 the tent s rim. She stole to the flap listening, then 
 drew it softly open. Her tent had been pitched 
 beneath a group of trees which made a splash of 
 shadow broken with mottlings of moonlight. In 
 the depths of this shadow she discerned two figures, 
 the white flecks and slivers sliding along the dark 
 oblong of their shapes as they strayed with loiter 
 ing steps or stood whispering. The straight edge 
 
 220 
 
The Mountains 
 
 of their outline, the unbroken solidity of their bulk, 
 told her they were wrapped in the same blanket, a 
 custom in the Indian lover s courtship. Their 
 backs were toward her, the two heads rising from 
 the blanket s folds, showing as a rounded pyramidal 
 finish. As she looked they paced beyond the 
 shadow into the full unobscured light, and she saw 
 that the higher head was dark, the other fair, 
 crowned with a circlet of shining hair. 
 
 Her heart gave an astounded leap. Her first 
 instinct was to draw back, her second to stand 
 where she was, seemly traditions overwhelmed in 
 amazement. The whispering ceased, the heads 
 inclined to each other, the light one drooping 
 backward, the dark one leaning toward it, till 
 they rested together for a long, still moment. 
 Then they separated, the woman drawing her 
 self from the blanket and with a whispered 
 word stealing away, a furtive figure flitting 
 through light and shade to the McMurdo tents. 
 The man turned and walked to the fire, and Su 
 san saw it was Zavier. He threw on a brand and 
 in its leaping ray stood motionless, looking at the 
 flame, a slight, fixed smile on his lips. 
 
 She crept back to her bed and lay there with her 
 heart throbbing and her eyes on the edges of moon 
 light that slipped in over the trampled sage leaves. 
 Zavier was on sentry duty that night, and she could 
 hear the padding of his step as he moved back and 
 forth through the sleeping camp. On the dark 
 walls of the tent the vision she had seen kept re- 
 
 221 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 peating itself, and as it returned upon her mental 
 sight, new questions surged into her mind. A veil 
 had been raised, and she had caught a glimpse of 
 something in life, a new factor in the world, she had 
 never known of. The first faint comprehension of 
 it, the first stir of sympathy with it, crept toward 
 her understanding and tried to force an entrance. 
 She pushed it out, feeling frightened, feeling as if 
 it were an intruder, that once admitted would grow 
 dominant and masterful, and she would never be 
 her own again. 
 
 222 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The next morning Susan could not help stealing 
 inquiring looks at Lucy. Surely the participant in 
 such a nocturnal adventure must bear some signs of 
 it upon her face. Lucy had suddenly become a dis 
 turbing and incomprehensible problem. In trying 
 to readjust her conception of the practical and en 
 ergetic girl, Susan found herself confronted with the 
 artifices of a world-old, feminine duplicity that she 
 had never before encountered, and knew no more of 
 than she did of the tumult that had possession of 
 poor Lucy s tormented soul. Here was the heroine 
 of a midnight rendezvous going about her work 
 with her habitual nervous capability, dressing the 
 children, preparing the breakfast, seeing that Bella 
 was comfortably disposed on her mattress in the 
 wagon. She had not a glance for Zavier. Could 
 a girl steal out to meet and kiss a man in the moon 
 light and the next morning look at him with a lim 
 pid, undrooping eye as devoid of consciousness as 
 the eye of a preoccupied cat? 
 
 The standards of the doctor s daughter were 
 comparative and their range limited. All she had 
 to measure by was herself. Her imagination in 
 trying to compass such a situation with Susan Gil- 
 lespie as the heroine, could picture nothing as her 
 
 223 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 portion but complete abasement and, of course, a 
 confession to her father. And how dreadful that 
 would have been ! She could feel humiliation steal 
 ing on her at the thought of the doctor s frowning 
 displeasure. But Lucy had evidently told no one. 
 Why had she not? Why had she pretended not to 
 like Zavier? Why? Why? Susan found her 
 thoughts trailing off into a perspective of ques 
 tions that brought up against a wall of incompre 
 hension above which Lucy s clear eyes looked at 
 her with baffling secretiveness. 
 
 It was a warm morning, and the two girls sat in 
 the doctor s wagon. Lucy was knitting one of the 
 everlasting stockings. In the heat she had un 
 fastened the neck of her blouse and turned the 
 edges in, a triangle of snowy skin visible below her 
 sunburned throat. She looked thin, her arms show 
 ing no curve from wrist to elbow, the lines of her 
 body delicately angular under the skimpy dress of 
 faded lilac cotton. The sun blazing through the 
 canvas cast a tempered yellow light over her that 
 toned harmoniously with the brown coating of 
 freckles and the copper burnish of her hair. Her 
 hands, vibrating over her work with little hovering 
 movements like birds about to light, now and then 
 flashing out a needle which she stabbed into her 
 coiffure, were large-boned and dexterous, the 
 strong, unresting hands of the frontierswoman. 
 
 Susan was lazy, leaning back on the up-piled 
 sacks, watching the quick, competent movements 
 and the darts of light that leaped along the needles. 
 
 224. 
 
The Mountains 
 
 Before they had entered the wagon she had de 
 cided to speak to Lucy of what she had overseen. 
 In the first place she felt guilty and wanted to con 
 fess. Besides that the need to give advice was 
 strong upon her, and the natural desire to inter 
 fere in a matter of the heart was another impelling 
 impulse. So she had determined to speak for con 
 science, for friendship, for duty, and it is not be 
 yond the bounds of possibility, for curiosity. 
 
 But it was a hard subject to approach, and she 
 was uncomfortable. Diplomacy had not been one 
 of the gifts the fairies gave her when they gath 
 ered at her cradle. Looking at the quivering nee 
 dles she tried to think of a good beginning, and 
 like most direct and candid people concluded there 
 was no better one than that of the initial fact, be 
 fore the complicating intrusion of inference : 
 
 " I woke up in the middle of the night last 
 night." 
 
 Lucy knit unmoved. 
 
 " The moonlight was as bright as day. Out be 
 yond the shadow where my tent was I could see the 
 weeds and little bunches of grass." 
 
 " How could you see them when you were in 
 your tent ? " This without stopping her work or 
 raising her head. 
 
 Susan, feeling more uncomfortable than ever, 
 answered, her voice instinctively dropping, " I got 
 up and looked out of my tent." 
 
 She kept her eyes on the busy hands and saw 
 that the speed of their movements slackened. 
 
 225 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Got up and looked out ? What did you do that 
 for?" 
 
 The time for revelation had come. Susan was 
 a little breathless. 
 
 " I heard people whispering," she said. 
 
 The hands came to a stop. But the knitter con 
 tinued to hold them in the same position, a sus 
 pended, waiting expectancy in their attitude. 
 
 " Whispering? " she said. " Who was it? " 
 
 " Oh, Lucy, you know." 
 
 There was a pause. Then Lucy dropped her 
 knitting and, raising her head, looked at the anxious 
 face opposite. Her eyes were quiet and steady, but 
 their look was changed from its usual frankness by 
 a new defiance, hard and wary. 
 
 " No, I don t know. How should I ? " 
 
 " Why, why " Susan now was not only breath 
 less but pleading " it was you." 
 
 "Who was me?" 
 
 " The woman Lucy don t look at me like that, 
 as if you didn t understand. I saw you, you and 
 Zavier, wrapped in the blanket. You walked out 
 into the moonlight and I saw." 
 
 Lucy s gaze continued unfaltering and growing 
 harder. Under the freckles she paled, but she stood 
 her ground. 
 
 "What do you mean? Saw me and Zavier? 
 Where?" 
 
 " Under the trees first and then you went out 
 into the moonlight with the blanket wrapped round 
 your shoulders." 
 
 226 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " You didn t see me," the hardness was now in 
 her voice. " It was some one else." 
 
 A feeling of alarm rose in the other girl. It was 
 not the lie alone, it was the force behind it, the 
 force that made it possible, that gave the teller will 
 to hold her glance steady and deny the truth. A 
 scaring sense of desperate powers in Lucy that 
 were carrying her outside the familiar and es 
 tablished, seized her friend. It was all differ 
 ent from her expectations. Her personal repug 
 nance and fastidiousness were swept aside in the 
 menace of larger things. She leaned forward and 
 clasped Lucy s knee. 
 
 " Don t say that. I saw you. Lucy, don t say I 
 didn t. Don t bother to tell me a lie. What did 
 it mean? Why did you meet him? What are you 
 doing?" 
 
 Lucy jerked her knee away. Her hands were 
 trembling. She took up the knitting, tried to direct 
 the needles, but they shook and she dropped them. 
 She made a sharp movement with her head in an 
 effort to avert her face, but the light was merciless, 
 there was no shade to hide in. 
 
 " Oh, don t bother me," she said angrily. " It s 
 not your affair." 
 
 Susan s dread rose higher. In a flash of vision 
 she had a glimpse into the storm-driven depths. It 
 was as if a child brought up in a garden had un 
 expectedly looked into a darkling mountain abyss. 
 
 " What are you going to do? " she almost whis 
 pered. " You mustn t. You must stop. I thought 
 
 227 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 you didn t care about him. You only laughed and 
 everybody thought it was a joke. Don t go on 
 that way. Something dreadful will happen." 
 
 Lucy did not answer. With her back pressed 
 against the roof arch and her hands clinched in her 
 lap she sat rigid, looking down. She seemed 
 gripped in a pain that stiffened her body and made 
 her face pinched and haggard. Under the light 
 cotton covering her breast rose and fell. She was 
 an embodiment of tortured indecision. 
 
 Susan urged : " Let me tell my father and he ll 
 send Zavier away." 
 
 Lucy raised her eyes and tried to laugh. The 
 unnatural sound fell with a metallic harshness on 
 the silence. Her mouth quivered, and putting an 
 unsteady hand against it, she said brokenly, 
 
 " Oh, Missy, don t torment me. I feel bad 
 enough already." 
 
 There was a longer pause. Susan broke it in a 
 low voice: 
 
 " Then you re going to marry him? " 
 
 " No," loudly, " no. What a question! " 
 
 She made a grab at her knitting and started 
 feverishly to work, the needles clicking, stitches 
 dropping, the stocking leg trembling as it hung. 
 
 " Why, he s an Indian," she cried suddenly in a 
 high, derisive key. 
 
 " But " the questioner had lost her moment of 
 vision and was once again floundering between ig 
 norance and intuition " Why did you kiss him 
 then?" 
 
 228 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " I didn t. He kissed me." 
 
 " You let him. Isn t that the same thing? " 
 
 " No, no. You re so silly. You don t know any 
 thing." She gave a hysterical laugh and the bonds 
 of her pride broke in a smothered cry : " I couldn t 
 help it. I didn t want to. I didn t mean to. I 
 didn t mean to go out and meet him and I went. 
 I " she gathered up the stocking and, needles and 
 all, buried her face in it. It was the only thing she 
 could find to hide behind. " I m so miserable," she 
 sobbed. " You don t know. It s such a terrible 
 thing first feeling one way and then the other. I m 
 so mixed up I don t know what I feel. I wish I 
 was dead." 
 
 There was a sound of men s voices outside, and 
 the wagon came to a jolting halt. Daddy John, 
 on the driver s seat, silhouetted against the circle 
 of sky, slipped the whip into its ring of leather and 
 turned toward the girls. Lucy threw herself back 
 ward and lay with her face on the sacks, stifling 
 her tears. 
 
 " What are you two girls jawing about in 
 there ? " he asked, squinting blindly from the sun 
 dazzle into the clear, amber light of the canvas 
 cavern. 
 
 " We re just telling stories and things," said 
 Susan. 
 
 The old man peered at Lucy s recumbent figure. 
 
 "Ain t she well?" he queried. "Thought I 
 heard crying." 
 
 " Her head aches, it s so hot." 
 229 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Let her stay there. We ll do her cooking for 
 her. Just stay where you are, Lucy, and don t 
 worrit about your work." 
 
 But the voices outside demanded her. It was the 
 noon halt and Lucy was an important factor in the 
 machinery of the train. Glen s call for her was 
 mingled with the fresh treble of Bob s and Bella s 
 at a farther distance, rose in a plaintive, bovine low 
 ing. She stretched a hand sideways and gripped 
 Susan s skirt. 
 
 " I can t go," she gasped in a strangled whisper. 
 " I can t seem to get a hold on myself. Ask Zavier 
 to build the fire and cook. He ll do it, and Courant 
 will help him. And tell the others I m sick." 
 
 Lucy s headache lasted all through the dinner 
 hour, and when the train started she still lay in the 
 back of the doctor s wagon. For once she seemed 
 indifferent to the comfort of her relatives. The 
 clamor that rose about their disorderly fire and un 
 savory meal came to her ears through the canvas 
 walls, and she remained deaf and unconcerned. 
 When Susan crept in beside her and laid a cool 
 cheek on hers, and asked her if she wanted any 
 thing, she said no, she wanted to rest that was all. 
 Daddy John turned his head in profile and said : 
 
 " Let her alone, Missy. She s all tuckered out. 
 They ve put too much work on her sence her sister 
 took sick. You let her lie there and I ll keep an 
 eye to her." 
 
 Then he turned away and spat, as was his wont 
 when thoughtful. He had seen much of the world, 
 
 230 
 
The Mountains 
 
 and in his way was a wise old man, but he did not 
 guess the secret springs of Lucy s trouble. Women 
 on the trail should be taken care of as his Missy 
 was. Glen McMurdo was the kind of man who 
 let the women take care of him, and between him 
 and the children and the sick woman they d half 
 killed the girl with work. Daddy John had his 
 opinion of Glen, but like most of his opinions he 
 kept it to himself. 
 
 Susan had no desire for talk that afternoon. She 
 wanted to be alone to muse on things. As the train 
 took the road for the second stage, she drew her 
 horse back among the sage and let the file of 
 wagons pass her. She saw hope gleaming in Left s 
 eye, and killed it with a stony glance, then called 
 to her father that she was going to ride behind. 
 David was hunting in the hills with Courant, Zavier 
 driving in his stead. The little caravan passed her 
 with the dust hovering dense around it and the 
 slouching forms of the pack horses hanging fringe- 
 like in its rear. 
 
 They were nearing the end of their passage by 
 the river, shrunk to a clear, wild stream which they 
 came upon and lost as the trail bore westward. 
 Their route lay through an interminable sequence 
 of plains held together by channels of communi 
 cation that filtered through the gaps in hills. The 
 road was crossed by small streams, chuckling at the 
 bottom of gullies, the sides of which were cracked 
 open like pale, parched lips gasping for air. The 
 limpid transparency of the prospect was blotted by 
 
 231 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 the caravan s moving dust cloud. Beyond this the 
 plain stretched, empty as the sky, a brown butte 
 rising here and there. 
 
 Susan heard hoof beats behind her and turned. 
 Courant was riding toward her, his rifle across his 
 saddle. She made a motion of recognition with 
 her hand and turned away thinking how well he 
 matched the surroundings, his buckskins melting 
 into the fawn-colored shading of the earth, his red 
 hair and bronzed face toning with the umber buttes 
 and rustlike stains across the distance. He was of 
 a piece with it, even in its suggestion of an un 
 feeling, confidant hardness. 
 
 He joined her and they paced forward. It was 
 the first time he had ever sought any conversation 
 with her and she was conscious and secretly shy. 
 Heretofore it had been his wont to speak little to 
 her, to sweep an indifferent eye over her which 
 seemed to include her in the unimportant baggage 
 that went to the making of the train. Now, though 
 his manner was brusque, he spoke simply and not 
 discourteously of the hunt in the hills. He had got 
 nothing, but David had killed a black-tailed deer, 
 and possessed by the passion of the chase, was fol 
 lowing the tracks of a second. The girl flushed 
 with pleasure. 
 
 " David s a very good shot," she said compla 
 cently, not at all sure of her statement, for David 
 did not excel in the role of Nimrod. " He kept us 
 supplied with buffalo meat all the way up the 
 Platte." 
 
 232 
 
The Mountains 
 
 This was a falsehood. Daddy John and Leff had 
 been the hunters of the party. But Susan did not 
 care. Courant had never said a word in her hear 
 ing derogatory to David, but she had her suspi 
 cions that the romantic nature of her betrothed was 
 not of the stuff the mountain man respected. 
 
 " First rate," he said heartily. " I didn t know 
 it. I thought he generally rode with you or drove 
 the wagon." 
 
 To an outsider the tone would have seemed all 
 that was frank and open. But Susan read irony 
 into it. She sat her horse a little squarer and al 
 lowed the muse to still further possess her: 
 
 " David can shoot anything, an antelope even. 
 He constantly brought them in when we were on 
 the Platte. It was quite easy for him. Daddy 
 John, who s been in all sorts of wild places, says 
 he s never seen a better shot." 
 
 A slight uneasiness disturbed the proud flow of 
 her imagination at the thought that Daddy John, 
 questioned on this point, might show a tendency to 
 contradict her testimony. But it didn t matter. 
 The joy of proving David s superiority compen 
 sated. And she was setting Courant in his place 
 which had a separate and even rarer charm. 
 
 His answer showed no consciousness of the hum 
 bling process: 
 
 "You think a lot of David, don t you?" 
 
 Susan felt her color rising. This time she not 
 only sat squarer in her saddle, but raised her shoul 
 ders and chin a trifle. 
 
 233 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Yes. I am engaged to be married to him." 
 
 "When will you be married?" said the un- 
 crushable man. 
 
 She inclined her head from its haughty pose just 
 so far that she could command his face from an 
 austere eye. Words were ready to go with the 
 quelling glance, but they died unspoken. The man 
 was regarding her with grave, respectful attention. 
 It is difficult to suddenly smite a proud crest when 
 the owner of the crest shows no consciousness of its 
 elevation. 
 
 " When we get to California," she said shortly. 
 
 " Not till then ? Oh, I supposed you were going 
 to marry him at Bridger or along the road if we 
 happened to meet a missionary." 
 
 The suggestion amazed, almost appalled her. It 
 pierced through her foolish little play of pride like 
 a stab, jabbing down to her secret, sentient core. 
 Her anger grew stronger, but she told herself 
 she was talking to one of an inferior, untutored 
 order, and it was her part to hold herself in 
 hand. 
 
 " We will be married when we get to California," 
 she said, seeing to it that her profile was calm and 
 carried high. "Sometime after we get there and 
 have a home and are settled." 
 
 " That s a long time off." 
 
 " I suppose so a year or two." 
 
 " A year or two ! " he laughed with a careless 
 jovial note. " Oh, you belong to the old towns 
 back there," with a jerk of his head toward the 
 
 234 
 
The Mountains 
 
 rear. " In the wilderness we don t have such long 
 courtships." 
 
 "We? Who are we?" 
 
 " The mountain men, the trappers, the voya- 
 geurs." 
 
 " Yes," she said, her tone flashing into sudden 
 scorn, " they marry squaws." 
 
 At this the man threw back his head and burst 
 into a laugh, so deep, so rich, so exuberantly joy 
 ous, that it fell upon the plain s grim silence with 
 the incongruous contrast of sunshine on the dust 
 of a dungeon. She sat upright with her anger boil 
 ing toward expression. Before she realized it he 
 had leaned forward and laid his hand on the pom 
 mel of her saddle, his face still red and wrinkled 
 with laughter. 
 
 " That s all right, little lady, but you don t know 
 quite all about us." 
 
 " I know enough," she answered. 
 
 " Before you get to California you ll know more. 
 There s a mountain man and a voyageur now in 
 the train. Do you think Zavier and I have squaw 
 wives? " 
 
 With the knowledge that Zavier was just then 
 so far from contemplating union with a squaw, she 
 could not say the contemptuous " yes " that was 
 on her tongue. As for the strange man she shot 
 a glance at him and met the gray eyes still twink 
 ling with amusement. " Savage ! " she thought, 
 " I ve no doubt he has " and she secretly felt a 
 great desire to know. What she said was, 
 
 235 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " I ve never thought of it, and I haven t the least 
 curiosity about it." 
 
 They rode on in silence, then he said, 
 
 " What s made you mad?" 
 
 " Mad? I m not mad." 
 
 "Not at all?" 
 
 "No. Why should I be?" 
 
 " That s what I want to know. You don t like 
 me, little lady, is that it? " 
 
 " I neither like nor dislike you. I don t think of 
 you." 
 
 She immediately regretted the words. She was 
 so completely a woman, so dowered with the in 
 stinct of attraction, that she realized they were not 
 the words of indifference. 
 
 " My thoughts are full of other people," she said 
 hastily, trying to amend the mistake, and that was 
 spoiled by a rush of color that suddenly dyed her 
 face. 
 
 She looked over the horse s head, her anger now 
 turned upon herself. The man made no answer, 
 but she knew that he was watching her. They 
 paced on for a silent moment then he said : 
 
 " Why are you blushing? " 
 
 " I am not," she cried, feeling the color deep 
 ening. 
 
 " You ve told two lies," he answered. " You 
 said you weren t angry, and you re mad all through, 
 and now you say you re not blushing, and your 
 face is as pink as one of those little flat roses that 
 grow on the prairie. It s all right to get mad and 
 
 236 
 
The Mountains 
 
 blush, but I d like to know why you do it. I made 
 you mad someway or other, I don t know how. 
 Have / made you blush, too?" he leaned nearer 
 trying to look at her. " How d I do that?" 
 
 She had a sidelong glimpse of his face, quizzical, 
 astonished, full of piqued interest. She struggled 
 with the mortification of a petted child, suddenly 
 confronted by a stranger who finds its caprices only 
 ridiculous and displeasing. Under the new sting of 
 humiliation she writhed, burning to retaliate and 
 make him see the height of her pedestal. 
 
 " Yes, I have told two lies," she said. " I was 
 angry and I am blushing, and it s because I m in a 
 rage with you." 
 
 The last touch was given when she saw that his 
 surprise contained the bitter and disconcerting ele 
 ment of amusement. 
 
 " Isn t that just what I said, and you denied it? " 
 he exclaimed. " Now why are you in a rage with 
 me?" 
 
 " Because because well, if you re too stupid 
 to know why, or are just pretending, I won t ex 
 plain. I don t intend to ride with you any more. 
 Please don t try and keep up with me." 
 
 She gave her reins a shake and her horse started 
 on a brisk canter. As she sped away she listened 
 for his following hoof beats, for she made no doubt 
 he would pursue her, explain his conduct, and ask 
 her pardon. The request not to keep up with her 
 he would, of course, set aside. David would have 
 obeyed it, but this man of the mountains, at once 
 
 237 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 domineering and stupid, would take no command 
 from any woman. She kept her ear trained for the 
 rhythmic beat in the distance and decided when she 
 heard it she would increase her speed and not let 
 him catch her till she was up with the train. Then 
 she would coldly listen to his words of apology 
 and have the satisfaction of seeing him look small, 
 and probably not know what to say. 
 
 Only it didn t happen that way. He made no 
 attempt to follow. As she galloped across the 
 plain he drew his horse to a walk, his face dark and 
 frowning. Her scorn and blush had left his blood 
 hot. Her last words had fired his anger. He 
 had known her antagonism, seen it in her face 
 on the night when Bella was sick, felt its sting 
 when she turned from him to laugh with the others. 
 And it had stirred him to a secret irritation. For he 
 told himself she was only a baby, but a pretty baby, 
 on whose brown and rosy face and merry slits of 
 eyes a man might like to look. Now he gazed after 
 her swearing softly through his beard and holding 
 his horse to its slowest step. As her figure receded 
 he kept his eyes upon it. They were long-sighted 
 eyes, used to great distances, and they watched, in 
 tent and steady, to see if she would turn her head. 
 
 " Damn her," he said, when the dust of the train 
 absorbed her. " Does she think she s the only 
 woman in the world ? " 
 
 After supper that evening Susan called David 
 over to sit on the edge of her blanket. This was 
 a rare favor. He came hurrying, all alight with 
 
 238 
 
The Mountains 
 
 smiles, cast himself down beside her and twined his 
 fingers in her warm grasp. She answered his hun 
 gry glance with a sidelong look, glowingly tender, 
 and David drew the hand against his cheek. No 
 body was near except Daddy John and Courant, 
 smoking pipes on the other side of the fire. 
 
 " Do you love me ? " he whispered, that lover s 
 text for every sermon which the unloving find so 
 irksome to answer, almost to bear. 
 
 But now she smiled and whispered, 
 
 " Of course, silly David." 
 
 " Ah, Susan, you re awakening," he breathed in 
 a shaken undertone. 
 
 She again let the soft look touch his face, sweet 
 as a caress. From the other side of the fire Courant 
 saw it, and through the film of pipe smoke, watched. 
 David thought no one was looking, leaned nearer, 
 and kissed her cheek. She gave a furtive glance 
 at the man opposite, saw the watching eyes, and 
 with a quick breath like a runner, turned her face 
 to her lover and let him kiss her lips. 
 
 She looked back at the fire, quiet, unflurried, then 
 slowly raised her lids. Courant had moved his pipe 
 and the obscuring film of smoke was gone. Across 
 the red patch of embers his eyes gazed steadily at 
 her with the familiar gleam of derision. Her ten 
 derness died as a flame under a souse of water, and 
 an upwelling of feeling that was almost hatred, rose 
 in her against the strange man. 
 
 239 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE last fording of the river had been made, 
 and from the summit of the Red Buttes they looked 
 down on the long level, specked with sage and 
 flecked with alkaline incrustings, that lay between 
 them and the Sweetwater. Across the horizon the 
 Wind River mountains stretched a chain of majes 
 tic, snowy shapes. Desolation ringed them round, 
 the swimming distances fusing with the pallor 
 of ever-receding horizons, the white road losing 
 itself in the blotting of sage, red elevations ris 
 ing lonely in extending circles of stillness. The 
 air was so clear that a tiny noise broke it, crys 
 tal-sharp like the ring of a smitten glass. And 
 the sense of isolation was intensified as there was 
 no sound from anywhere, only a brooding, primor 
 dial silence that seemed to have remained unbroken 
 since the first floods drained away. 
 
 Below in the plain the white dots of an encamp 
 ment showed like a growth of mushrooms. Near 
 this, as they crawled down upon it, the enormous 
 form of Independence Rock detached itself from 
 the faded browns and grays to develop into a sleep 
 ing leviathan, lost from its herd and fallen ex 
 hausted in a sterile land. 
 
 Courant was curious about the encampment, and 
 240 
 
The Mountains 
 
 after the night halt rode forward to inspect it. 
 He returned in the small hours reporting it a 
 train of Mormons stopped for sickness. A boy 
 of fifteen had broken his leg ten days before and 
 was now in a desperate condition. The train had 
 kept camp hoping for his recovery, or for the advent 
 of help in one of the caravans that overhauled them. 
 Courant thought the boy beyond hope, but in the 
 gray of the dawn the doctor mounted, and with 
 Susan, David, and Courant, rode off with his case 
 of instruments strapped to his saddle. 
 
 The sun was well up when they reached the Mor 
 mon camp. Scattered about a spring mouth in the 
 litter of a three days halt, its flocks and herds 
 spread wide around it, it was hushed in a sullen de 
 jection. The boy was a likely lad for the new Zion, 
 and his mother, one of the wives of an elder, had 
 forgotten her stern training, and fallen to a com 
 mon despair. Long-haired men lolled in tent doors 
 cleaning their rifles, and women moved between the 
 wagons and the fires, or sat in rims of shade sewing 
 and talking low. Children were everywhere, their 
 spirits undimmed by disaster, their voices calling 
 from the sage, little, light, half-naked figures cir 
 cling and bending in games that babies played when 
 men lived in cliffs and caves. At sight of the 
 mounted figures they fled, wild as rabbits, scurry 
 ing behind tent flaps and women s skirts, to peep 
 out in bright-eyed curiosity at the strangers. 
 
 The mother met them and almost dragged the 
 doctor from his horse. She was a toil-worn woman 
 
 241 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 of middle age, a Mater Dolorosa now in her hour 
 of anguish. She led them to where the boy lay in 
 a clearing in the sage. The brush was so high that 
 a blanket had been fastened to the tops of the tall 
 est blushes, and under its roof he was stretched, 
 gray-faced and with sharpened nose. The broken 
 leg had been bound between rough splints of board, 
 and he had traveled a week in the wagons in un 
 complaining agony. Now, spent and silent, he 
 awaited death, looking at the newcomers with the 
 slow, indifferent glance of those whose ties with 
 life are loosening. But the mother, in the ruthless 
 unbearableness of her pain, wanted something done, 
 anything. An Irishman in the company, who had 
 served six months as a helper in a New York 
 hospital, had told her he could amputate the leg, 
 as he had seen the operation performed. Now 
 she clamored for a doctor a real doctor to do 
 it. 
 
 He tried to persuade her of its uselessness, cov 
 ering the leg in which gangrene was far advanced, 
 and telling her death was at hand. But her despair 
 insisted on action, her own suffering made her re 
 morseless. The clamor of their arguing voices sur 
 rounded the moribund figure lying motionless with 
 listless eyes as though already half initiated into 
 new and profound mysteries. Once, his mother s 
 voice rising strident, he asked her to let him rest in 
 peace, he had suffered enough. 
 
 Unable to endure the scene Susan left them and 
 joined a woman whom she found sewing in the 
 
 242 
 
The Mountains 
 
 shade of a wagon. The woman seemed unmoved, 
 chatting as she stitched on the happenings of the 
 journey and the accident that had caused the delay. 
 Here presently David joined them, his face pallid, 
 his lips loose and quivering. Nothing could be 
 done with the mother. She had insisted on the 
 operation, and the Irishman had undertaken it. 
 The doctor and Courant would stay by them ; Cou- 
 rant was to hold the leg. He, David, couldn t stand 
 it. It was like an execution barbarous with a 
 hunting knife and a saw. 
 
 In a half hour Courant came walking round the 
 back of the wagon and threw himself on the ground 
 beside them. The leg had been amputated and the 
 boy was dying. Intense silence fell on the camp, 
 only the laughter and voices of the children rising 
 clear on the thin air. Then a wail arose, a pene 
 trating, fearful cry, Rachel mourning for her child. 
 Courant raised his head and said with an unemo 
 tional air of relief, " he s dead." The Mormon 
 woman dropped her sewing, gave a low exclama 
 tion, and sat listening with bitten lip. Susan leaned 
 against the wagon wheel full of horror and feeling 
 sick, her eyes on David, who, drawing up his knees, 
 pressed his forehead on them. He rested thus, his 
 face hidden, while the keening of the mother, the 
 cries of an animal in pain, fell through the hot 
 brightness of the morning like the dropping of 
 agonized tears down blooming cheeks. 
 
 When they ceased and the quiet had resettled, the 
 Mormon woman rose and put away her sewing. 
 
 243 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " I don t seem to have no more ambition to 
 work," she said and walked away. 
 
 " She s another of his wives," said Courant. 
 
 " She and the woman whose son is dead, wives 
 of the same man ? " 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " And there s a younger one, about sixteen. She 
 was up there helping with water and rags a 
 strong, nervy girl. She had whisky all ready in a 
 tin cup. to give to the mother. When she saw it was 
 all up with him she went round collecting stones to 
 cover the grave with and keep the wolves off." 
 
 "Before he was dead?" 
 
 :t Yes. They ve got to move on at once. They 
 can t lose any more time. When we were arguing 
 with that half-crazy woman, I could see the girl 
 picking up the stones and wiping off her tears with 
 her apron." 
 
 " What dreadful people," she breathed. 
 
 " Dreadful ? What s dreadful in having some 
 sense? Too bad about the boy. He set his teeth 
 and didn t make a sound when that fool of an Irish 
 man was sawing at him as if he was a log. I 
 never saw such grit. If they ve got many like him 
 they ll be a great people some day." 
 
 David gave a gasping moan, his arms relaxed, 
 and he fell limply backward on the ground. They 
 sprang toward him and Susan seeing his peaked 
 white face, the eyes half open, thought he was dead, 
 and dropped beside him, a crouched and staring 
 shape of terror. 
 
 244 
 
The Mountains 
 
 "What is it? What s the matter?" she cried, 
 raising wild eyes to Courant. 
 
 " Nothing at all," said that unmoved person, 
 squatting down on his heels and thrusting his hand 
 inside David s shirt. " Only a faint. Why, where s 
 your nerve? You re nearly as white as he is." 
 
 His eyes were full of curiosity as he looked 
 across the outstretched figure at her frightened 
 face. 
 
 " I I thought for a moment he was dead," she 
 faltered. 
 
 " And so you were going to follow his example 
 and die on his body ? " He got up. " Stay here and 
 I ll go and get some water." As he turned away 
 he paused and, looking back, said, " Why didn t 
 you do the fainting? That s more your business 
 than his," gave a sardonic grin and walked off. 
 
 Susan raised the unconscious head and held it to 
 her bosom. Alone, with no eye looking, she pressed 
 her lips on his forehead. Courant s callousness 
 roused a fierce, perverse tenderness in her. He 
 might sneer at David s lack of force, but she under 
 stood. She crooned over him, moved his hair back 
 with caressing fingers, pressing him against her 
 self as if the strength of her hold would assure her 
 of the love she did not feel and wanted to believe 
 in. Her arms were close round him, his head on 
 her shoulder when Courant came back with a dip 
 per of water. 
 
 " Get away," he said, standing over them. " I 
 don t want to wet you." 
 
 245 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 But she curled round her lover, her body like a 
 protecting shield between him and danger. 
 
 " Leave go of him," said Courant impatiently. 
 " Do you think I m going to hurt him with a cup 
 full of water?" 
 
 " Let me alone," she answered sullenly. " He ll 
 be all right in a minute." 
 
 You can be any kind of a fool you like, but 
 you can t make me one. Come, move." He set the 
 dipper on the ground. 
 
 He leaned gently over her and grasped her 
 wrists. The power of his grip amazed her ; she was 
 like a mouse in the paws of a lion. Her puny 
 strength matched against his was conquered in a 
 moment of futile resistance. 
 
 " Don t be a fool," he said softly in her ear. 
 " Don t act like a silly baby," and the iron hands 
 unclasped her arms and drew her back till David s 
 head slid from her knees to the ground. 
 
 " There ! We re all right now." He let her go, 
 snatched up the dipper and sent a splash of water 
 into David s face. 
 
 " Poor David," he said. " This ll spoil his good 
 looks." 
 
 " Stop," she almost screamed. " I d rather have 
 him lie in a faint for an hour than have you speak 
 so about him." 
 
 Without noticing her, he threw another jet of 
 water and David stirred, drew a deep breath 
 and opened his eyes. They touched the sky, the 
 wagon, the nearby sage, and then Susan s face. 
 
 246 
 
The Mountains 
 
 There they rested, recognition slowly suffusing 
 them. 
 
 " What happened? " he said in a husky voice. 
 
 " Fainted, that was all," said Courant. 
 
 David closed his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember now." 
 
 Susan bent over him. 
 
 " You frightened me so! " 
 
 " I m sorry, Missy, but it made me sick the leg 
 and those awful cries." 
 
 Courant emptied the dipper on the ground. 
 
 " I ll see if they ve got any whisky. You ll have 
 to get your grit up, David, for the rest of the trail," 
 and he left them. 
 
 A half hour later the cry of " Roll out " sounded, 
 and the Mormon camp broke. The rattling of chains 
 and ox yokes, and the cursing of men ruptured the 
 stillness that had gathered round the moment of 
 death. Life was a matter of more immediate im 
 portance. Tents were struck, the pots and pans 
 thrown into the wagons, the children collected, the 
 stock driven in. With ponderous strain and move 
 ment the great train formed and took the road. As 
 it drew away the circle of its bivouac showed in 
 trampled sage and grass bitten to the roots. In the 
 clearing where the boy had lain was the earth of a 
 new-made grave, a piece of wood thrust in at the 
 head, the mound covered with stones gathered by the 
 elder s young wife. The mountain tragedy was over. 
 By the fire that evening Zavier employed himself 
 scraping the dust from a buffalo skull. He wiped 
 
 247 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 the frontal bone clean and white, and when asked 
 why he was expending so much care on a useless 
 relic, shrugged his shoulders and laughed. Then he 
 explained with a jerk of his head in the direction 
 of the vanished Mormons that they used buffalo 
 skulls to write their letters on. In the great emi 
 gration of the year before their route was marked 
 by the skulls set up in prominent places and bear 
 ing messages for the trains behind. 
 
 " And are you going to write a letter on that 
 one ? " Susan asked. 
 
 " No ; I do not write English good, and French 
 very bad. But maybe some one else will use it," 
 and he laughed boyishly and laid the skull by the 
 fire. 
 
 In the depth of the night Susan was wakened 
 by a hand on her shoulder that shook her from a 
 dreamless sleep. She started up with a cry and felt 
 another hand, small and cold on her mouth, and 
 heard a whispering voice at her ear, 
 
 " Hush. Don t make a sound. It s Lucy." 
 
 She gripped at the figure, felt the clasp of trem 
 bling arms, and a cheek chill with the night cold, 
 against her own. 
 
 " Lucy," she gasped, " what s the matter? " 
 
 " I want to speak to you. Be quiet." 
 
 " Has anything happened ? Is some one sick ? " 
 
 " No. It s not that. I m going." 
 
 " Going? Going where " She was not yet fully 
 awake, filaments of sleep clouded her clearness. 
 
 " Into the mountains with Zavier." 
 
The Mountains 
 
 The filaments were brushed away in a rough 
 sweep. But her brain refused to accept the mes 
 sage. In the dark, she clutched at the body 
 against her, felt the beat of pulses distinct through 
 the clothing, the trembling of the hands going 
 down through her flesh and muscle to her heart. 
 
 " What do you mean ? Where ? " 
 
 " I don t know, into the mountains somewhere." 
 
 "WithZavier? Why?" 
 
 " Because he wants me to and I must." 
 
 " But Oh, Lucy " she struggled from the 
 blanket to her knees" Oh, Lucy! " 
 
 Her voice rose high and the hand felt for her 
 mouth. She caught it and held it off, her head 
 bent back straining her eyes for the face above 
 her. 
 
 "Running away with him?" 
 
 Yes. I couldn t go without telling you. I had 
 to say good-by." 
 
 " Going with him forever, not coming back ? " 
 
 "No, never!" 
 
 " But where where to? " 
 
 " I don t know. In the mountains somewhere. 
 There s a trail here he knows. It branches off to 
 the north and goes up to the places where they get 
 the skins." 
 
 " I don t believe you." 
 
 " It s true. The horses are waiting outside." 
 
 " Lucy, you ve gone crazy. Don t don t " 
 She clung to the hand she held, grasped upward at 
 the arm. Both were cold and resistant. Her plead- 
 
 249 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ing struck back from the hardness of the mind made 
 up, the irrevocable resolution. 
 
 " But he s not your husband." 
 
 Even at this moment, keyed to an act of lawless 
 ness that in the sheltered past would have been as 
 impossible as murder, the great tradition held fast. 
 Lucy s answer came with a sudden flare of shocked 
 repudiation : 
 
 " He will be. There are priests and missionaries 
 up there among the Indians. The first one we meet 
 will marry us. It s all right. He loves me and he s 
 promised." 
 
 Nothing of her wild courage came to the other 
 girl, no echo of the call of life and passion. It was 
 a dark and dreadful fate, and Susan strained her 
 closer as if to hold her back from it. 
 
 " It s been fixed for two days. We had to wait 
 till we got here and crossed the trail. We re going 
 right into the mountains and it s summer, and 
 there s plenty of game." 
 
 "The Indians?" 
 
 " We ll be in the Crow s country, and Zavier s 
 mother was a Crow." 
 
 The words proved the completeness of her es 
 trangement the acceptance of the alien race as no 
 longer alien. 
 
 " Oh, Lucy, don t, don t. Wait till we get to 
 Fort Bridger and marry him there. Make him 
 come to California with us. Don t do such an aw 
 ful thing run away into the mountains with a 
 half-breed." 
 
 250 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " I don t care what he is. There s no one else 
 for me but him. He s my man and I ll go with him 
 wherever he wants to take me." 
 
 " Wait and tell Bella." 
 
 " She wouldn t let me go. There d be nothing 
 but fighting and misery. When you ve made up 
 your mind to do a thing you ve got to do it yourself, 
 not go by what other people think." 
 
 There was a silence and they hung upon each 
 other. Then Lucy put her face against her friend s 
 and kissed her. 
 
 " Good-by," she whispered, loosening her arms. 
 
 " I can t let you go. I won t. It ll kill you." 
 
 " I must. He s waiting." 
 
 She struggled from the embrace, pulling away 
 the clasping hands noiselessly, but with purpose. 
 There was something of coldness, of the semblance 
 but not the soul of affection, in the determined 
 softness with which she sought release. She 
 stole to the tent flap and peered out. Her 
 thoughts were already outside, flown to the shape 
 hiding in the shadow like birds darting from a 
 cage. She did not turn at Susan s strangled 
 whisper. 
 
 " We ll never see you again, Bella, nor I, nor 
 the children." 
 
 " Perhaps, some day, in California. He s there. 
 I must go." 
 
 "Lucy!" She leaped after her. In the tent 
 opening they once more clasped each other. 
 
 " I can t let you go," Susan moaned. 
 251 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 But Lucy s kiss had not the fervor of hers. The 
 strength of her being had gone to her lover. 
 Friendship, home, family, all other claims hung 
 loose about her, the broken trappings of her 
 maidenhood. The great primal tie had claimed 
 her. 
 
 A black figure against the pallor of the night, 
 she turned for a last word. 
 
 "If you tell them and they come after us, 
 Zavier ll fight them. He ll fight if he kills them. 
 They ll know to-morrow. Good-by," and she was 
 gone, a noiseless shadow, flitting toward the denser 
 group of shadow where her heart was. 
 
 Susan, crouched at the tent flap, saw her melt 
 into the waiting blackness, and then heard the muf 
 fled hoof beats growing thinner and fainter as the 
 silence absorbed them. 
 
 She sat thus till the dawn came. Once or twice 
 she started up to give the alarm, but fell back. Un 
 der the tumult of her thoughts a conviction lay that 
 Lucy must follow her own wild way. In the welter 
 of confused emotion it was all that was clear. It may 
 have come from that sense of Lucy s detachment, 
 that consciousness of cords and feelers stretching 
 out to a new life which commanded and held closer 
 than the old had ever done. All she knew was that 
 Lucy was obeying some instinct that was law to 
 her, that was true for her to obey. If they caught 
 her and brought her back it would twist her life 
 into a broken form. Was it love ? Was that what 
 had drawn her over all obstacles, away from the 
 
 252 
 
The Mountains 
 
 established joys and comforts, drawn her like a 
 magnet to such a desperate course? With wide 
 eyes the girl saw the whiteness of the dawn, and sat 
 gripped in her resolution of silence, fearful at the 
 thought of what that mighty force must be. 
 
 253 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE cross, drowsy bustle of the camp s uprising 
 was suddenly broken by a piercing cry. It came 
 from Bella, who, standing by the mess chest, was 
 revealed to her astonished companions with a buf 
 falo skull in her hands, uttering as dolorous sounds 
 as ever were emitted by that animal in the agony 
 of its death throes. Her words were unintelligible, 
 but on taking the skull from her the cause of her 
 disturbance was made known. Upon the frontal 
 bone were a few words scrawled in pencil Lucy s 
 farewell. 
 
 It came upon them like a thunderbolt, and they 
 took it in different ways amazed silence, curses, 
 angry questionings. The skull passed from hand 
 to hand till Courant dropped it and kicked it to one 
 side where Left went after it, lifted it by the horns 
 and stood spelling out the words with a grin. The 
 children, at first rejoicing in the new excitement, 
 soon recognized the note of dole, lifted up their 
 voices and filled the air with cries for Lucy upon 
 whom, in times of tribulation, they had come to 
 look. Glen broke into savage anger, called down 
 curses on his sister-in-law, applying to her certain 
 terms of a scriptural simplicity till the doctor asked 
 him to go afield and vent his passion in the seclu- 
 
 254 
 
The Mountains 
 
 sion of the sage. Bella, sunk in heavy, uncorseted 
 despair upon the mess chest, gripped her children 
 to her knees as though an army of ravishers men 
 aced the house of McMurdo. Her words flowed 
 with her tears, both together in a choked and bitter 
 flood of wrath, sorrow, and self-pity. She be 
 wailed Lucy, not only as a vanished relative but as 
 a necessary member of the McMurdo escort. And 
 doubts of Zavier s lawful intentions shook her from 
 the abandon of her grief, to furious invective 
 against the red man of all places and tribes where- 
 so er he be. 
 
 " The dirty French-Indian," she wailed, " to take 
 her off where he knows fast enough there s no way 
 of marrying her." 
 
 Courant tried to console her by telling her there 
 was a good chance of the fugitives meeting a Cath 
 olic missionary, but that, instead of assuaging, in 
 tensified her woe, 
 
 " A Catholic! " she cried, raising a drenched face 
 from her apron. " And ain t that just as bad ? My 
 parents and hers were decent Presbyterians. Does 
 their daughter have to stand up before a priest? 
 Why don t you say a Mormon elder at once?" 
 
 The McMurdos condition of grief and rage was 
 so violent, that the doctor suggested following the 
 runaways. Bella rose in glad assent to this. Catch 
 Lucy and bring her back! She was cheered at the 
 thought and shouted it to Glen, who had gone off 
 .in a sulky passion and stood by his oxen swearing 
 to himself and kicking their hoofs. The men talked 
 
 255 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 it over. They could lay off for a day and Courant, 
 who knew the trails, could lead the search party. 
 He was much against it, and Daddy John was with 
 him. Too much time had been lost. Zavier was 
 an experienced mountain man and his horses were 
 good. Besides, what was the use of bringing them 
 back ? They d chosen each other, they d taken their 
 own course. It wasn t such a bad lookout for Lucy. 
 Zavier was a first-rate fellow and he d treat her 
 well. What was the sense of interfering? Bella 
 was furious, and shouted, 
 
 " The sense is to get her back here and keep her 
 where it s civilized, since she don t seem to know 
 enough to keep there herself." 
 
 Daddy John, who had been listening, flashed 
 out: 
 
 " It don t seem to me so d d civilized to half 
 kill her with work." 
 
 Then Bella wept and Glen swore, and the men 
 had pulled up the picket stakes, cinched their girths 
 tight and started off in Indian file toward the dis 
 tant spurs of the hills. 
 
 Susan had said little. If it did not violate her 
 conscience to keep silent, it did to pretend a sur 
 prise that was not hers. She sat at her tent door 
 most of the day watching for the return of the 
 search party. She was getting supper when she 
 looked up and saw them, gave a low exclamation, 
 and ran to the outskirts of the camp. Here she 
 stood watching, heard Daddy John lounge up be 
 hind her and, turning, caught his hand. 
 
 256 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " Is she there ? " she said in an eager whisper. 
 " I can t see her/ 
 
 They both scrutinized the figures, small as toy 
 horsemen, loping over the leathern distance. 
 
 " Ain t there only four ? " he said. " You can 
 see better n I." 
 
 " Yes," she cried. " Four. I can count them. 
 She isn t there. Oh, I m glad ! " 
 
 The old man looked surprised: 
 
 "Glad! Why?" 
 
 " I don t know. Oh, don t tell, Daddy John, but 
 I wanted her to get away. I don t know why, I 
 suppose it s very wicked. But but it seemed so 
 so as if she was a slave so unfair to drag her 
 away from her own life and make her lead some 
 one else s." 
 
 Lucy gone, lost as by shipwreck in the gulfs and 
 windings of the mountains, was a fact that had to 
 be accepted. The train moved on, for on the Emi 
 grant Trail there was no leisure for fruitless re 
 pining. Only immediate happenings could fill the 
 minds of wanderers struggling across the world, 
 their energies matched against its primal forces. 
 
 The way was growing harder, the animals less 
 vigorous, and the strain of the journey beginning 
 to tell. Tempers that had been easy in the long, 
 bright days on the Platte now were showing sharp 
 edges. Leff had become surly, Glen quarrelsome. 
 One evening Susan saw him strike Bob a blow so 
 savage that the child fell screaming in pain and 
 terror. Bella rushed to her first born, gathered him 
 
 257 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 in her arms and turned a crimsoned face of battle 
 on her spouse. For a moment the storm was furi 
 ous, and Susan was afraid that the blow would be 
 repeated on the mother. She tried to pacify the 
 enraged woman, and David and the doctor coaxed 
 Glen away. The child had struck against an edge 
 of stone and was bleeding, and after supper the 
 father rocked him to sleep crooning over him in 
 remorseful tenderness. But the incident left an 
 ugly impression. 
 
 They were passing up the Sweetwater, a moun 
 tain stream of busy importance with a current that 
 was snow-cold and snow-pure. It wound its hur 
 rying way between rock walls, and then relaxed in 
 lazy coils through meadows where the grass was 
 thick and juicy and the air musical with the cool 
 sound of water. These were the pleasant places. 
 Where the rocks crowded close about the stream 
 the road left it and sought the plain again, splind- 
 ing away into the arid desolation. The wheels 
 ground over myriads of crickets that caked in the 
 loose soil. There was nothing to break the eye- 
 sweep but the cones of rusted buttes, the nearer 
 ones showing every crease and shadow thread, the 
 farther floating detached in the faint, opal shimmer 
 of the mirage. 
 
 One afternoon, in a deep-grassed meadow they 
 came upon an encamped train outflung on the 
 stream bank in wearied disarray. It was from 
 Ohio, bound for California, and Glen and Bella de 
 cided to join it. This was what the doctor s party 
 
 258 
 
The Mountains 
 
 had been hoping for, as the slow pace of the Mc- 
 Murdo oxen held them back. Bella was well and 
 the doctor could conscientiously leave her. It was 
 time to part. 
 
 Early in the morning the two trains rolled out 
 under a heavy drizzle. Rain fell within the wagons 
 even as it did without, Susan weeping among the 
 sacks behind Daddy John and Bella with her chil 
 dren whimpering against her sides, stopping in her 
 knitting to wipe away her tears with the long strip 
 of stocking leg. They were to meet again in Cali 
 fornia that everyone said. But California looked a 
 long way off, and now. For some reason or other 
 it did not gleam so magically bright at the limit 
 of their vision. Their minds had grown tired of 
 dwelling on it and sank down wearied to each day s 
 hard setting. 
 
 By midday the doctor s wagons had left the 
 others far behind. The rain fell ceaselessly, a cold 
 and penetrating flood. The crowding crowns and 
 crests about them loomed through the blur, pale 
 and slowly whitening with falling snow. Beyond, 
 the greater masses veiled themselves in cloud. The 
 road skirted the river, creeping through a series of 
 gorges with black walls down which the moisture 
 spread in a ripple-edged, glassy glaze. Twice 
 masses of fallen rock blocked the way, and the 
 horses had to be unhitched and the wagons dragged 
 into the stream bed. It was heavy work, and when 
 they camped, ferociously hungry, no fire could be 
 kindled, and there was nothing for it but to eat the 
 
 259 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 hard-tack damp and bacon raw. Leff cursed and 
 threw his piece away. He had been unusually mo 
 rose and ill-humored for the last week, and once, 
 when obliged to do sentry duty on a wet night, had 
 flown into a passion and threatened to leave them. 
 No one would have been sorry. Under the stress 
 of mountain faring, the farm boy was not develop 
 ing well. 
 
 In the afternoon the rain increased to a deluge. 
 The steady beat on the wagon hoods filled the in 
 terior with a hollow drumming vibration. Against 
 the dimmed perspective the flanks of the horses un 
 dulated under a sleek coating of moisture. Back 
 of the train, the horsemen rode, heads lowered 
 against the vicious slant, shadowy forms like 
 drooping, dispirited ghosts. The road wound 
 into a gorge where the walls rose straight, the 
 black and silver of the river curbed between 
 them in glossy outspreadings and crisp, bubbling 
 flashes. The place was full of echoes, held there 
 and buffeted from wall to wall as if flying back and 
 forth in a distracted effort to escape. 
 
 David was driving in the lead, Susan under 
 cover beside him. The morning s work had ex 
 hausted him and he felt ill, so she had promised to 
 stay with him. She sat close at his back, a blanket 
 drawn over her knees against the intruding wet, 
 peering out at the darkling cleft. The wagon, 
 creaking like a ship at sea, threw her this way and 
 that. Once, as she struck against him he heard 
 her low laugh at his ear. 
 
 260 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " It s like a little earthquake," she said, steady 
 ing herself with a grab at his coat. 
 
 " There must have been a big earthquake here 
 once/ he answered. " Look at the rocks. They ve 
 been split as if a great force came up from under 
 neath and burst them open." 
 
 She craned her head forward to see and he 
 looked back at her. Her face was close to his 
 shoulder, glowing with the dampness. It shone 
 against the shadowed interior rosily fresh as a 
 child s. Her eyes, clear black and white, were the 
 one sharp note in its downy softness. He could 
 see the clean upspringing of her dark lashes, the 
 little whisps of hair against her temple and ear. 
 He could not look away from her. The grinding 
 and slipping of the horses hoofs did not reach his 
 senses, held captive in a passionate observation. 
 
 You don t curl your hair any more ? " he said, 
 and the intimacy of this personal query added to his 
 entrancement. 
 
 She glanced quickly at him and broke into 
 shamefaced laughter. A sudden lurch threw her 
 against him and she clutched his arm. 
 
 " Oh, David," she said, gurgling at the memory. 
 " Did you know that ? I curled it for three nights 
 on bits of paper that I tore out of the back of 
 father s diary. And now I don t care what it looks 
 like. See how I ve changed ! " 
 
 And she leaned against him, holding the arm and 
 laughing at her past frivolity. His eyes slid back 
 to the horses, but he did not see them. With a 
 
 261 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 slight, listening smile he gave himself up to the in 
 toxication of the moment, feeling the pressure of 
 her body soft against his arm. 
 
 The reins which hung loose suddenly jerked 
 through his fingers and the mare fell crashing to 
 her knees. She was down before he knew it, head 
 forward, and then with a quivering subsidence, 
 prone in a tangle of torn harness. He urged her 
 up with a jerked rein, she made a struggling effort, 
 but fell back, and a groan, singularly human in its 
 pain, burst from her. The wagon behind pounded 
 almost on them, the mules crowding against each 
 other, Daddy John s voice rising in a cracked hail. 
 Courant and Leff came up from the rear, splashing 
 through the river. 
 
 " What s happened ? " said the former. 
 
 " It s Bess," said David, his face pallid with con 
 trition. " I hope to God she s not hurt. Up, Bess, 
 there ! Up on your feet, old girl ! " 
 
 At her master s voice the docile brute made a 
 second attempt to rise, but again sank down, her 
 sides panting, her head strained up. 
 
 Leff leaped off his horse. 
 
 " Damn her, I ll make her get up/ he said, and 
 gave her a violent kick on the ribs. The mare 
 rolled an agonized eye upon him, and with a sud 
 den burst of fury he rained kick after kick on her 
 face. 
 
 David gave a strange sound, a pinched, thin cry, 
 as if wrung from him by unbearable suffering, and 
 leaped over the wheel. He struck Leff on the chest, 
 
 262 
 
The Mountains 
 
 a blow so savage and unexpected that it sent him 
 staggering back into the stream, where, his feet 
 slipping among the stones, he fell sprawling. 
 
 " Do that again and I ll kill you," David cried, 
 and moving to the horse stood over it with legs 
 spread and fists clinched for battle. 
 
 Leff scrambled to his knees, his face ominous, 
 and Courant, who had been looking at the mare, 
 apparently indifferent to the quarrel, now slipped 
 to the ground. 
 
 " Let that hound alone/ he said. " I m afraid 
 it s all up with Bess." 
 
 David turned and knelt beside her, touching her 
 with hands so tremulous he could hardly direct 
 them. His breath came in gasps, he was shaken 
 and blinded with passion, high-pitched and nerve- 
 wracking as a woman s. 
 
 Leff rose, volleying curses. 
 
 " Here you," Courant shifted a hard eye on him, 
 " get out. Get on your horse and go," then turn 
 ing to Bess, " Damn bad luck if we got to lose her." 
 
 Leff stood irresolute, his curses dying away in 
 smothered mutterings. His skin was gray, a trickle 
 of blood ran down from a cut on his neck, his face 
 showed an animal ferocity, dark and lowering as 
 the front of an angry bull. With a slow lift of his 
 head he looked at Susan, who was still in the 
 wagon. She met the glance stonily with eyes in 
 which her dislike had suddenly crystallized into 
 open abhorrence. She gave a jerk of her head 
 toward his horse, a movement of contemptuous 
 
 263 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 command, and obeying it he mounted and rode 
 away. 
 
 She joined the two men, who were examining 
 Bess, now stretched motionless and uttering pitiful 
 sounds. David had the head, bruised and torn by 
 LefFs kicks, on his knees, while Courant with ex 
 pert hands searched for her hurt. It was not hard 
 to find. The left foreleg had been broken at the 
 knee, splinters of bone penetrating the skin. There 
 was nothing to do with Bess but shoot her, and 
 Courant went back for his pistols, while Daddy 
 John and the doctor came up to listen with 
 long faces. It was the first serious loss of the 
 trip. 
 
 Later in the day the rain stopped and the clouds 
 that had sagged low with its weight, began to dis 
 solve into vaporous lightness, float airily and dis 
 perse. The train debouched from the gorge into 
 one of the circular meadows and here found Left 
 lying on a high spot on the ground, his horse crop 
 ping the grass near him. He made no remark, and 
 as they came to a halt and began the work of camp 
 ing, he continued to lie without moving or speak 
 ing, his eyes fixed on the mountains. 
 
 These slowly unveiled themselves, showing in 
 patches of brilliant color through rents in the mist 
 which drew off lingeringly, leaving filaments 
 caught delicately in the heights. The sky broke 
 blue behind them, and clarified by the rain, the 
 shadows brimmed high in the clefts. The low sun 
 shot its beams across the meadow, leaving it un- 
 
 264 
 
The Mountains 
 
 touched, and glittering on the remote, immaculate 
 summits. 
 
 In exhaustion the camp lay resting, tents un- 
 pitched, the animals nosing over the grass. David 
 and Daddy John slept a dead sleep rolled in blan 
 kets on the teeming ground. Courant built a fire, 
 called Susan to it, and bade her dry her wet skirts. 
 He lay near it, not noticing her, his glance ranging 
 the distance. The line of whitened peaks began to 
 take on a golden glaze, and the shadows in the 
 hollow mounted till the camp seemed to be at the 
 bottom of a lake in which a tide of some gray, 
 transparent essence was rising. 
 
 " That s where Lucy s gone," he said suddenly 
 without moving his head. 
 
 Susan s eyes followed his. 
 
 " Poor Lucy ! " she sighed. 
 
 "Why is she poor?" 
 
 " Why ? " indignantly. " What a question ! " 
 
 " But why do you call her poor ? Is it because 
 she has no money ? " 
 
 " Of course not. Who was thinking of money ? 
 I meant she was unfortunate to run away to such a 
 life with a half-breed." 
 
 " She s gone out into the mountains with her 
 lover. I don t call that unfortunate, and I ll bet you 
 she doesn t. She was brave enough to take her life 
 when it came. She was a gallant girl, that Lucy." 
 
 " I suppose that s what you d think." 
 
 And in scorn of more words she gave her atten 
 tion to her skirt, spreading its sodden folds to the 
 
 265 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 heat. Courant clasped his hands behind his head 
 and gazed ruminantly before him. 
 
 " Do you know how she ll live, that poor 
 Lucy ?" 
 
 " Like a squaw." 
 
 He was unshaken by her contempt, did not seem 
 to notice it. 
 
 " They ll go by ways that wind deep into the 
 mountains. It s wonderful there, peaks and peaks 
 and peaks, and down the gorges and up over the 
 passes, the trails go that only the trappers and the 
 Indians know. They ll pass lakes as smooth as 
 glass and green as this hollow we re in. You never 
 saw such lakes, everything s reflected in them like 
 a mirror. And after a while they ll come to the 
 beaver streams and Zavier ll set his traps. At night 
 they ll sleep under the stars, great big stars. Did 
 you ever see the stars at night through the branch 
 es of the pine trees? They look like lanterns. It ll 
 seem to be silent, but the night will be full of 
 noises, the sounds that come in those wild places, 
 a wolf howling in the distance, the little secret bub 
 bling of the spring, and the wind in the pine trees. 
 That s a sad sound, as if it was coming through 
 a dream." 
 
 The girl stirred and forgot her skirt. The sol 
 emn beauty that his words conjured up called her 
 from her petty irritation. She looked at the moun 
 tains, her face full of a wistful disquiet. 
 
 " And it ll seem as if there was no one else but 
 them in the world. Two lovers and no one else, 
 
 266 
 
The Mountains 
 
 between the sunrise and the sunset. There won t 
 be anybody else to matter, or to look for, or to think 
 about. Just those two alone, all day by the river 
 where the traps are set and at night under the 
 blanket in the dark of the trees." 
 
 Susan said nothing. For some inexplicable rea 
 son her spirits sank and she felt a bleak loneliness. 
 A sense of insignificance fell heavily upon her, bear 
 ing down her high sufficiency, making her feel that 
 she was a purposeless spectator on the outside of 
 life. She struggled against it, struggled back to 
 ward cheer and self-assertion, and in her effort to 
 get back, found herself seeking news of less pic 
 turesque moments in Lucy s lot. 
 
 " But the winter," she said in a small voice like 
 a pleading child s, " the winter won t be like that ? " 
 
 " When the winter comes Zavier ll build a hut. 
 He ll make it out of small trees, long and thin, 
 bent round with their tops stuck in the ground, 
 and he ll thatch it with skins, and spread buffalo 
 robes on the floor of it. There ll be a hole for the 
 smoke to get out, and near the door ll be his grain 
 ing block and stretching frame to cure his skins. 
 On a tree nearby he ll hang his traps, and there ll 
 be a brace of elkhorns fastened to another tree that 
 they ll use for a rack to hang the meat and maybe 
 their clothes on. They ll have some coffee and 
 sugar and salt. That s all they ll need in the way 
 of eatables, for he ll shoot all the game they want, 
 les aliments du pays, as the fur men call it. It ll 
 be cold, and maybe for months they ll see no one. 
 
 267 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 But what will it matter? They ll have each other, 
 snug and warm way off there in the heart of the 
 mountains, with the big peaks looking down at 
 them. Isn t that a good life for a man and a 
 woman ? " 
 
 She did not answer, but sat as if contemplating 
 the picture with fixed, far-seeing gaze. He raised 
 himself on his elbow and looked at her. 
 
 "Could you do that, little lady?" he said. 
 
 " No," she answered, beating down rebellious in 
 ner whisperings. 
 
 " Wouldn t you follow David that way? " 
 
 " David wouldn t ask it. No civilized man 
 would." 
 
 " No, David wouldn t," he said quietly. 
 
 She glanced quickly at him. Did she hear the 
 note of mockery which she sensed whenever he 
 alluded to her lover? She was ready at once to 
 take up arms for David, but the face opposite was 
 devoid of any expression save an intent, expectant 
 interest. She dropped her eyes to her dress, per 
 turbed by the closeness of her escape from a foolish 
 exhibition which would have made her ridiculous. 
 She always felt with Courant that she would be 
 swept aside as a trivial thing if she lost her dignity. 
 He watched her and she grew nervous, plucking at 
 her skirt with an uncertain hand. 
 
 " I wonder if you could? " he said after a pause. 
 
 " Of course not," she snapped. 
 
 " Aren t you enough of a woman? " 
 
 " I m not enough of a fool." 
 268 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " Aren t all women in love fools anyway for a 
 while?" 
 
 She made no answer, and presently he said, his 
 voice lowered : 
 
 " Not enough of a woman to know how to love 
 a man. Doesn t even for a moment understand it. 
 It s poor Susan. " 
 
 Fury seized her, for she had not guessed where 
 he was leading her, and now saw herself not only 
 shorn of her dignity but shorn of her woman s pre 
 rogative of being able to experience a mad and un 
 reasonable passion. 
 
 " You re a liar," she burst out before she knew 
 what words were coming. 
 
 " Then you think you could ? " he asked without 
 the slightest show of surprise at her violence, ap 
 parently only curious. 
 
 " Don t I ? " she cried, ready to proclaim that she 
 would follow David to destruction and death. 
 
 " I don t know," he answered. " I ve been won 
 dering." 
 
 " What business have you got to wonder about 
 me?" 
 
 " None but," he leaned toward her, " you can t 
 stop me doing that, little lady; that s one of the 
 things you can t control." 
 
 For a moment they eyed each other, glance held 
 glance in a smoldering challenge. The quizzical 
 patronage had gone from his, the gleam of a sub 
 dued defiance taken its place. Hers was defiant 
 too, but it was openly so, a surface thing that she 
 
 269 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 had raised like a defense in haste and tremor to 
 hide weakness. 
 
 David moved in his blanket, yawned and threw 
 out a languid hand. She leaped to her feet and ran 
 to him. 
 
 " David, are you better ? " she cried, kneeling be 
 side him. " Are you better, dear ? " 
 
 He opened his eyes, blinking, saw the beloved 
 face, and smiled. 
 
 "All right," he said sleepily. "I was only 
 tired." 
 
 She lifted one of the limp hands and pressed it 
 to her cheek. 
 
 " I ve been so worried about you," she purred. 
 " I couldn t put my mind on anything else. I 
 haven t known what I was saying, I ve been so 
 worried." 
 
 270 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SOUTH PASS, that had been pictured in their 
 thoughts as a cleft between snow-crusted summits, 
 was a wide, gentle incline with low hills sweeping 
 tip on either side. From here the waters ran west 
 ward, following the sun. Pacific Spring seeped 
 into the ground in an oasis of green whence whis 
 pering threads felt their way into the tawny silence 
 and subdued by its weight lost heart and sank into 
 the unrecording earth. 
 
 Here they found the New York Company and 
 a Mormon train filling up their water casks and 
 growing neighborly in talk of Subletted cut off and 
 the route by the Big and Little Sandy. A man was 
 a man even if he was a Mormon, and in a country 
 so intent on its own destiny, so rapt in the calm 
 of contemplation, he took his place as a human 
 unit on whom his creed hung like an unnoticed tag. 
 
 They filled their casks, visited in the two camps, 
 and then moved on. Plain opened out of plain in 
 endless rotation, rings of sun-scorched earth 
 brushed up about the horizon in a low ridge like 
 the raised rim on a plate. In the distance the thin 
 skein of a water course drew an intricate pattern 
 that made them think of the thread of slime left 
 by a wandering snail. In depressions where the 
 
 271 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 soil was webbed with cracks, a livid scurf broke out 
 as if the face of the earth were scarred with the 
 traces of inextinguishable foulness. An even sub 
 dual of tint marked it all. White had been mixed 
 on the palette whence the colors were drawn. The 
 sky was opaque with it; it had thickened the red- 
 browns and yellows to ocher and pale shades of 
 putty. Nothing moved and there were no sounds, 
 only the wheeling sun changed the course of the 
 shadows. In the morning they slanted from the 
 hills behind, eagerly stretching after the train, 
 straining to overtake and hold it, a living plaything 
 in this abandoned land. At midday a blot of black 
 lay at the root of every sage brush. At evening 
 each filigreed ridge, each solitary cone rising de 
 tached in the sealike circle of its loneliness, showed 
 a slant of amethyst at its base, growing longer and 
 finer, tapering prodigiously, and turning purple as 
 the earth turned orange. 
 
 There was little speech in the moving caravan. 
 With each day their words grew fewer, their 
 laughter and light talk dwindled. Gradual changes 
 had crept into the spirit of the party. Accumula 
 tions of habit and custom that had collected upon 
 them in the dense life of towns were dropping 
 away. As the surface refinements of language were 
 dying, so their faces had lost a certain facile play 
 of expression. Delicate nuances of feeling no 
 longer showed, for they no longer existed. Smiles 
 had grown rarer, and harder characteristics were 
 molding their features into sterner lines. The ac- 
 
 272 
 
The Mountains 
 
 quired cleceptiveness of the world of men was leav 
 ing them. Ugly things that they once would have 
 hidden cropped out unchecked by pride or fear of 
 censure. They did not care. There was no stand 
 ard, there was no public opinion. Life was re 
 solving itself into a few great needs that drove out 
 all lesser and more delicate desires. Beings of a 
 ruder make were usurping their bodies. The prim 
 itive man in them was rising to meet the primitive 
 world. 
 
 In the young girl the process of elimination was 
 as rapid if not as radical as in the case of the men. 
 She was unconsciously ridding herself of all that 
 hampered and made her unfit. From the soft fem 
 inine tissue, intricacies of mood and fancy were be 
 ing obliterated. Rudimentary instincts were de 
 veloping, positive and barbaric as a child s. In the 
 old days she had been dainty about her food. Now 
 she cooked it in blackened pans and ate with the 
 hunger of the men. Sleep, that once had been an 
 irksome and unwelcome break between the pleas 
 ures of well-ordered days, was a craving that she 
 satisfied, unwashed, often half-clad. In Rochester 
 she had spent thought and time upon her looks, 
 had stood before her mirror matching ribbons to 
 her complexion, wound and curled her hair in be 
 coming ways. Now her hands, hardened and cal 
 lous as a boy s, were coarse-skinned with broken 
 nails, sometimes dirty, and her hair hung rough 
 from the confining teeth of a comb and a few bent 
 pins. When in flashes of retrospect she saw her old 
 
 273 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 self, this pampered self of crisp fresh frocks and 
 thoughts moving demurely in the narrow circle of 
 her experience, it did not seem as if it could be the 
 same Susan Gillespie. 
 
 All that made up the little parcel of her personal 
 ity seemed gone. In those days she had liked this 
 and wanted that and forgotten and wanted some 
 thing else. Rainy weather had sent its ashen sheen 
 over her spirit, and her gladness had risen to meet 
 the sun. She remembered the sudden sweeps of 
 depression that had clouded her horizon when she 
 had drooped in an unintelligible and not entirely 
 disagreeable melancholy, and the contrasting bursts 
 of gayety when she laughed at anything and loved 
 everybody. Hours of flitting fancies flying this 
 way and that, hovering over chance incidents that 
 were big by contrast with the surrounding unevent- 
 fulness, the idleness of dropped hands and dream 
 ing eyes, the charmed peerings into the future 
 all were gone. Life had seized her in a mighty 
 grip, shaken her free of it all, and set her down 
 where she felt only a few imperious sensations, 
 hunger, fatigue, fear of danger, love of her father, 
 and She pulled her thoughts to obedience with 
 a sharp jerk and added love of David and hatred 
 of Courant. 
 
 These two latter facts stood out sentinel-wise in 
 the foreground. In the long hours on horseback 
 she went over them like a lesson she was trying to 
 learn. She reviewed David s good points, dwelt on 
 them, held them up for her admiration, and told 
 
 274 
 
The Mountains 
 
 herself no girl had ever had a finer or more gal 
 lant lover. She was convinced of it and was quite 
 ready to convince anybody who denied it. Only 
 when her mental vision pressed on by some in 
 ward urge of obscure self-distrust carried her for 
 ward to that future with David in the cabin in Cali 
 fornia, something in her shrank and failed. Her 
 thought leaped back as from an abhorrent contact, 
 and her body, caught by some mysterious internal 
 qualm, felt limp and faintly sickened. 
 
 She dwelt even more persistently on Courant s 
 hatefulness, impressed upon herself his faults. He 
 was hard and she had seen him brutal, a man with 
 out feeling, as he had shown when the Mormon boy 
 died, a harsh and remorseless leader urging them 
 on, grudging them even their seventh day rest, deaf 
 to their protests, lashing them forward with con 
 tempt of their weakness. This was above and 
 apart from his manner to her. That she tried to 
 feel was a small, personal matter, but, neverthe 
 less, it stung, did not cease to sting, and left an 
 unhealed sore to rankle in her pride. He did not 
 care to hide that he held her cheaply, as a useless 
 futile thing. Once she had heard him say to Daddy 
 John, " It s the women in the train that make the 
 trouble. They re always in the way." And she 
 was the only woman. She would like to see him 
 conquered, beaten, some of his heady confidence 
 stricken out of him, and when he was humbled have 
 stood by and smiled at his humiliation. 
 
 So she passed over the empty land under the 
 275 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 empty sky, a particle of matter carrying its problem 
 with it. 
 
 It was late afternoon when they encamped by 
 the Big Sandy. The march had been distressful, 
 bitter in their mouths with the clinging clouds of 
 powdered alkali, their heads bowed under the glar 
 ing ball of the sun. All day the circling rim of sky 
 line had weaved up and down, undulating in the 
 uncertainty of the mirage, the sage had blotted into 
 indistinct seas that swam before their strained 
 vision. When the river cleft showed in black trac 
 ings across the distance, they stiffened and took 
 heart, coolness and water were ahead. It was all 
 they had hope or desire for just then. At the edge 
 of the clay bluff, they dipped and poured down a 
 corrugated gully, the dust sizzling beneath the 
 braked wheels, the animals, the smell of water in 
 their nostrils, past control. The impetus of the 
 descent carried them into the chill, purling current. 
 Man and beast plunged in, laved in it, drank it, 
 and then lay by it resting, spent and inert. 
 
 They camped where a grove of alders twinkled 
 in answer to the swift, telegraphic flashes of the 
 stream. Under these the doctor pitched his tents, 
 the hammering of the pegs driving through the 
 sounds of man s occupation into the quietude that 
 lapped them like sleeping tides. The others hung 
 about the center of things where wagons and mess 
 chests, pans and fires, made the nucleus of the 
 human habitation. 
 
 Susan, sitting on a box, with a treasure of dead 
 276 
 
The Mountains 
 
 branches at her feet, waited yet a space before set 
 ting them in the fire form. She was sunk in the 
 apathy of the body surrendered to restoring proc 
 esses. The men s voices entered the channels of her 
 ears and got no farther. Her vision acknowledged 
 the figure of Leff nearby sewing up a rent in his 
 coat, but her brain refused to accept the impression. 
 Her eye held him in a heavy vacuity, watched with a 
 trancelike fixity his careful stitches and the armlong 
 stretch of the drawn thread. 
 
 Had she shifted it a fraction, it would have en 
 countered David squatting on the bank washing 
 himself. His long back, the red shirt drawn taut 
 across its bowed outline, showed the course of his 
 spine in small regular excrescences. The water 
 that he raised in his hands and rinsed over his face 
 and neck made a pleasant, clean sound, that her 
 ear noted with the other sounds. Somewhere be 
 hind her Daddy John and Courant made a noise 
 with skillets and picket pins and spoke a little, a 
 sentence mutteringly dropped and monosyllabically 
 answered. 
 
 David turned a streaming face over his shoulder, 
 blinking through the water. The group he looked 
 at was as idyllically peaceful as wayfarers might be 
 after the heat and burden of the day. Rest, fel 
 lowship, a healthy simplicity of food and housing 
 were all in the picture either visibly or by impli 
 cation. 
 
 " Throw me the soap, Leff," he called, " I for 
 got it." 
 
 277 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The soap lay on the top of a meal sack, a yellow 
 square, placed there by David on his way to the 
 water. It shone between Susan and Leff, standing 
 forth as a survival of a pampered past. Susan s 
 eye shifted toward it, fastened on it, waiting for 
 Left s hand to come and bear it away. But the 
 hand executed no such expected maneuver. It 
 planted the needle deliberately, pushed it through, 
 drew it out with its long tail of thread. Surprise 
 began to dispel her lethargy. Her eye left the soap, 
 traveled at a more sprightly speed back to Leff, 
 lit on his face with a questioning intelligence. 
 
 David called again. 
 
 " Hurry up. I want to light the fire." 
 
 Leff took another considered stitch. 
 
 " I don t know where it is," he answered without 
 looking up. 
 
 The questioning of Susan s glance became accu 
 sative. 
 
 " It s there beside you on the meal sack," she 
 said. " Throw it to him." 
 
 Leff raised his head and looked at her. His 
 eyes were curiously pale and wide. She could see 
 the white round the fixed pupil. 
 
 " Do it yourself," he answered, his tone the low 
 est that could reach her. " Do it or go to Hell." 
 
 She rested without movement, her mouth falling 
 slightly open. For the moment there was a stop 
 page of all feeling but amazement, which invaded 
 her till she seemed to hold nothing else. David s 
 voice came from a far distance, as if she had floated 
 
 278 
 
The Mountains 
 
 away from him and it was a cord jerking her back 
 to her accustomed place. 
 
 " Hurry up," it called. " It s right there beside 
 you." 
 
 Leff threw down his sewing and leaped to his 
 feet. Leaning against the bank behind him was 
 his gun, newly cleaned and primed. 
 
 " Get it yourself and be d d to you ! " he roared. 
 
 The machinery of action stopped as though by 
 the breaking of a spring. Their watches ticked off 
 a few seconds of mind paralysis in which there was 
 no expectancy or motive power, all action inhibited. 
 Sight was all they used for those seconds. Left 
 spoke first, the only one among them whose think 
 ing process had not been snapped: 
 
 "If you keep on shouting for me to do your er 
 rands, I ll show you" he snatched up the gun 
 and brought it to his shoulder with a lightning 
 movement " I ll send you where you can t order 
 me round you and this d d - - here." 
 
 The inhibition was lifted and the three men 
 rushed toward him. Daddy John struck up the 
 gun barrel with a tent pole. The charge passed 
 over David s head, spat in the water beyond, the 
 report crackling sharp in the narrow ravine. David 
 staggered, the projection of smoke reaching out to 
 ward him, his hands raised to ward it off, not 
 knowing whether he was hurt or not. 
 
 " That s a great thing to do," he cried, dazed, 
 and stubbing his foot on a stone stumbled to his 
 knees. 
 
 279 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The two others fell on Leff. Susan saw the gun 
 ground into the dust under their trampling feet 
 and Leff go down on top of it. Daddy John s tent 
 pole battered at him, and Courant on him, a writh 
 ing body, grappled and wrung at his throat. The 
 doctor came running from the trees, the hammer 
 in his hand, and Susan grabbed at the descending 
 pole, screaming: 
 
 " You re killing him. Father, stop them. They ll 
 murder him." 
 
 The sight of his Missy clinging to the pole 
 brought the old man to his senses, but it took David 
 and the doctor to drag Courant away. For a mo 
 ment they were a knot of struggling bodies, from 
 which oaths and sobbing breaths broke. Upright 
 he shook them off and backed toward the bank, 
 leaving them looking at him, all expectant. He 
 growled a few broken words, his face white under 
 the tan, the whole man shaken by a passion so 
 transforming that they forgot the supine figure and 
 stood alert, ready to spring upon him. He made 
 a movement of his head toward Leff. 
 
 "Why didn t you let me kill him?" he said 
 huskily. 
 
 It broke the tension. Their eyes dropped to Leff, 
 who lay motionless and unconscious, blood on his 
 lips, a slip of white showing under his eyelids. The 
 doctor dropped on his knees beside him and opened 
 his shirt. Daddy John gave him an investigating 
 push with the tent pole, and David eyed him with 
 an impersonal, humane concern. Only Susan s 
 
 280 
 
The Mountains 
 
 glance remained on Courant, unfaltering as the 
 beam of a fixed star. 
 
 His savage excitement was on the ebb. He 
 pulled his hunting shirt into place and felt along his 
 belt for his knife, while his broad breast rose like a 
 wave coming to its breakage then dropped as the 
 wave drops into its hollow. The hand he put to his 
 throat to unfasten the band of his shirt shook, it 
 had difficulty in manipulating the button, and he 
 ran his tongue along his dried lips. She watched 
 every movement, to the outward eye like a child 
 fascinated by an unusual and terrifying spec 
 tacle. But her gaze carried deeper than the per 
 turbed envelope. She looked through to the man 
 beneath, felt an exultation in his might, knew 
 herself kindred with him, fed by the same wild 
 strain. 
 
 His glance moved, touched the unconscious man 
 at his feet, then lifting met hers. Eye held eye. 
 In each a spark leaped, ran to meet its opposing 
 spark and flashed into union. 
 
 When she looked down again the group of fig 
 ures was dim. Their talk came vaguely to her, like 
 the talk of men in a dream. David was explain 
 ing. Daddy John made a grimace at him which 
 was a caution to silence. The doctor had not heard 
 and was not to hear the epithet that had been ap 
 plied to his daughter. 
 
 " He s sun mad," the old man said. " Half crazy. 
 I ve seen em go that way before. How ll he get 
 through the desert I m asking you ? " 
 
 281 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 There were some contusions on the head that 
 looked bad, the doctor said, but nothing seemed 
 to be broken. He d been half strangled; they d 
 have to get him into the wagon. 
 
 " Leave him at Fort Bridger," came Courant s 
 voice through the haze. " Leave him there to 
 rot." 
 
 The doctor answered in the cold tones of au 
 thority : 
 
 " We ll take him with us as we agreed in the be 
 ginning. Because he happens not to be able to 
 stand it, it s not for us to abandon him. It s a 
 physical matter sun and hard work and irritated 
 nerves. Take a hand and help me lift him into the 
 wagon." 
 
 They hoisted him in and disposed him on a bed 
 of buffalo robes spread on sacks. He groaned once 
 or twice, then settled on the softness of the skins, 
 gazing at them with blood-shot eyes of hate. When 
 the doctor offered him medicine, he struck the tin, 
 sending its contents flying. However serious his 
 hurts were they had evidently not mitigated the 
 ferocity of his mood. 
 
 For the three succeeding days he remained in the 
 wagon, stiff with bruises and refusing to speak. 
 Daddy John was detailed to take him his meals, 
 and the doctor dressed his wounds and tried to find 
 the cause of his murderous outburst. But Leff was 
 obdurate. He would express no regret for his ac 
 tion, and would give no reason for it. Once when 
 the questioner asked him if he hated David, he said 
 
 282 
 
The Mountains 
 
 "Yes." But to the succeeding, "Why did he?" 
 he offered no explanation, said he " didn t know 
 why." 
 
 " Hate never came without a reason," said the 
 physician, curious and puzzled. " Has David 
 wronged you in any way? " 
 
 " What s that to you ? " answered the farm boy. 
 " I can hate him if I like, can t I ? " 
 
 " Not in my train." 
 
 " Well there are other trains where the men 
 aren t all fools, and the women- 
 He stopped. The doctor s eye held him with a 
 warning gleam. 
 
 " I don t know what s the matter with that boy," 
 he said afterwards in the evening conference. " I 
 can t get at him." 
 
 " Sun mad," Daddy John insisted. 
 
 Courant gave a grunt that conveyed disdain of 
 a question of such small import. 
 
 David couldn t account for it at all. 
 
 Susan said nothing. 
 
 At Green River the Oregon Trail broke from the 
 parent road and slanted off to the northwest. Here 
 the Oregon companies mended their wagons and 
 braced their yokes for the long pull across the 
 broken teeth of mountains to Fort Hall, and from 
 there onward to the new country of great rivers 
 and virgin forests. A large train was starting as 
 the doctor s wagons came down the slope. There 
 was some talk, and a little bartering between the 
 two companies, but time was precious, and the 
 
 283 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 head of the Oregon caravan had begun to roll out 
 when the California party were raising their tents 
 on the river bank. 
 
 It was a sere and sterile prospect. Drab hills 
 rolled in lazy waves toward the river where they 
 reared themselves into bolder forms, a line of ram 
 parts guarding the precious thread of water. The 
 sleek, greenish current ate at the roots of lofty 
 bluffs, striped by bands of umber and orange, and 
 topped with out-croppings of rock as though a 
 vanished race had crowned them with now 
 crumbling fortresses. At their feet, sucking life 
 from the stream, a fringe of alder and willows 
 decked the sallow landscape with a trimming of 
 green. 
 
 Here the doctor s party camped for the night, 
 rising in the morning to find a new defection in 
 their ranks. Leff had gone. Nailed to the mess 
 chest was a slip of paper on which he had traced a 
 few words announcing his happiness to be rid of 
 them, his general dislike of one and all, and his 
 intention to catch up the departed train and go to 
 the Oregon country. This was just what they 
 wanted, the desired had been accomplished without 
 their intervention. But when they discovered that, 
 beside his own saddle horse, he had taken David s, 
 their gladness suffered a check. It was a bad situ 
 ation, for it left the young man with but one horse, 
 the faithful Ben. There was nothing for it but to 
 abandon the wagon, and give David the doctor s 
 extra mount for a pack animal. With silent pangs 
 
 284 
 
The Mountains 
 
 the student saw his books thrown on the banks of 
 the river while his keg of whisky, sugar and coffee 
 were stored among the Gillespies effects. Then 
 they started, a much diminished train one wagon, 
 a girl, and three mounted men. 
 
 285 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IT was Sunday afternoon, and the doctor and his 
 daughter were sitting by a group of alders on the 
 banks of the little river called Ham s Fork. On 
 the uplands above, the shadows were lengthening, 
 and at intervals a light air caught up swirls of dust 
 and carried them careening away in staggering 
 spirals. 
 
 The doctor was tired and lay stretched on the 
 ground. He looked bloodless and wan, the griz 
 zled beard not able to hide the thinness of his face. 
 The healthful vigor he had found on the prairie had 
 left him, each day s march claiming a dole from his 
 hoarded store of strength. He knew no one else 
 that he had never recovered the vitality expended 
 at the time of Bella s illness. The call then had 
 been too strenuous, the depleted reservoir had filled 
 slowly, and now the demands of unremitting toil 
 were draining it of what was left. He said noth 
 ing of this, but thought much in his feverish nights, 
 and in the long afternoons when his knees felt weak 
 against the horse s sides. As the silence of each 
 member of the little train was a veil over secret 
 trouble, his had hidden the darkest, the most sin 
 ister. 
 
 Susan, sitting beside him, watching him with an 
 286 
 
The Mountains 
 
 anxious eye, noted the languor of his long, dry 
 hands, the network of lines, etched deep on the 
 loose skin of his cheeks. Of late she had been shut 
 in with her own preoccupations, but never too close 
 for the old love and the old habit to force a way 
 through. She had seen a lessening of energy and 
 spirit, asked about it, and received the accustomed 
 answers that came with the quick, brisk cheeriness 
 that now had to be whipped up. She had never 
 seen his dauntless belief in life shaken. Faith and 
 a debonair courage were his message. They were 
 still there, but the effort of the unbroken spirit to 
 maintain them against the body s weakness was 
 suddenly revealed to her and the pathos of it 
 caught at her throat. She leaned forward and 
 passed her hand over his hair, her eyes on his face 
 in a long gaze of almost solemn tenderness. 
 
 " You re worn out," she said. 
 
 " Not a bit of it," he answered stoutly. " You re 
 the most uncomplimentary person I know. I was 
 just thinking what a hardy pioneer I d become, and 
 that s the way you dash me to the ground." 
 
 She looked at the silvery meshes through which 
 her fingers were laced. 
 
 " It s quite white and there were lots of brown 
 hairs left when we started." 
 
 That s the Emigrant Trail," he smothered a 
 sigh, and his trouble found words : " It s not for 
 old men, Missy." 
 
 "Old!" scornfully; "you re fifty-three. That s 
 only thirty-two years older than I am. When I m 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 fifty-three you ll be eighty-five. Then we ll begin 
 to talk about your being old." 
 
 " My little Susan fifty-three!" He moved his 
 head so that he could command her face and dwell 
 upon its blended bloom of olive and clear rose, 
 With wrinkles here and here," an indicating fin 
 ger helped him, " and gray hairs all round here, and 
 thick eyebrows, and " he dropped the hand and his 
 smile softened to reminiscence, " It was only yes 
 terday you were a baby, a little, fat, crowing thing 
 all creases and dimples. Your mother and I used 
 to think everything about you so wonderful that we 
 each secretly believed and we d tell each other so 
 when nobody was round that there had been 
 other babies in the world, but never before one like 
 ours. , I don t know but what I think that yet." 
 
 " Silly old doctor-man ! " she murmured. 
 
 " And now my baby s a woman with all of life 
 before her. From where you are it seems as if it 
 was never going to end, but when you get where 
 I am and begin to look back, you see that it s just 
 a little journey over before you ve got used to the 
 road and struck your gait. We ought to have more 
 time. The first half s just learning and the second s 
 where we put the learning into practice. And 
 we re busy over that when we have to go. It s too 
 short." 
 
 " Our life s going to be long. Out in California 
 we re going to come into a sort of second child 
 hood, be perennials like those larkspurs I had in the 
 garden at home." 
 
 288 
 
The Mountains 
 
 They were silent, thinking of the garden behind 
 the old house in Rochester with walks outlined by 
 shells and edged by long flower beds. The girl 
 looked back on it with a detached interest as an 
 unregretted feature of a past existence in which she 
 had once played her part and that was cut from the 
 present by a chasm never to be bridged. The man 
 held it cherishingly as one of many lovely memories 
 that stretched from this river bank in a strange 
 land back through the years, a link in the long 
 chain. 
 
 " Wasn t it pretty ! " she said dreamily, " with 
 the line of hollyhocks against the red brick wall, 
 and the big, bushy pine tree in the corner. Every 
 thing was bright except that tree." 
 
 His eyes narrowed in wistful retrospect : 
 
 " It was as if all the shadows in the garden had 
 concentrated there huddled together in one place 
 so that the rest could be full of color and sunshine. 
 And when Daddy John and I wanted to cut it down 
 you wouldn t let us, cried and stamped, and so, of 
 course, we gave it up. I actually believe you had 
 a sentiment about that tree." 
 
 " I suppose I had, though I don t know exactly 
 what you mean by a sentiment. I loved it because 
 I d once had such a perfect time up there among 
 the branches. The top had been cut off and a ring 
 of boughs was left round the place, and it made 
 the most comfortable seat, almost like a cradle. 
 One day you went to New York and when you 
 came back you brought me a box of candy. Do 
 
 289 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 you remember it burnt almonds and chocolate 
 drops with a dog painted on the cover? Well, I 
 wanted to get them at their very best, enjoy them 
 as much as I could, so I climbed to the seat in the 
 top of the pine and ate them there. I can remem 
 ber distinctly how lovely it was. They tasted bet 
 ter than any candies I ve ever had before or since, 
 and I leaned back on the boughs, rocking and eat 
 ing and looking at the clouds and feeling the wind 
 swaying the trunk. I can shut my eyes and feel 
 again the sense of being entirely happy, sort of 
 limp and forgetful and so contented. I don t know 
 whether it was only the candies, or a combination 
 of things that were just right that day and never 
 combined the same way again. For I tried it often 
 afterwards, with cake and fruit tart and other can 
 dies, but it was no good. But I couldn t have the 
 tree cut down, for there was always a hope that I 
 might get the combination right and have that per 
 fectly delightful time once more." 
 
 The doctor s laughter echoed between the banks, 
 and hers fell in with it, though she had told her 
 story with the utmost sedateness. 
 
 " Was there ever such a materialist ? " he 
 chuckled. " It all rose from a box of New York 
 candy, and I thought it was sentiment. Twenty- 
 one years old and the same baby, only not quite so 
 fat." 
 
 " Well, it was the truth," she said defensively. 
 " I suppose if I d left the candy out it would have 
 sounded better." 
 
 290 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " Don t leave the candy out. It was the candy 
 and the truth that made it all Susan s." 
 
 She picked up a stone and threw it in the river, 
 then as she watched its splash : " Doesn t it seem 
 long ago when we were in Rochester?" 
 
 " We left there in April and this is June." 
 
 " Yes, a short time in weeks, but some way or 
 other it seems like ages. When I think of it I feel 
 as if it was at the other side of the world, and I d 
 grown years and years older since we left. If I 
 go on this way I ll be fully fifty-three when we get 
 to California." 
 
 " What s made you feel so old? " 
 
 " I don t exactly know. I don t think it s because 
 we ve gone over so much space, but that has some 
 thing to do with it. It seems as if the change was 
 more in me." 
 
 " How have you changed ? " 
 
 She gathered up the loose stones near her and 
 dropped them from palm to palm, frowning a little 
 in an effort to find words to clothe her vague 
 thought. 
 
 " I don t know that either, or I can t express it. 
 I liked things there that I don t care for any more. 
 They were such babyish things and amounted to 
 nothing, but they seemed important then. Now 
 nothing seems important but things that are the 
 things that would be on a desert island. And in 
 getting to think that way, in getting so far from 
 what you once were, a person seems to squeeze a 
 good many years into a few weeks." She looked 
 
 291 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 sideways at him, the stones dropping from a slant 
 ing palm. " Do you understand me?" 
 
 He nodded : 
 
 " When I was a child I thought as a child now 
 I have put away childish things. Is that it? " 
 
 " Yes, exactly." 
 
 " Then you wouldn t like to go back to the old 
 life?" 
 
 She scattered the stones with an impatient ges 
 ture: 
 
 " I couldn t. I d hate it. I wouldn t squeeze 
 back into the same shape. I d be all cramped and 
 crowded up. You see every day out here I ve been 
 growing wider and wider," she stretched her arms 
 to their length, " widening out to fit these huge, 
 enormous places." 
 
 " The new life will be wide enough for you. 
 You ll grow like a tree, a beautiful, tall, straight 
 tree that has plenty of room for its branches to 
 spread and plenty of sun and air to nourish it. 
 There ll be no crowding or cramping out there. 
 It s good to know you ll be happy in California. 
 In the beginning I had fears." 
 
 She picked up a stone and with its pointed edge 
 drew lines on the dust which seemed to interest her, 
 for she followed them with intent eyes, not answer 
 ing. He waited for a moment, then said with an 
 undernote of pleading in his voice, " You think you 
 will be happy, dearie ? " 
 
 " I I don t know," she stammered. " No 
 body can tell. We re not there yet." 
 
 292 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " I can tell." He raised himself on his- elbow to 
 watch her face. She knew that he expected to see 
 the maiden s bashful happiness upon it, and the dif 
 ference between his fond imaginings and the actual 
 facts sickened her with an intolerable sense of de 
 ception. She could never tell him, never strike out 
 of him his glad conviction of her contentment. 
 
 :< We re going back to the Golden Age, you and 
 I, and David. We ll live as we want, not the way 
 other people want us to. When we get to Cali 
 fornia we ll build a house somewhere by a river 
 and we ll plant our seeds and have vines growing 
 over it and a garden in the front, and Daddy John 
 will break Julia s spirit and harness her to the 
 plow. Then when the house gets too small- 
 houses have a way of doing that I ll build a little 
 cabin by the edge of the river, and you and David 
 will have the house to yourselves where the old, 
 white-headed doctor won t be in the way." 
 
 He smiled for the joy of his picture, and she 
 turned her head from him, seeing the prospect 
 through clouded eyes. 
 
 " You ll never go out of my house," she said in 
 a low voice. 
 
 " Other spirits will come into it and fill it up." 
 
 A wish that anything might stop the slow ad 
 vance to this roseate future choked her. She sat 
 with averted face wrestling with her sick distaste, 
 and heard him say: 
 
 " You don t know how happy you re going to be, 
 my little Missy." 
 
 293 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 She could find no answer, and he went on : " You 
 have everything for it, health and youth and a pure 
 heart and David for your mate." 
 
 She had to speak now and said with urgence, 
 trying to encourage herself, since no one else could 
 do it for her, 
 
 " But that s all in the future, a long time from 
 now." 
 
 " Not so very long. We ought to be in Califor 
 nia in five or six weeks." 
 
 To have the dreaded reality suddenly brought so 
 close, set at the limit of a few short weeks, grimly 
 waiting at a definite point in the distance, made her 
 repugnance break loose in alarmed words. 
 
 " Longer than that," she cried. " The desert s 
 the hardest place, and we ll go slow, very slow, 
 there." 
 
 " You sound as if you wanted to go slow," he 
 answered, his smile indulgently quizzical, as com 
 pletely shut away from her, in his man s ignorance, 
 as though no bond of love and blood held them 
 together. 
 
 " No, no, of course not," she faltered. " But I m 
 not at all sure we ll get through it so easily. I m 
 making allowance for delays. There are always 
 delays." 
 
 Yes, there may be delays, but we ll hope to be 
 one of the lucky trains and get through on time." 
 
 She swallowed dryly, her heart gone down too 
 far to be plucked up by futile contradition. He 
 mused a moment, seeking the best method of 
 
 294 
 
The Mountains 
 
 broaching a subject that had been growing in his 
 mind for the past week. Frankness seemed the 
 most simple, and he said : 
 
 " I ve something to suggest to you. I ve been 
 thinking of it since we left the Pass. Bridger is a 
 large post. They say there are trains there from 
 all over the West and people of all sorts, and quite 
 often there are missionaries." 
 
 " Missionaries ?" in a faint voice. 
 
 " Yes, coming in and going out to the tribes of 
 the Northwest. Suppose we found one there when 
 we arrived? " 
 
 He stopped, watching her. 
 
 "Well?" her eyes slanted sideways in a fixity 
 of attention. 
 
 " Would you marry David ? Then we could all 
 go on together." 
 
 Her breath left her and she turned a frightened 
 face on him. 
 
 "Why?" she gasped. "What for?" 
 
 He laid his hand on hers and said quietly : 
 
 " Because, as you say, the hardest part of the 
 journey is yet to come, and I am well not a 
 strong man any more. The trip hasn t done for me 
 what I hoped. If by some mischance if anything 
 should happen to me then I d know you d be taken 
 care of, protected and watched over by some one 
 who could be trusted, whose right it was to do 
 that/ 
 
 " Oh, no. Oh, no," she cried in a piercing note 
 of protest. " I couldn t, I couldn t." 
 
 295 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 She made as if to rise, then sank back, drawn 
 down by his grasping hand. He thought her re 
 luctance natural, a girl s shrinking at the sudden in 
 trusion of marriage into the pretty comedy of 
 courtship. 
 
 " Susan, I would like it," he pleaded. 
 
 " No," she tried to pull her hand away, as if 
 wishing to draw every particle of self together and 
 shut it all within her own protecting shell. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " It s it s I don t want to be married out here 
 in the wilds. I want to wait and marry as other 
 girls do, and have a real wedding and a house to 
 go to. I should hate it. I couldn t. It s like a 
 squaw. You oughtn t to ask it." 
 
 Her terror lent her an unaccustomed subtlety. 
 She eluded the main issue, seizing on objections 
 that did not betray her, but that were reasonable, 
 what might have been expected by the most unsus 
 picious of men : 
 
 " And as for your being afraid of falling sick in 
 these dreadful places, isn t that all the more reason 
 why I should be free to give all my time and 
 thought to you? If you don t feel so strong, then 
 marrying is the last thing I d think of doing. I m 
 going to be with you all the time, closer than I ever 
 was before. No man s going to come between us. 
 Marry David and push you off into the background 
 when you re not well and want me most that s 
 perfectly ridiculous." 
 
 She meant all she said. It was the truth, but it 
 296 
 
The Mountains 
 
 was the truth reinforced, given a fourfold strength 
 by her own unwillingness. The thought that she 
 had successfully defeated him, pushed the marriage 
 away into an indefinite future, relieved her so that 
 the dread usually evoked by his ill health was swept 
 aside. She turned on him a face, once again bright, 
 all clouds withdrawn, softened into dimpling reas 
 surance. 
 
 "What an idea!" she said. "Men have no 
 sense." 
 
 " Very well, spoiled girl. I suppose we ll have 
 to put it off till we get to California." 
 
 She dropped back full length on the ground, and 
 in the expansion of her relief laid her cheek against 
 the hand that clasped hers. 
 
 "And until we get the house built," she cried, 
 beginning to laugh. 
 
 " And the garden laid out and planted, I sup 
 pose?" 
 
 " Of course. And the vines growing over the 
 front porch." 
 
 " Why not over the second story ? We ll have a 
 second story by that time." 
 
 " Over the whole house, up to the chimneys." 
 
 They both laughed, a cheerful bass and a gay 
 treble, sweeping out across the unquiet water. 
 
 " It s going to be the Golden Age," she said, in 
 the joy of her respite pressing her lips on the hand 
 she held. " A cottage covered with vines to the 
 roof and you and I and Daddy John inside it." 
 
 " And David, don t forget David." 
 297 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Of course, David," she assented lightly, for 
 David s occupancy was removed to a comfortable 
 distance. 
 
 After supper she and David climbed to the top 
 of the bank to see the sunset. The breeze had 
 dropped, the dust devils died with it. The silence 
 of evening lay like a cool hand on the heated earth. 
 Dusk was softening the hard, bright colors, wiping 
 out the sharpness of stretching shadows the baked 
 reflection of sun on clay. The West blazed above 
 the mountains, but the rest of the sky was a thick, 
 pure blue. Against it to the South, a single peak 
 rose, snow-enameled on a turquoise background. 
 
 Susan felt at peace with the moment and her own 
 soul. She radiated the good humor of one who 
 has faced peril and escaped. Having postponed the 
 event that was to make her David s forever, she felt 
 bound to offer recompense. Her conscience went 
 through one of those processes by which the con 
 sciences of women seek ease through atonement, 
 prompting them to actions of a baleful kindliness. 
 Contrition made her tender to the man she did not 
 love. The thought that she had been unfair added 
 a cruel sweetness to her manner. 
 
 He lay on the edge of the bluff beside her, not 
 saying much, for it was happiness to feel her within 
 touch of his hand, amiable and gentle as she had 
 been of late. It would have taken an eye shrewder 
 than David s to have seen into the secret springs 
 of her conduct. He only knew that she had been 
 kinder, friendlier, less withdrawn into the sanctu- 
 
 208 
 
The Mountains 
 
 ary of her virgin coldness, round which in the be 
 ginning he had hovered. His heart was high, 
 swelled by the promise of her beaming looks and 
 ready smiles. At last, in this drama of slow win 
 ning she was drawing closer, shyly melting, her 
 whims and perversities mellowing to the rich, sweet 
 yielding of the ultimate surrender. 
 
 " We ought to be at Fort Bridger now in a few 
 days," he said. " Courant says if all goes well we 
 can make it by Thursday and of course he knows." 
 
 " Courant ! " she exclaimed with the familiar note 
 of scorn. " He knows a little of everything, doesn t 
 he?" 
 
 "Why don t you like him, Missy? He s a fine 
 man for the trail." 
 
 " Yes, I dare say he is. But that s not every 
 thing." 
 
 "Why don t you like him? Come, tell the 
 truth." 
 
 They had spoken before of her dislike of Cou 
 rant. She had revealed it more frankly to David 
 than to anyone else. It was one of the subjects over 
 which she could become animated in the weariest 
 hour. She liked to talk to her betrothed about it, 
 to impress it upon him, warming to an eloquence 
 that allayed her own unrest. 
 
 " I don t know why I don t like him. You can t 
 always tell why you like or dislike a person. It s 
 just something that comes and you don t know 
 why." 
 
 " But it seems so childish and unfair. I don t 
 299 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 like my girl to be unfair. Has he ever done any 
 thing or said anything to you that offended 
 you?" 
 
 She gave a petulant movement : " No, but he 
 thinks so much of himself, and he s hard and has 
 no feeling, and Oh, I don t know it s just that 
 I don t like him." 
 
 David laughed: 
 
 " It s all prejudice. You can t give any real 
 reason." 
 
 " Of course I can t. Those things don t always 
 have reasons. You re always asking for reasons 
 and I never have any to give you." 
 
 " I ll have to teach you to have them." 
 
 She looked slantwise at him smiling. " I m afraid 
 that will be a great undertaking. I m very stupid 
 about learning things. You ask father and Daddy 
 John what a terrible task it was getting me edu 
 cated. The only person that didn t bother about 
 it was this one " she laid a finger on her chest 
 " She never cared in the least." 
 
 " Well I ll begin a second education. When we 
 get settled I ll teach you to reason." 
 
 " Begin now." She folded her hands demurely 
 in her lap and lifting her head back laughed: 
 " Here I am waiting to learn." 
 
 " No. We want more time. I ll wait till we re 
 married." 
 
 Her laughter diminished to a smile that lay on 
 her lips, looking stiff and uncomfortable below the 
 fixity of her eyes. 
 
 300 
 
The Mountains 
 
 " That s such a long way off," she said faintly. 
 
 " Not so very long." 
 
 " Oh, California s hundreds of miles away yet. 
 And then when we get there we ve got to find a 
 place to settle, and till the land, and lay out the 
 garden and build a house, quite a nice house; I 
 don t want to live in a cabin. Father and I have 
 just been talking about it. Why it s months and 
 months off yet." 
 
 He did not answer. She had spoken this way 
 to him before, wafting the subject away with eva 
 sive words. After a pause he said slowly : " Why 
 need we wait so long? " 
 
 " We must. I m not going to begin my married 
 life the way the emigrant women do. I want to 
 live decently and be comfortable." 
 
 He broke a sprig off a sage bush and began to 
 pluck it apart. She had receded to her defenses 
 and peeped nervously at him from behind them. 
 
 " Fort Bridger," he said, his eyes on the twig, 
 " is a big place, a sort of rendezvous for all kinds 
 of people." 
 
 She stared at him, her face alert with apprehen 
 sion, ready to dart into her citadel and lower the 
 drawbridge. 
 
 " Sometimes there are missionaries stopping 
 there." 
 
 " Missionaries ? " she exclaimed in a high key. 
 " I hate missionaries ! " 
 
 This was a surprising statement. David knew 
 the doctor to be a supporter and believer in the In- 
 
 301 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 dian missions, and had often heard his daughter 
 acquiesce in his opinions. 
 
 " Why do you hate them ? " 
 
 " I don t know. There s another thing you want 
 a reason for. It s getting cold up here let s go 
 down by the fire." 
 
 She gathered herself together to rise, but he 
 turned quickly upon her, and his face, while it made 
 her shrink, also arrested her. She had come to 
 dread that expression, persuasion hardened into 
 desperate pleading. It woke in her a shocked re 
 pugnance, as though something had been revealed 
 to her that she had no right to see. She felt shame 
 for him, that he must beg where a man should con 
 quer and subdue. 
 
 " Wait a moment," he said. " Why can t one of 
 those missionaries marry us there ? " 
 
 She had scrambled to her knees, and snatched at 
 her skirt preparatory to the jump to her feet. 
 
 " No," she said vehemently. " No. What s the 
 matter with you all talking about marriages and mis 
 sionaries when we re in the middle of the wilds ? " 
 
 " Susan," he cried, catching at her dress, " just 
 listen a moment. I could take care of you then, 
 take care of you properly. You d be my own, to 
 look after and work for. It s seemed to me lately 
 you loved me enough. I wouldn t have suggested 
 such a thing if you were as you were in the begin 
 ning. But you seem to care now. You seem as if 
 as if it wouldn t be so hard for you to live with 
 me and let me love you." 
 
 302 
 
The Mountains 
 
 She jerked her skirt away and leaped to her feet 
 crying again, " No, David, no. Not for a minute." 
 
 He rose too, very pale, the piece of sage in his 
 hand shaking. They looked at each other, the yel 
 low light clear on both faces. Hers was hard and 
 combative, as if his suggestion had outraged her 
 and she was ready to fight it. Its expression sent 
 a shaft of terror to his soul, for with all his unself 
 ishness he was selfish in his man s longing for her, 
 hungered for her till his hunger had made him 
 blind. Now in a flash of clairvoyance he saw 
 truly, and feeling the joy of life slipping from him, 
 faltered: 
 
 " Have I made a mistake? Don t you care? " 
 
 It was her opportunity, she was master of her 
 fate. But her promise was still a thing that held, 
 the moment had not come when she saw nothing 
 but her own desire, and to gain it would have sacri 
 ficed all that stood between. His stricken look, 
 his expression of nerving himself for a blow, 
 pierced her, and her words rushed out in a burst 
 of contrition. 
 
 " Of course, of course, I do. Don t doubt me. 
 Don t. But Oh, David, don t torment me. Don t 
 ask anything like that now. I can t, I can t. I m 
 not ready not yet." 
 
 Her voice broke and she put her hand to her 
 mouth to hide its trembling. Over it, her eyes, sud 
 denly brimming with tears, looked imploringly into 
 his. 
 
 It was a heart-tearing sight to the lover. He 
 303 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 forgot himself and, without knowing what he did, 
 opened his arms to inclose her in an embrace of pity 
 and remorse. 
 
 " Oh, dearest, I ll never ask it till you re willing 
 to come to me," he cried, and saw her back away, 
 with upheld shoulders raised in defense against his 
 hands. 
 
 " I won t touch you," he said, quickly dropping 
 his arms. " Don t draw back from me. If you 
 don t want it I ll never lay a finger on you." 
 
 The rigidity of her attitude relaxed. She turned 
 away her head and wiped her tears on the end of 
 the kerchief knotted round her neck. He stood 
 watching her, struggling with passion and forebod 
 ing, reassured and yet with the memory of the see 
 ing moment, chill at his heart. 
 
 Presently she shot a timid glance at him, and met 
 his eyes resting questioningly upon her. Her face 
 was tear stained, a slight, frightened smile on the 
 lips. 
 
 " I m sorry," she whispered. 
 
 " Susan, do you truly care for me ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, looking down. " Yes but 
 let me wait a little while longer." 
 
 " As long as you like. I ll never ask you to 
 marry me till you say you re willing." 
 
 She held out her hand shyly, as if fearing a re 
 pulse. He took it, and feeling it relinquished to his 
 with trust and confidence, swore that never again 
 would he disturb her, never demand of her till she 
 was ready to give. 
 
 304 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FORT BRIDGER was like a giant magnet perpetu 
 ally revolving and sweeping the western half of the 
 country with its rays. They wheeled from the 
 west across the north over the east and down to the 
 south. Ox teams, prairie schooners, pack trains, 
 horsemen came to it from the barren lands that 
 guarded the gates of California, from the tumultu 
 ous rivers and fragrant forests of the Oregon coun 
 try, from the trapper s paths and the thin, icy 
 streams of the Rockies, from the plains where the 
 Platte sung round its sand bars, from the sun 
 drenched Spanish deserts. All roads led to it, and 
 down each one came the slow coil of the long trains 
 and the pacing files of mounted men. Under its 
 walls they rested and repaired their waste, ere they 
 took the trail again intent on the nation s work of 
 conquest. 
 
 The fort s centripetal attraction had caught the 
 doctor s party, and was drawing it to the focus. 
 They reckoned the days on their fingers and pressed 
 forward with a feverish hurry. They were like 
 wayworn mariners who sight the lights of a port. 
 Dead desires, revived, blew into a glow extinguished 
 vanities. They looked at each other, and for the 
 first time realized how ragged and unkempt they 
 
 305 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 were, then dragged out best clothes from the bot 
 tom of their chests and hung their looking-glasses 
 to the limbs of trees. They were coming to the 
 surface after a period of submersion. 
 
 Susan fastened her mirror to the twig on an 
 alder trunk and ransacked her store of finery. It 
 yielded up a new red merino bodice, and the occa 
 sion was great enough to warrant breaking into her 
 reserve of hairpins. Then she experimented with 
 her hair, parted and rolled it in the form that had 
 been the fashion in that long dead past was it 
 twenty years ago? when she had been a girl in 
 Rochester. She inspected her reflected image with 
 a fearful curiosity, as if expecting to find gray 
 hairs and wrinkles. It was pleasant to see that she 
 looked the same a trifle thinner may be. And as 
 she noted that her cheeks were not as roundly 
 curved, the fullness of her throat had melted to a 
 more muscular, less creased and creamy firmness, 
 she felt a glow of satisfaction. For in those distant 
 days twenty-five years ago it must be she had 
 worried because she was a little too fat. No one 
 could say that now. She stole a look over her 
 shoulder to make sure she was not watched it 
 seemed an absurdly vain thing to do and turned 
 back the neck of her blouse. The faintest rise of 
 collar bone showed under the satiny skin, fine as a 
 magnolia petal, the color of faintly tinted meer 
 schaum. She ran her hand across it and it was 
 smooth as curds yielding with an elastic resistance 
 over its bedding of firm flesh. The young girl s 
 
 306 
 
The Mountains 
 
 pride in her beauty rose, bringing with it a sense of 
 surprise. She had thought it gone forever, and now 
 it still held, the one surviving sensation that con 
 nected her with that other Susan Gillespie who had 
 lived a half century ago in Rochester. 
 
 It was the day after this recrudescence of old co 
 quetry that the first tragedy of the trail, the trag 
 edy that was hers alone, smote her. 
 
 The march that morning had been over a high 
 level across which they headed for a small river 
 they would follow to the Fort. Early in the after 
 noon they saw its course traced in intricate em 
 broidery across the earth s leathern carpet. The 
 road dropped into it, the trail grooved deep be 
 tween ramparts of clay. On the lip of the descent 
 the wayward Julia, maddened with thirst, plunged 
 forward, her obedient mates followed, and the 
 wagon went hurling down the slant, dust rising like 
 the smoke of an explosion. The men struggled for 
 control and, seized by the contagion of their excite 
 ment, the doctor laid hold of a wheel. It jerked 
 him from his feet and flung him sprawling, stunned 
 by the impact, a thin trickle of blood issuing from 
 his lips. The others saw nothing, in the tumult did 
 not hear Susan s cry. When they came back the doc 
 tor was lying where he had fallen, and she was 
 sitting beside him wiping his lips with the kerchief 
 she had torn from her neck. She looked up at them 
 and said : 
 
 " It s a hemorrhage." 
 
 Her face shocked them into an understanding of 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 the gravity of the accident. It was swept clean of 
 its dauntless, rosy youth, had stiffened into an un- 
 elastic skin surface, taut over rigid muscles. But her 
 eyes were loopholes through which anguish escaped. 
 Bending them on her father a hungry solicitude 
 suffused them, too all-pervading to be denied exit. 
 Turned to the men an agonized questioning took its 
 place. It spoke to them like a cry, a cry of weak 
 ness, a cry for succor. It was the first admission 
 of their strength she had ever made, the first look 
 upon them which had said, " You are men, I am a 
 woman. Help me." 
 
 They carried the doctor to the banks of the 
 stream and laid him on a spread robe. He pro 
 tested that it was nothing, it had happened before, 
 several times, Missy would remember it, last winter 
 in Rochester? Her answering smile was pitiable, 
 a grimace of the lips that went no farther. She felt 
 its failure and turned away plucking at a weed near 
 her. Courant saw the trembling of her hand and 
 the swallowing movement of her throat, bared of 
 its sheltering kerchief. She glanced up with a 
 stealthy side look, fearful that her moment of weak 
 ness was spied upon, and saw him, the pity surging 
 from his heart shining on his face like a softening 
 light. She shrank from it, and, as he made an 
 involuntary step toward her, warned him off with 
 a quick gesture. He turned to the camp and set 
 furiously to work, his hands shaking as he drove 
 in the picket pins, his throat dry. He did not dare 
 to look at her again. The desire to snatch her in his 
 
 308 
 
The Mountains 
 
 arms, to hold her close till he crushed her in a 
 passion of protecting tenderness, made him fear to 
 look at her, to hear her voice, to let the air of her 
 moving body touch him. 
 
 The next morning, while lifting the doctor into 
 the wagon, there was a second hemorrhage. Even 
 the sick man found it difficult to maintain his 
 cheery insouciance. Susan looked pinched, her 
 tongue seemed hardened to the consistency of 
 leather that could not flex for the ready utterance 
 of words. The entire sum of her consciousness 
 was focused on her father. " Breakfast? " with a 
 blank glance at the speaker "is it breakfast time?" 
 The men cooked for her and brought her a cup of 
 coffee and her plate of food. She set them on the 
 driver s seat, and when the doctor, keeping his head 
 immovable, and turning smiling eyes upon her, told 
 her to eat she felt for them like a blind woman. 
 It was hard to swallow the coffee, took effort to 
 force it down a channel that was suddenly narrowed 
 to a parched, resistent tube. She would answer 
 no one, seemed to have undergone an ossifying of 
 all faculties turned to the sounds and sights of life. 
 David remembered her state when the doctor had 
 been ill on the Platte. But the exclusion of the 
 outer world was then an obsession of worry, a jeal 
 ous distraction, as if she resented the well-being of 
 others when hers were forced to suffer. This was 
 different. She did not draw away from him now. 
 She did not seem to see or hear him. Her glance 
 lit unknowing on his face, her hand lay in his, 
 
 309 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 passive as a thing of stone. Sometimes he thought 
 she did not know who he was. 
 
 " Can t we do anything to cheer her or take her 
 mind off it?" he said to Daddy John behind the 
 wagon. 
 
 The old man gave him a glance of tolerant scorn. 
 
 " You can t take a person s mind off the only 
 thing that s in it. She s got nothing inside her but 
 worry. She s filled up with it, level to the top. 
 You might as well try and stop a pail from over 
 flowing that s too full of water." 
 
 They fared on for two interminable, broiling days. 
 The pace was of the slowest, for a jolt or wrench of 
 the wagon might cause another hemorrhage. With 
 a cautious observance of stones and chuck holes 
 they crawled down the road that edged the river. 
 The sun was blinding, beating on the canvas hood 
 till the girl s face was beaded with sweat, and the 
 sick man s blankets were hot against the intenser 
 heat of his body. Outside the world held its breath 
 spellbound in a white dazzle. The river sparkled 
 like a coat of mail, the only unquiet thing on the 
 earth s incandescent surface. When the afternoon 
 declined, shadows crept from the opposite bluffs, 
 slanted across the water, slipped toward the little 
 caravan and engulfed it. Through the front open 
 ing Susan watched the road. There was a time 
 when each dust ridge showed a side of bright blue. 
 To half-shut eyes they were like painted stripes 
 weaving toward the distance. Following them to 
 where the trail bent round a buttress, her glance 
 
 310 
 
The Mountains 
 
 brought up on Courant s mounted figure. He 
 seemed the vanishing point of these converging 
 stripes, the object they were striving toward, the 
 end they aimed for. Reaching him they ceased as 
 though they had accomplished their purpose, led 
 the woman s eyes to him as to a symbolical figure 
 that piloted the train to succor. 
 
 With every hour weakness grew on the doctor, 
 his words were fewer. By the ending of the first 
 day, he lay silent looking out at the vista of bluffs 
 and river, his eyes shining in sunken orbits. As 
 dusk fell Courant dropped back to the wagon and 
 asked Daddy John if the mules could hold the 
 pace all night. Susan heard the whispered con 
 ference, and in a moment was kneeling on the seat, 
 her hand clutched like a spread starfish on the old 
 man s shoulder. 
 
 Courant leaned from his saddle to catch the 
 driver s ear with his lowered tones. :< With a 
 forced march we can get there to-morrow after 
 noon. The animals can rest up and we can make 
 him comfortable and maybe find a doctor." 
 
 Her face, lifted to him, was like a transparent 
 medium through which anxiety and hope that was 
 almost pain, shone. She hung on his words and 
 breathed back quick agreement. It would have 
 been the same if he had suggested the impossible, 
 if the angel of the Lord had appeared and barred 
 the way with a flaming sword. 
 
 " Of course they can go all night. They must. 
 We ll walk and ride by turns. That ll lighten the 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 wagon. I ll go and get my horse," and she was 
 out and gone to the back of the train where David 
 rode at the head of the pack animals. 
 
 The night was of a clear blue darkness, suffused 
 with the misty light of stars. Looking back, Cou- 
 rant could see her upright slenderness topping the 
 horse s black shape. When the road lay pale and 
 unshaded behind her he could decipher the curves 
 of her head and shoulders. Then he turned to the 
 trail in front, and her face, as it had been when he 
 first saw her and as it was now, came back to his 
 memory. Once, toward midnight, he drew up till 
 they reached him, her horse s muzzle nosing soft 
 against his pony s flank. He could see the gleam 
 of her eyes, fastened on him, wide and anxious. 
 
 " Get into the wagon and ride," he commanded. 
 
 "Why? He s no worse! He s sleeping." 
 
 " I was thinking of you. This is too hard for 
 you. It ll wear you out." 
 
 " Oh, I m all right," she said with a slight 
 movement of impatience. " Don t worry about me. 
 Go on." 
 
 He returned to his post and she paced slowly on, 
 keeping level with the wheels. It was very still, 
 only the creaking of the wagon and the hoof beats 
 on the dust. She kept her eyes on his receding 
 shape, watched it disappear in dark turns, then 
 emerge into faintly illumined stretches. It moved 
 steadily, without quickening of gait, a lonely 
 shadow that they followed through the unknown to 
 hope. Her glance hung to it, her ear strained for 
 
 312 
 
The Mountains 
 
 the thud of his pony s feet, sight and sound of him 
 came to her like a promise of help. He was the 
 one strong human thing in this place of remote 
 skies and dumb unfeeling earth. 
 
 It was late afternoon when the Fort came in 
 sight. A flicker of animation burst up in them as 
 they saw the square of its long, low walls, crown 
 ing an eminence above the stream. The bottom lay 
 wide at its feet, the river slipping bright through 
 green meadows sprinkled with an army of cattle. 
 In a vast, irregular circle, a wheel of life with the 
 fort as its hub, spread an engirdling encampment. 
 It was scattered over plain and bottom in dottings 
 of white, here drawn close in clustering agglomera 
 tions, there detached in separate spatterings. Com 
 ing nearer the white spots grew to wagon hoods 
 and tent roofs, and among them, less easy to dis 
 cern, were the pointed summits of the lodges with 
 the bunched poles bristling through the top. The 
 air was very still, and into it rose the straight 
 threads of smoke from countless fires, aspiring up 
 wards in slender blue lines to the bluer sky. They 
 lifted and dispersed the smell of burning wood that 
 comes to the wanderer with a message of home, a 
 message that has lain in his blood since the first 
 man struck fire and turned the dry heap of sticks 
 to an altar to be forever fixed as the soul of his 
 habitation. 
 
 They camped in the bottom withdrawn from the 
 closer herding of tents. It was a slow settling, as 
 noiseless as might be, for two at least of their num- 
 
 313 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ber knew that the doctor was dying. That after 
 noon Daddy John and Courant had seen the shadow 
 of the great change. Whether Susan saw it they 
 neither knew. She was full of a determined, cold, 
 energy, urging them at once to go among the camps 
 and search for a doctor. They went in different 
 directions, leaving her sitting by her father s feet 
 at the raised flap of the tent. Looking back through 
 the gathering dusk Courant could see her, a dark 
 shape, her body drooping in relaxed lines. He 
 thought that she knew. 
 
 When they came back with the word that there 
 was no doctor to be found, darkness was closing in. 
 Night came with noises of men and the twinkling 
 of innumerable lights. The sky, pricked with stars, 
 looked down on an earth alive with answering 
 gleams, as though a segment of its spark-set shield 
 had fallen and lay beneath it, winking back mes 
 sages in an aerial telegraphy. The fires leaped 
 high or glowed in smoldering mounds, painting 
 the sides of tents, the flanks of ruminating animals, 
 the wheels of wagons, the faces of men and women. 
 Coolness, rest, peace brooded over the great bivou 
 ac, with the guardian shape of the Fort above it 
 and the murmur of the river at its feet. 
 
 A lantern, standing on a box by the doctor s side, 
 lit the tent. Through the opening the light from 
 the fire outside poured in, sending shadows scur 
 rying up the canvas walls. Close within call David 
 sat by it, his chin on his knees, his eyes staring at 
 the tongues of flames as they licked the fresh wood. 
 
 3M 
 
The Mountains 
 
 There was nothing now for him to do. He had 
 cooked the supper, and then to ease the pain of 
 his unclaimed sympathies, cleaned the pans, and 
 from a neighboring camp brought a piece of deer 
 meat for Susan. It was the only way he could 
 serve her, and he sat disconsolately looking now at 
 the meat on a tin plate, then toward the tent where 
 she and Daddy John were talking. He could hear 
 the murmur of their voices, see their silhouettes 
 moving on the canvas, gigantic and grotesque. 
 Presently she appeared in the opening, paused there 
 for a last word, and then came toward him. 
 
 " He wants to speak to Daddy John for a mo 
 ment," she said and dropping on the ground beside 
 him, stared at the fire. 
 
 David looked at her longingly, but he dared not 
 intrude upon her somber abstraction. The voices in 
 the tent rose and fell. Once at a louder phrase 
 from Daddy John she turned her head quickly and 
 listened, a sheaf of strained nerves. The voices 
 dropped again, her eye came back to the light and 
 touched the young man s face. It contained no 
 recognition of him, but he leaped at the chance, 
 making stammering proffer of such aid as he could 
 give. 
 
 " I ve got you some supper." 
 
 He lifted the plate, but she shook her head. 
 
 " Let me cook it for you," he pleaded. " You 
 haven t eaten anything since morning." 
 
 " I can t eat," she said, and fell back to her fire- 
 gazing, slipping away from him into the forbidding 
 
 315 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 dumbness of her thoughts. He could only watch 
 her, hoping for a word, an expressed wish. When 
 it came it was, alas ! outside his power to gratify : 
 
 "If there had only been a doctor here! That 
 was what I was hoping for." 
 
 And so when she asked for the help he yearned 
 to give, it was his fate that he should meet her 
 longing with a hopeless silence. 
 
 When Daddy John emerged from the tent she 
 leaped to her feet. 
 
 " Well ? " she said with low eagerness. 
 
 " Go back to him. He wants you," answered 
 the old man. " I ve got something to do for him." 
 
 He made no attempt to touch her, his words and 
 voice were brusque, yet David saw that she re 
 sponded, softened, showed the ragged wound of her 
 pain to him as she did to no one else. It was an 
 understanding that went beneath all externals. 
 Words were unnecessary between them, heart spoke 
 to heart. 
 
 She returned to the tent and sunk on the skin 
 beside her father. He smiled faintly and stretched 
 a hand for hers, and her fingers slipped between 
 his, cool and strong against the lifeless dryness of 
 his palm. She gave back his smile bravely, her 
 eyes steadfast. She had no desire for tears, no 
 acuteness of sensation. A weight as heavy as the 
 world lay on her, crushing out struggle and resist 
 ance. She knew that he was dying. When they 
 told her there was no doctor in the camp her flicker 
 ing hope had gone out. Now she was prepared to 
 
 316 
 
The Mountains 
 
 sit by him and wait with a lethargic patience be 
 yond which was nothing. 
 
 He pressed her hand and said : " I ve sent Daddy 
 John on a hunt. Do you guess what for ? " 
 
 She shook her head feeling no curiosity. 
 
 " The time is short, Missy." 
 
 The living s instinct to fight against the acqui 
 escence of the dying prompted her to the utterance 
 of a sharp " No." 
 
 " I want it all arranged and settled before it s 
 too late. I sent him to see if there was a mission 
 ary here." 
 
 She was leaning against the couch of robes, rest 
 ing on the piled support of the skins. In the pause 
 after his words she slowly drew herself upright, 
 and with her mouth slightly open inhaled a deep 
 breath. Her eyes remained fixed on him, gleaming 
 from the shadow of her brows, and their expres 
 sion, combined with the amaze of the dropped un- 
 derlip, gave her a look of wild attention. 
 
 " Why ? " she said. The word came obstructed 
 and she repeated it. 
 
 " I want you to marry David here to-night." 
 
 The doctor s watch on a box at the bed head 
 ticked loudly in the silence. They looked at each 
 other unconscious of the length of the pause. 
 Death on the one hand, life pressing for its due 
 on the other, were the only facts they recognized. 
 Hostility, not to the man but to the idea, drove the 
 amazement from her face and hardened its softness 
 to stone, 
 
 317 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 "Here, to-night?" she said, her comprehen 
 sion stimulated by an automatic repetition of his 
 words. 
 
 " Yes. I may not be able to understand to 
 morrow." 
 
 She moved her head, her glance touching the 
 watch, the lantern, then dropping to the hand curled 
 round her own. It seemed symbolic of the will 
 against which hers was rising in combat. She 
 made an involuntary effort to withdraw her fingers 
 but his closed tighter on them. 
 
 " Why ? " she whispered again. 
 
 " Some one must take care of you. I can t leave 
 you alone." 
 
 She answered with stiffened lips : " There s Dad 
 dy John." 
 
 " Some one closer than Daddy John. I want to 
 leave you with David." 
 
 Her antagonism rose higher, sweeping over her 
 wretchedness. Worn and strained she had diffi 
 culty to keep her lips shut on it, to prevent herself 
 from crying out her outraged protests. All her 
 dormant womanhood, stirring to wakefulness in 
 the last few weeks, broke into life, gathering itself 
 in a passion of revolt, abhorrent of the indignity, 
 ready to flare into vehement refusal. To the dim 
 eyes fastened on her she was merely the girl, re 
 luctant still. He watched her down-drooped face 
 and said: 
 
 " Then I could go in peace. Am I asking too 
 much?" 
 
The Mountains 
 
 She made a negative movement with her head 
 and turned her face away from him. 
 
 " You ll do this for my happiness now ? " 
 
 " Anything," she murmured. 
 
 " It will be also for your own." 
 
 He moved his free hand and clasped it on the 
 mound made by their locked fingers. Through the 
 stillness a man s voice singing Zavier s Canadian 
 song came to them. It stopped at the girl s outer 
 ear, but, like a hail from a fading land, penetrated 
 to the man s brain and he stirred. 
 
 " Hist! " he said raising his brows, " there s that 
 French song your mother used to sing." 
 
 The distant voice rose to the plaintive burden 
 and he lay motionless, his eyes filmed with mem 
 ories. As the present dimmed the past grew clearer. 
 His hold on the moment relaxed and he slipped 
 away from it on a tide of recollection, muttering 
 the words. 
 
 The girl sat mute, her hand cold under his, her 
 being passing in an agonized birth throe from un 
 consciousness to self-recognition. Her will its 
 strength till now unguessed rose resistant, a 
 thing of iron. Love was too strong in her for open 
 opposition, but the instinct to fight, blindly but with 
 caution, for the right to herself was stronger. 
 
 His murmuring died into silence and she looked 
 at him. His eyes were closed, the pressure of his 
 fingers loosened. A light sleep held him, and under 
 its truce she softly withdrew her hand, then stole 
 to the tent door and stood there a waiting mo- 
 
 319 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ment, stifling her hurried breathing. She saw David 
 lying by the fire, gazing into its smoldering 
 heart. With noiseless feet she skirted the encircling 
 ropes and pegs, and stood, out of range of his 
 eye, on the farther side. Here she stopped, with 
 drawn from the light that came amber soft through 
 the canvas walls, slipping into shadow when a 
 figure passed, searching the darkness with peering 
 eyes. 
 
 Around her the noises of the camp rose, less 
 sharp than an hour earlier, the night silence grad 
 ually hushing them. The sparks and shooting 
 gleams of fires still quivered, imbued with a ten 
 acious life. She had a momentary glimpse of a 
 naked Indian boy flinging loose his blanket, a 
 bronze statue glistening in a leap of flame. Nearer 
 by a woman s figure bent over a kettle black on 
 a bed of embers, then a girl s fire-touched form, 
 with raised arms, shaking down a snake of hair, 
 which broke and grew cloudy under her disturbing 
 hands. A resounding smack sounded on a horse s 
 flank, a low ripple of laughter came tangled with 
 a child s querulous crying, and through the walls 
 of tents and the thickness of smoke the notes of a 
 flute filtered. 
 
 Her ear caught the pad of a footstep on the 
 grass, and her eyes seized on a shadow that grew 
 from dusky uncertainty to a small, bent shape. She 
 waited, suffocated with heartbeats, then made a 
 noiseless pounce on it. 
 
 " Daddy John," she gasped, clutching at him. 
 320 
 
The Mountains 
 
 The old man staggered, almost taken off his feet. 
 
 " Is he worse ? " he said. 
 
 " He s told me. Did you find anyone? " 
 
 " Yes two. One s Episcopal in a train from 
 St. Louis." 
 
 A sound came from her that he did not under 
 stand. She gripped at his shoulders as if she were 
 drowning. He thought she was about to swoon 
 and put his arm around her saying: 
 
 " Come back to the tent. You re all on a shake 
 as if you had ague." 
 
 " I can t go back. Don t bring him. Don t bring 
 him. Don t tell father. Not now. I will later, 
 some other time. When we get to California, but 
 not now not to-night." 
 
 The sentences were cut apart by breaths that 
 broke from her as if she had been running. He was 
 frightened and tried to draw her to the light and 
 see her face. 
 
 " Why, Missy ! " he said with scared helplessness, 
 " Why, Missy! What s got you? " 
 
 " Don t get the clergyman. Tell him there isn t 
 any. Tell him you ve looked all over. Tell him a 
 lie." 
 
 He guessed the trouble was something more than 
 the grief of the moment, and urged in a whisper : 
 
 " What s the matter now ? Go ahead and tell 
 me. I ll stick by you." 
 
 She bent her head back to look into his face. 
 
 " I don t want to marry him now. I can t. I 
 can t. I can t" 
 
 321 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Her hands on his shoulders shook him with each 
 repetition. The force of the words was heightened 
 by the suppressed tone. They should have been 
 screamed. In these whispered breaths they burst 
 from her like blood from a wound. With the last 
 one her head bowed forward on his shoulder with 
 a movement of burrowing as though she would 
 have crawled up and hidden under his skin, and 
 tears, the most violent he had ever seen her shed, 
 broke from her. They came in bursting sobs, a 
 succession of rending throes that she struggled to 
 stifle, swaying and quivering under their stress. 
 
 He thought, of nothing now but this new pain 
 added to the hour s tragedy, and stroked her shoul 
 der with a low " Keep quiet keep quiet," then 
 leaned his face against her hair and breathed 
 through its tangles. 
 
 " It s all right, I ll do it. I ll say I couldn t find 
 anyone. I ll lie for you, Missy." 
 
 She released him at once, dropped back a step 
 and, lifting a distorted face, gave a nod. He passed 
 on, and she fell on the grass, close to the tent ropes 
 and lay there, hidden by the darkness. 
 
 She did not hear a step approaching from the 
 herded tents. Had she been listening it would have 
 been hard to discern, for the feet were moccasin 
 shod, falling noiseless on the muffling grass. A 
 man s figure with fringes wavering along its out 
 line came round the tent wall. The head was 
 thrust forward, the ear alert for voices. Faring 
 softly his foot struck her and he bent, stretching 
 
 322 
 
The Mountains 
 
 down a feeling hand. It touched her shoulder, 
 slipped along her side, and gripped at her arm. 
 " What s the matter ? " came a deep voice, and feel 
 ing the pull on her arm she got to her knees with 
 a strangled whisper for silence. When the light 
 fell across her, he gave a smothered cry, jerked her 
 to her feet and thrust his hand into her hair, draw 
 ing her head back till her face was uplifted to his. 
 
 There was no one to see, and he let his eyes feed 
 full upon it, a thief with the coveted treasure in his 
 hands. She seemed unconscious of him, a broken 
 thing without sense or volition, till a stir came from 
 the tent. Then he felt her resist his grasp. She 
 put a hand on his breast and pressed herself back 
 from him. 
 
 "Hush," she breathed. "Daddy John s in 
 there." 
 
 A shadow ran up the canvas wall, bobbing on it, 
 huge and wavering. She turned her head toward it, 
 the tears on her cheeks glazed by the light. He 
 watched her with widened nostrils and immovable 
 eyes. In the mutual suspension of action that held 
 them he could feel her heart beating. 
 
 " Well ? " came the doctor s voice. 
 
 The old servant answered : 
 
 " There weren t no parsons anywhere, I ve been 
 all over and there s not one." 
 
 " Parsons ? " Courant breathed. 
 
 She drew in the fingers spread on his breast with 
 a clawing movement and emitted an inarticulate 
 sound that meant " Hush." 
 
 323 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Not a clergyman or missionary among all these 
 people ? " 
 
 " Not one." 
 
 " We must wait till to-morrow, then." 
 
 " Yes mebbe there ll be one to-morrow." 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 Then silence fell and the shadow flickered again 
 on the canvas. 
 
 She made a struggle against Courant s hold, 
 which for a moment he tried to resist, but her rin 
 gers plucked against his hand, and she tore herself 
 free and ran to the tent opening. She entered 
 without speaking, threw herself at the foot of the 
 couch, and laid her head against her father s knees. 
 
 " Is that you, Missy ? " he said, feeling for her 
 with a groping hand. " Daddy John couldn t find 
 a clergyman." 
 
 " I know," she answered, and lay without mov 
 ing, her face buried in the folds of the blanket. 
 
 They said no more, and Daddy John stole out of 
 the tent. 
 
 The next day the doctor was too ill to ask for 
 a clergyman, to know or to care. At nightfall he 
 died. The Emigrant Trail had levied its first trib 
 ute on them, taken its toll. 
 
 324 
 
PART IV 
 
 The Desert 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THEY were camped on the edges of that harsh 
 land which lay between the Great Salt Lake and the 
 Sierra. Behind them the still, heavy reach of water 
 stretched, reflecting in mirrored clearness the moun 
 tains crowding on its southern rim. Before them 
 the sage reached out to dim infinities of distance. 
 The Humboldt ran nearby, sunk in a stony bed, 
 its banks matted with growths of alder and willow. 
 The afternoon was drawing to the magical sunset 
 hour. Susan, lying by the door of her tent, could 
 see below the growing western blaze the bowl of 
 the earth filling with the first, liquid oozings of 
 twilight. 
 
 A week ago they had left the Fort. To her it 
 had been a blank space of time, upon which no outer 
 interest had intruded. She had presented an in 
 vulnerable surface to all that went on about her, 
 the men s care, the day s incidents, the setting of 
 the way. Cold-eyed and dumb she had moved with 
 them, an inanimate idol, unresponsive to the ob 
 servances of their worship, aloof from them in som 
 ber uncommunicated musings. 
 
 The men respected her sorrow, did her work for 
 her, and let her alone. To them she was set apart 
 in the sanctuary of her mourning, and that her 
 
 327 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 grief should express itself by hours of drooping si 
 lence was a thing they accepted without striving to 
 understand. Once or twice David tried to speak 
 to her of her father, but it seemed to rouse in her 
 an irritated and despairing pain. She begged him 
 to desist and got away from him as quickly as she 
 could, climbing into the wagon and lying on the 
 sacks, with bright, unwinking eyes fastened on 
 Daddy John s back. But she did not rest stunned 
 under an unexpected blow as they thought. She 
 was acutely alive, bewildered, but with senses keen, 
 as if the world had taken a dizzying revolution and 
 she had come up panting and clutching among the 
 fragments of what had been her life. 
 
 If there had been some one to whom she could 
 have turned, relieving herself by confession, she 
 might have found solace and set her feet in safer 
 ways. But among the three men she was virtually 
 alone, guarding her secret with that most stubborn 
 of all silences, a girl s in the first wakening of sex. 
 She had a superstitious hope that she could regain 
 peace and self-respect by an act of reparation, and 
 at such moments turned with expiatory passion to 
 the thought of David. She would go to California, 
 live as her father had wished, marry her betrothed, 
 and be as good a wife to him as man could have. 
 And for a space these thoughts brought her ease, 
 consoled her as a compensating act of martyrdom. 
 
 She shunned Courant, rarely addressing him, 
 keeping her horse to the rear of the train where the 
 wagon hood hid him from her. But when his foot 
 
 328 
 
The Desert 
 
 fell on the dust beside her, or he dropped back for 
 a word with Daddy John, a stealthy, observant 
 quietude held her frame. She turned her eyes 
 from him as from an unholy sight, but it was use 
 less, for her mental vision called up his figure, 
 painted in yellow and red upon the background of 
 the sage. She knew the expression of the lithe 
 body as it leaned from the saddle, the gnarled hand 
 from which the rein hung loose, the eyes, diamond 
 hard and clear, living sparks set in leathery skin 
 wrinkled against the glare of the waste. She did 
 not lie to herself any more. No delusions could 
 live in this land stripped of all conciliatory de 
 ception. 
 
 The night before they left the Fort the men had 
 had a consultation. Sitting apart by the tent she 
 had watched them, David and Daddy John between 
 her and the fire, Courant beyond it. His face, red 
 lit between the hanging locks of hair, his quick eyes, 
 shifting from one man to the other, was keen with 
 a furtive anxiety. At a point in the murmured 
 interview, he had looked beyond them to the dark 
 ened spot where she sat. Then Daddy John and 
 David had come to her and told her that if she 
 wished they would turn back, take her home to 
 Rochester, and stay there with her always. There 
 was money enough they said. The doctor had left 
 seven thousand dollars in his chest, and David had 
 three to add to it. It would be ample to live on 
 till the men could set to work and earn a main 
 tenance for them. No word was spoken of her 
 
 329 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 marriage, but it lay in the offing of their argu 
 ment as the happy finale that the long toil of the 
 return journey and the combination of resources 
 were to prelude. 
 
 The thought of going back had never occurred 
 to her, and shocked her into abrupt refusal. It 
 would be an impossible adaptation to outgrown 
 conditions. She could not conjure up the idea of 
 herself refitted into the broken frame of her girl 
 hood. She told them she would go on, there was 
 nothing now to go back for. Their only course was 
 to keep to the original plan, emigrate to California 
 anl settle there. They returned to the fire and told 
 Courant. She could see him with eager gaze lis 
 tening. Then he smiled and, rising to his feet, sent 
 a bold, exultant glance through the darkness to her. 
 She drew her shawl over her head to shut it out, 
 for she was afraid. 
 
 They rested now on the lip of the desert, gath 
 ering their forces for the last lap of the march. 
 There had been no abatement in the pressure of 
 their pace, and Courant had told them it must be 
 kept up. He had heard the story of the Donner 
 party two years before, and the first of September 
 must see them across the Sierra. In the evenings 
 he conferred with Daddy John on these matters 
 and kept a vigilant watch on the animals upon 
 whose condition the success of the journey de 
 pended. 
 
 David was not included in these consultations. 
 Both men now realized that he was useless when 
 
 330 
 
The Desert 
 
 it came to the rigors of the trail. Of late he had 
 felt a physical and spiritual impairment, that 
 showed in a slighted observance of his share of the 
 labor. He had never learned to cord his pack, and 
 day after day it turned under his horse s belly, dis 
 charging its cargo on the ground. The men, growl 
 ing with irritation, finally took the work from him, 
 not from any pitying consideration, but to prevent 
 further delay. 
 
 He was, in fact, coming to that Valley of Desola 
 tion where the body faints and only the spirit s 
 dauntlessness can keep it up and doing. What 
 dauntlessness his spirit once had was gone. He 
 moved wearily, automatically doing his work and 
 doing it ill. The very movements of his hands, 
 slack and fumbling, were an exasperation to the 
 other men, setting their strength to a herculean 
 measure, and giving of it without begrudgment. 
 David saw their anger and did not care. Fatigue 
 made him indifferent, ate into his pride, brought 
 down his self-respect. He plodded on doggedly, 
 the alkali acrid on his lips and burning in his eye 
 balls, thinking of California, not as the haven of 
 love and dreams, but as a place where there was 
 coolness, water, and rest. When in the dawn he 
 staggered up to the call of " Catch up," and felt 
 for the buckle of his saddle girth, he had a vision 
 of a place under trees by a river where he could 
 sleep and wake and turn to sleep again, and go on 
 repeating the performance all day with no one to 
 shout at him if he was stupid and forgot things. 
 
 331 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Never having had the fine physical endowment 
 of the others all the fires of his being were dying 
 down to smoldering ashes. His love for Susan 
 faded, if not from his heart, from his eyes and 
 lips. She was as clear to him as ever, but now with 
 a devitalized, undemanding affection in which there 
 was something of a child s fretful dependence. He 
 rode beside her not looking at her, contented that 
 she should be there, but with the thought of mar 
 riage buried out of sight under the weight of his 
 weariness. It did not figure at all in his mind, 
 which, when roused from apathy, reached forward 
 into the future to gloat upon the dream of sleep. 
 She was grateful for his silence, and they rode side 
 by side, detached from one another, moving in sep 
 arated worlds of sensation. 
 
 This evening he came across to where she sat, 
 dragging a blanket in an indolent hand. He 
 dropped it beside her and threw himself upon it 
 with a sigh. He was too empty of thought to speak, 
 and lay outstretched, looking at the plain where 
 dusk gathered in shadowless softness. In contrast 
 with his, her state was one of inner tension, strained 
 to the breaking point. Torturings of conscience, 
 fears of herself, the unaccustomed bitterness of 
 condemnation, melted her, and she was ripe for con 
 fession. A few understanding words and she 
 would have poured her trouble out to him, less in 
 hope of sympathy than in a craving for relief. The 
 widening gulf would have been bridged and he 
 would have gained the closest hold upon her he 
 
 332 
 
The Desert 
 
 had yet had. But if she were more a woman than 
 ever before, dependent, asking for aid, he was less 
 a man, wanting himself to rest on her and have his 
 discomforts made bearable by her consolations. 
 
 She looked at him tentatively. His eyes were 
 closed, the lids curiously dark, and fringed with 
 long lashes like a girl s. 
 
 " Are you asleep? " she asked. 
 
 " No," he answered without raising them. 
 " Only tired." 
 
 She considered for a moment, then said : 
 
 " Have you ever told a lie? " 
 
 " A lie ? I don t know. I guess so. Everybody 
 tells lies sometime or other." 
 
 " Not little lies. Serious ones, sinful ones, to 
 people you love." 
 
 " No. I never told that kind. That s a pretty 
 low-down thing to do." 
 
 " Mightn t a person do it to to escape from 
 something they didn t want, something they sud 
 denly at that particular moment dreaded and 
 shrank from ? " 
 
 " Why couldn t they speak out, say they didn t 
 want to do it ? Why did they have to lie ? " 
 
 " Perhaps they didn t have time to think, and 
 didn t want to hurt the person who asked it. And 
 and if they were willing to do the thing later, 
 sometime in the future, wouldn t that make up 
 for it?" 
 
 " I can t tell. I don t know enough about it. I 
 don t understand what you mean." He turned, try- 
 
 333 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ing to make himself more comfortable. " Lord, 
 how hard this ground is! I believe it s solid iron 
 underneath." 
 
 He stretched and curled on the blanket, elonga 
 ting his body in a mighty yawn which subsided into 
 the solaced note of a groan. " There, that s better. 
 I ache all over to-night." 
 
 She made no Answer, looking at the prospect 
 from morose brows. More at ease he returned to 
 the subject and asked, "Who s been telling lies?" 
 
 " I," she answered. 
 
 He gave a short laugh, that drew from her a look 
 of quick protest. He was lying on his side, one 
 arm crooked under his head, his eyes on her in a 
 languid glance where incredulity shone through 
 amusement. 
 
 Your father told me once you were the most 
 truthful woman he d ever known, and I agree with 
 him." 
 
 " It was to my father I lied," she answered. 
 
 She began to tremble, for part at least of the 
 story was on her lips. She clasped her shaking 
 hands round her knees, and, not looking at him, 
 said " David," and then stopped, stifled by the dif 
 ficulties and the longing to speak. 
 
 David answered by laughing outright, a pleasant 
 sound, not guiltless of a suggestion of sleep, a 
 laugh of good nature that refuses to abdicate. It 
 brushed her back into herself as if he had taken 
 her by the shoulders, pushed her into her prison, 
 and slammed the door. 
 
 334 
 
The Desert 
 
 "That s all imagination," he said. "When 
 some one we love dies we re always thinking things 
 like that that we neglected them, or slighted them, 
 or told them what wasn t true. They stand out in 
 our memories bigger than all the good things we 
 did. Don t you worry about any lies you ever told 
 your father. You ve got nothing to accuse yourself 
 of where he s concerned or anybody else, either." 
 
 Her heart, that had throbbed wildly as she 
 thought to begin her confession, sunk back to a 
 forlorn beat. He noticed her dejected air, and said 
 comfortingly : 
 
 " Don t be downhearted, Missy. It s been terri 
 bly hard for you, but you ll feel better when we get 
 to California, and can live like Christians again." 
 
 " California ! " Her intonation told of the 
 changed mind with which she now looked forward 
 to the Promised Land. 
 
 His consolatory intentions died before his own 
 sense of grievance at the toil yet before them. 
 
 " Good Lord, it does seem far farther than it 
 did in the beginning. I used to be thinking of it all 
 the time then, and how I d get to work the first 
 moment we arrived. And now I don t care what 
 it s like or think of what I m going to do. All I 
 want to get there for is to stop this eternal traveling 
 and rest." 
 
 She, too, craved rest, but of the spirit. Her out 
 look was blacker than his, for it offered none and 
 drew together to a point where her tribulations 
 focused in a final act of self-immolation. There 
 
 335 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 was a pause, and he said, drowsiness now plain in 
 his voice : 
 
 " But we ll be there some day unless we die on 
 the road, and then we can take it easy. The first 
 thing I m going to do is to get a mattress to sleep 
 on. No more blankets on the ground for me. Do 
 you ever think what it ll be like to sleep in a 
 room again under a roof, a good, waterproof roof, 
 that the sun and the rain can t come through? The 
 way I feel now that s my idea of Paradise." 
 
 She murmured a low response, her thoughts far 
 from the flesh pots of his wearied longing. 
 
 " I think just at this moment," he went on 
 dreamily, " I d rather have a good sleep and a good 
 meal than anything else in the world. I often 
 dream of em, and then Daddy John s kicking me 
 and it s morning and I got to crawl out of the blan 
 ket and light the fire. I don t know whether I feel 
 worse at that time or in the evening when we re 
 making the last lap for the camping ground." His 
 voice dropped as if exhausted before the memory 
 of these unendurable moments, then came again with 
 a note of cheer : " Thank God, Courant s with us or 
 I don t believe we d ever get there." 
 
 She had no reply to make to this. Neither spoke 
 for a space, and then she cautiously stole a glance 
 at him and was relieved to see that he was asleep. 
 Careful to be noiseless she rose, took up a tin water 
 pail and walked to the river. 
 
 The Humboldt rushed through a deep-cut bed, 
 nosing its way between strewings of rock. Up the 
 
 336 
 
The Desert 
 
 banks alders and willows grew thick, thrusting 
 roots, hungry for the lean deposits of soil, into 
 cracks and over stony ledges. By the edge the cur 
 rent crisped about a flat rock, and Susan, kneeling 
 on this, dipped in her pail. The water slipped in in 
 a silvery gush which, suddenly seething and bub 
 bling, churned in the hollowed tin, nearly wrenching 
 it from her. She leaned forward, dragging it awk 
 wardly toward her, clutching at an alder stem with 
 her free hand. Her head was bent, but she raised 
 it with a jerk when she heard Courant s voice call, 
 " Wait, I ll do it for you." 
 
 He was on the opposite bank, the trees he had 
 broken through swishing together behind him. 
 She lowered her head without answering, her face 
 suddenly charged with color. Seized by an over 
 mastering desire to escape him, she dragged at the 
 pail, which, caught in the force of the current, 
 leaped and swayed in her hand. She took a hurried 
 upward glimpse, hopeful of his delayed progress, 
 and saw him jump from the bank to a stone in mid 
 stream. His moccasined feet clung to its slippery 
 surface, and for a moment he oscillated unsteadily, 
 then gained his balance and, laughing, looked at her. 
 For a breathing space each rested motionless, she 
 with strained, outstretched arm, he on the rock, a 
 film of water covering his feet. It was a moment 
 of physical mastery without conscious thought. To 
 each the personality of the other was so perturbing, 
 that without words or touch, the heart beats of both 
 grew harder, and their glances held in a gaze fixed 
 
 337 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 and gleaming. The woman gained her self-posses 
 sion first, and with it an animal instinct to fly from 
 him, swiftly through the bushes. 
 
 But her flight was delayed. A stick, whirling in 
 the current, caught between the pail s rim and 
 handle and ground against her fingers. With an 
 angry cry she loosed her hold, and the bucket went 
 careening into midstream. That she had come 
 back to harmony with her surroundings was at 
 tested by the wail of chagrin with which she greeted 
 the accident. It was the last pail she had left. She 
 watched Courant wade into the water after it, and 
 forgot to run in her anxiety to see if he would get 
 it. " Oh, good! " came from her in a gasp as he 
 caught the handle. But when he came splashing 
 back and set it on the rock beside her, it suddenly 
 lost its importance, and as suddenly she became a 
 prey to low-voiced, down-looking discomfort. A 
 muttered " thank you," was all the words she had 
 for him, and she got to her feet with looks directed 
 to the arrangement of her skirt. 
 
 He stood knee-high in the water watching her, 
 glad of her down-drooped lids, for he could dwell 
 on the bloom that deepened under his eye. 
 
 " You haven t learned the force of running water 
 yet," he said. " It can be very strong sometimes, 
 so strong that a little woman s hand like yours has 
 no power against it." 
 
 " It was because the stick caught in the handle," 
 she muttered, bending for the pail. " It hurt my 
 fingers." 
 
 33* 
 
The Desert 
 
 * You ve never guessed that I was called l Run 
 ning Water, have you ? " 
 
 " You ? " she paused with look arrested in sud 
 den interest. " Who calls you that? " 
 
 " Everybody you. L eau courante means run 
 ning water, doesn t it? That s what you call me." 
 
 In the surprise of the revelation she forgot her 
 unease and looked at him, repeating slowly, " L eau 
 courante, running water. Why, of course. But it s 
 like an Indian s name." 
 
 " It is an Indian s name. The Blackfeet gave it 
 to me because they said I could run so fast. They 
 were after me once and a man makes the best time 
 he can then. It was a fine race and I won it, and 
 after that they called me, The man that goes like 
 Running Water. The voyageurs and coureurs des 
 bois put it into their lingo and it stuck." 
 
 " But your real name ? " she asked, the pail for 
 gotten. 
 
 " Just a common French one, Duchesney, Napo 
 leon Duchesney, if you want to know both ends of 
 it. It was my father s. He was called after the 
 emperor whom my grandfather knew years ago in 
 France. He and Napoleon were students together 
 in the military school at Brienne. In the Revolu 
 tion they confiscated his lands, and he came out to 
 Louisiana and never wanted to go back." He 
 splashed to the stone and took up the bucket. 
 
 She stood absorbed in the discovery, her child s 
 mind busy over this new conception of him as a 
 man whose birth and station had evidently been so 
 
 339 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 different to the present conditions of his life. When 
 she spoke her mental attitude was naively displayed. 
 " Why didn t you tell before? " 
 
 He shrugged. 
 
 " What was there to tell ? The mountain men 
 don t always use their own names." 
 
 The bucket, swayed by the movement, threw a 
 jet of water on her foot. He moved back from her 
 and said, " I like the Indian name best. * 
 
 " It is pretty," and in a lower key, as though 
 trying its sound, she repeated softly, " L eau Cou- 
 rante, Running Water." 
 
 " It s something clear and strong, sometimes 
 shallow and then again deeper than you can guess. 
 And when there s anything in the way, it gathers 
 all its strength and sweeps over it. It s a mighty 
 force. You have to be stronger than it is and 
 more cunning too to stop it in the way it wants 
 to go." 
 
 Above their heads the sky glowed in red bars, 
 but down in the stream s hollow the dusk had come, 
 cool and gray. She was suddenly aware of it, no 
 ticed the diminished light, and the thickening pur 
 plish tones that had robbed the trees and rocks of 
 color. Her warm vitality was invaded by chill that 
 crept inward and touched her spirit with an eerie 
 dread. She turned quickly and ran through the 
 bushes calling back to him, " I must hurry and get 
 supper. They ll be waiting. Bring the pail." 
 
 Courant followed slowly, watching her as she 
 climbed the bank, 
 
 340 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FOR some days their route followed the river, 
 then they would leave it and strike due west, mak 
 ing marches from spring to spring. The country 
 was as arid as the face of a dead planet, save where 
 the water s course was marked by a line of green. 
 Here and there the sage was broken by bare spaces 
 where the alkali cropped out in a white encrusting. 
 Low mountains edged up about the horizon, thrust 
 ing out pointed scarps like capes protruding into 
 slumbrous, gray-green seas. These capes were ob 
 jects upon which they could fix their eyes, goals to 
 reach and pass. In the blank monotony they of 
 fered an interest, something to strive for, some 
 thing that marked an advance. The mountains 
 never seemed to retreat or come nearer. They en 
 circled the plain in a crumpled wall, the same day 
 after day, a low girdle of volcanic shapes, cleft with 
 moving shadows. 
 
 The sun was the sun of August. It reeled across 
 a sky paled by its ardor, at midday seeming to 
 pause and hang vindictive over the little caravan. 
 Under its fury all color left the blanched earth, all 
 shadows shrunk away to nothing. The train alone, 
 as if in desperate defiance, showed a black blot be 
 neath the wagon, an inky snake sliding over the 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ground under each horse s sweating belly. The air 
 was like a stretched tissue, strained to the limit of 
 its elasticity, in places parting in delicate, glassy 
 tremblings. Sometimes in the distance the mirage 
 hung brilliant, a blue lake with waves crisping on a 
 yellow shore. They watched it with hungry eyes, 
 a piece of illusion framed by the bleached and bitter 
 reality. 
 
 When evening came the great transformation be 
 gan. With the first deepening of color the desert s 
 silent heart began to beat in expectation of its hour 
 of beauty. Its bleak detail was lost in shrouding 
 veils and fiery reflection. The earth floor became a 
 golden sea from which the capes reared themselves 
 in shapes of bronze and copper. The ring of moun 
 tains in the east flushed to the pink of the topaz, 
 then bending westward shaded from rosy lilac to 
 mauve, and where the sunset backed them, darkened 
 to black. As the hour progressed the stillness grew 
 more profound, the naked levels swept out in wilder 
 glory, inundated by pools of light, lines of fire eat 
 ing a glowing way through sinks where twilight 
 gathered. With each moment it became a more tre 
 mendous spectacle. The solemnity attendant on the 
 passage of a miracle held it. From the sun s 
 mouth the voice of God seemed calling the dead 
 land to life. 
 
 Each night the travelers gazed upon it, ragged 
 forms gilded by its radiance, awed and dumb. Its 
 splendors crushed them, filling them with nostalgic 
 longings. They bore on with eyes that were sick 
 
 342 
 
The Desert 
 
 for a sight of some homely, familiar thing that 
 would tell them they were still human, still deni 
 zens of a world they knew. The life into which 
 they fitted and had uses was as though perished 
 from the face of the earth. The weak man sunk 
 beneath the burden of its strangeness. Its beauty 
 made no appeal to him. He felt lost and dazed in 
 its iron-ringed ruthlessness, dry as a skeleton by 
 daylight, at night transformed by witchfires of en 
 chantment. The man and woman, in whom vitality 
 was strong, combatted its blighting force, refused 
 to be broken by its power. They desired with 
 vehemence to assert themselves, to rebel, not to sub 
 mit to the sense of their nothingness. They turned 
 to one another hungry for the life that now was 
 only within themselves. They had passed beyond 
 the limits of the accustomed, were like detached 
 particles gone outside the law of gravity, floating 
 undirected through spaces where they were nothing 
 and had nothing but their bodies, their passions, 
 themselves. 
 
 To a surface observation they would have ap 
 peared as stolid as savages, but their nerves were 
 taut as drawn violin strings. Strange self-asser 
 tions, violences of temper, were under the skin 
 ready to break out at a jar in the methodical rou 
 tine. Had the train been larger, its solidarity less 
 complete, furious quarrels would have taken place. 
 With an acknowledged leader whom they believed 
 in and obeyed, the chances of friction were lessened. 
 Three of them could meet the physical demands of 
 
 343 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 the struggle. It was David s fate that, unable to 
 do thiSj he should fall to a position of feeble use- 
 lessness, endurable in a woman, but difficult to put 
 up with in a man. 
 
 One morning Susan was waked by angry voices. 
 An oath shook sleep from her, and thrusting her 
 head out of the wagon where she now slept, she 
 saw the three men standing in a group, rage on 
 Courant s face, disgust on Daddy John s, and on 
 David s an abstraction of aghast dismay that was 
 not unlike despair. To her question Daddy John 
 gave a short answer. David s horses, insecurely 
 picketed, had pulled up their stakes in the night and 
 gone. A memory of the young man s exhaus 
 tion the evening before, told the girl the story; 
 David had forgotten to picket them and immedi 
 ately after supper had fallen asleep. He had evi 
 dently been afraid to tell and invented the explana 
 tion of dragged picket pins. She did not know 
 whether the men believed it, but she saw by their 
 faces they were in no mood to admit extenuating 
 circumstances. The oath had been Courant s. 
 When he heard her voice he shut his lips on others, 
 but they welled up in his eyes, glowering furiously 
 on the culprit from the jut of drawn brows. 
 
 " What am I to do ? " said the unfortunate young 
 man, sending a despairing glance over the prospect. 
 Under his weak misery, rebellious ill humor was 
 visible. 
 
 " Go after them and bring them back." 
 
 Susan saw the leader had difficulty in confining 
 344 
 
The Desert 
 
 himself to such brief phrases. Dragging a blanket 
 round her shoulders she leaned over the seat. She 
 felt like a woman who enters a quarrel to protect 
 a child. 
 
 " Couldn t we let them go? " she cried. " We ve 
 still my father s horse. David can ride it and we 
 can put his things in the wagon." 
 
 " Not another ounce in the wagon," said Daddy 
 John. " The mules are doing their limit now." 
 The wagon was his kingdom over which he ruled 
 an absolute monarch. 
 
 Courant looked at her and spoke curtly, ignoring 
 David. " We can t lose a horse now. We need 
 every one of them. It s not here. It s beyond in 
 the mountains. We ve got to get over by the first 
 of September, and we want every animal we have 
 to do it. He s not able to walk." 
 
 He shot a contemptuous glance at David that in 
 less bitter times would have made the young man s 
 blood boil. But David was too far from his nor 
 mal self to care. He was not able to walk and was 
 glad that Courant understood it. 
 
 " I ve got to go after them, I suppose," he 
 said sullenly and turned to where the animals 
 looked on with expectant eyes. " But it s the last 
 time I ll do it. If they go again they ll stay 
 gone." 
 
 There was a mutter from the other men. Susan, 
 full of alarm, scrambled into the back of the wagon 
 and pulled on her clothes. When she emerged 
 David had the doctor s horse saddled and was about 
 
 345 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 to mount. His face, heavy-eyed and unwashed, 
 bore an expression of morose anger, but fatigue 
 spoke pathetically in his slow, lifeless movements, 
 the droop of his thin, high shoulders. 
 
 " David/ she called, jumping out over the wheel, 
 " wait." 
 
 He did not look at her or answer, but climbed 
 into the saddle and gathered his rein. She ran to 
 ward him crying, " Wait and have some breakfast. 
 I ll get it for you." 
 
 He continued to pay no attention to her, glancing 
 down at his foot as it felt for the stirrup. She 
 stopped short, repulsed by his manner, watching 
 him as he sent a forward look over the tracks of 
 the lost horses. They wound into the distance 
 fading amid the sweep of motionless sage. It 
 would be a long search and the day was already 
 hot. Pity rose above all other feelings, and she 
 said : 
 
 " Have they told you what they re going to do ? 
 Whether we ll wait here or go on and have you 
 catch us up ? " 
 
 " I don t know what they re going to do and 
 don t care," he answered, and touching the horse 
 with his spur rode away between the brushing 
 bushes. 
 
 She turned to Daddy John, her eyes full of 
 alarmed question. 
 
 " He knows all about it," said the old man with 
 slow phlegm, " I told him myself. There s food 
 and water for him packed on behind the saddle. I 
 
 346 
 
The Desert 
 
 done that too. He d have gone without it just to 
 spite himself. We ll rest here this morning, and if 
 he ain t back by noon move on slow till he catches 
 us up. Don t you worry. He done the wrong 
 thing and he s got to learn." 
 
 No more was said about David, and after break 
 fast they waited doing the odd tasks that accumu 
 lated for their few periods of rest. Susan sat sew 
 ing where the wagon cast a cooling slant of shade. 
 Daddy John was beyond her in the sun, his sere old 
 body, from which time had stripped the flesh, leav 
 ing only a tenuous bark of muscle, was impervious 
 to the heat. In the growing glare he worked over 
 a broken saddle, the whitening reaches stretching 
 out beyond him to where the mountains waved in 
 a clear blue line as if laid on with one wash of a 
 saturated paint brush. Courant was near him in 
 the shadow of his horse, cleaning a gun, sharp 
 clicks of metal now and then breaking into the 
 stillness. 
 
 As the hours passed the shadow of the wagon 
 shrunk and the girl moved with it till her back was 
 pressed against the wheel. She was making a 
 calico jacket, and as she moved it the crisp material 
 emitted low cracklings. Each rustle was subdued 
 and stealthy, dying quickly away as if it were in 
 conspiracy with the silence and did not want to dis 
 turb it. Courant s back was toward her. He had 
 purposely set his face away, but he could hear the 
 furtive whisperings of the stirred calico. He was 
 full of the consciousness of her, and this sound, 
 
 347 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 which carried a picture of her drooped head and 
 moving hands, came with a stealing unquiet, ur 
 gently intrusive and persistent. He tried to hold 
 his mind on his work, but his movements slackened, 
 grew intermittent, his ear attentive for the low 
 rustling that crept toward him at intervals like the 
 effervescent approach of waves. Each time he 
 heard it the waves washed deeper to his inner 
 senses and stole something from his restraining 
 will. For days the desert had been stealing from it 
 too. He knew it and was guarded and fearful of 
 it, but this morning he forgot to watch, forgot to 
 care. His reason was drugged by the sound, the 
 stifled, whispering sound that her hands made mov 
 ing the material from which she fashioned a cover 
 ing for her body. 
 
 He sat with his back turned to her, his hands 
 loose on the gun, his eyes fixed in an unseeing stare. 
 He did not know what he looked at or that the 
 shadow of the horse had slipped beyond him. 
 When he heard her move his quietness increased 
 to a trancelike suspension of movement, the inner 
 concentration holding every muscle in spellbound 
 rigidness. Suddenly she tore the calico with a keen, 
 rending noise, and it was as if her hands had seized 
 upon and so torn the tension that held him. His 
 fists clinched on the gun barrel, and for a moment 
 the mountain line undulated to his gaze. Had they 
 been alone, speech would have burst from him, but 
 the presence of the old man kept him silent. He 
 bowed his head over the gun, making a pretense of 
 
 348 
 
The Desert 
 
 giving it a last inspection, then, surer of himself, 
 leaped to his feet and said gruffly : 
 
 " Let s move on. There s no good waiting 
 here." 
 
 The other two demurred. Susan rose and walked 
 into the glare sweeping the way David had gone. 
 Against the pale background she stood out a vital 
 figure, made up of glowing tints that reached their 
 brightest note in the heated rose of her cheeks and 
 lips. Her dark head with its curly crest of hair 
 was defined as if painted on the opaque blue of the 
 sky. She stood motionless, only her eyes moving 
 as they searched the distance. All of life that re 
 mained in the famished land seemed to have flowed 
 into her and found a beautified expression in the 
 rich vitality of her upright form, the flushed bloom 
 of her face. Daddy John bent to pick up the sad 
 dle, and the mountain man, safe from espial, looked 
 at her with burning eyes. 
 
 " David s not in sight," she said. " Do you 
 think we d better go on ? " 
 
 " Whether we d better or not we will," he an 
 swered roughly. " Catch up, Daddy John." 
 
 They were accustomed to obeying him like chil 
 dren their master. So without more parley they 
 pulled up stakes, loaded the wagon, and started. 
 As Susan fell back to her place at the rear, she 
 called to Courant: 
 
 " We ll go as slowly as we can. We mustn t get 
 too far ahead. David can t ride hard the way he 
 
 349 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The man growled an answer that she did not 
 hear, and without looking at her took the road. 
 
 They made their evening halt by the river. It 
 had dwindled to a fragile stream which, wandering 
 away into the dryness, would creep feebly to its 
 sink and there disappear, sucked into secret subways 
 that no man knew. To-morrow they would start 
 across the desert, where they could see the road 
 leading straight in a white seam to the west. David 
 had not come. The mules stood stripped of their 
 harness, the wagon rested with dropped tongue, the 
 mess chest was open and pans shone in mingled 
 fire and sunset gleams, but the mysteries of the dis 
 tance, over which twilight veils were thickening, 
 gave no sign of him. Daddy John built up the des 
 ert fire as a beacon a pile of sage that burned like 
 tinder. It shot high, tossed exultant flames toward 
 the dimmed stars and sent long jets of light into 
 the encircling darkness. Its wavering radiance, red 
 and dancing, touched the scattered objects of the 
 camp, revealing and then losing them as new flame 
 ran along the leaves or charred branches dropped. 
 Outside the night hung, deep and silent. Susan 
 hovered on the outskirts of the glow. Darkness 
 was thickening, creeping from the hills that lay 
 inky-edged against the scarlet of the sky. Once she 
 sent up a high cry of David s name. Courant, busy 
 with his horses, lifted his head and looked at her, 
 scowling over his shoulder. 
 
 " Why are you calling? " he said. " He can see 
 the fire." 
 
 350 
 
The Desert 
 
 She came back and stood near him, her eyes on 
 him in uneasy scrutiny : " We shouldn t have gone 
 on. We should have waited for him." 
 
 There was questioning and also a suggestion of 
 condemnation in her voice. She was anxious and 
 her tone and manner showed she thought it his 
 fault. 
 
 He bent to loosen a girth. 
 
 "Are you afraid he s lost?" he said, his face 
 against the horse. 
 
 "No. But if he was?" 
 
 "Well! And if he was?" 
 
 The girth was uncinched and he swept saddle and 
 blanket to the ground. 
 
 st We d have to go back for him, and you say we 
 must lose no time." 
 
 He kicked the things aside and made no an 
 swer. Then as he groped for the picket pins he 
 was conscious that she turned again with the 
 nervous movement of worry and swept the 
 plain. 
 
 " He was sick. We oughtn t to have gone on," 
 she repeated, and the note of blame was stronger. 
 " Oh, I wish he d come ! " 
 
 Their conversation had been carried on in a low 
 key. Suddenly Courant, wheeling round on her, 
 spoke in the raised tone of anger. 
 
 " And am I to stop the train because that fool 
 don t know enough or care enough to picket his 
 horses? Is it always to be him? Excuses made 
 and things done for him as if he was a sick girl 
 
 351 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 or a baby. Let him be lost, and stay lost, and be 
 damned to him." 
 
 Daddy John looked up from the sheaf of newly 
 gathered sage with the alertness of a scared mon 
 key. Susan stepped back, feeling suddenly breath 
 less. Courant made a movement as if to follow 
 her, then stopped, his face rived with lines and red 
 with rage. He was shaken by what to her was en 
 tirely inexplicable anger, and in her amazement she 
 stared vacantly at him. 
 
 "What s that, what s that?" chirped Daddy 
 John, scrambling to his feet and coming toward 
 them with chin thrust belligerently forward and 
 blinking eyes full of fight. 
 
 Neither spoke to him and he added sharply: 
 
 "Didn t I hear swearing? Who s swearing 
 now? " as if he had his doubts that it might be 
 Susan. 
 
 Courant with a stifled phrase turned from them, 
 picked up his hammer and began driving in the 
 stakes. 
 
 "What was it?" whispered the old man. 
 "What s the matter with him? Is he mad at 
 David?" 
 
 She shook her head, putting a finger on her lip 
 in sign of silence, and moving away to the other 
 side of the fire. She felt the strain in the men and 
 knew it was her place to try and keep the peace. 
 But a sense of forlorn helplessness amid these war 
 ring spirits lay heavily on her and she beckoned to 
 the old servant, wanting him near her as one who, 
 
 352 
 
The Desert 
 
 no matter how dire the circumstances, would never 
 fail her. 
 
 1 Yes, he s angry," she said when they were out 
 of earshot. " I suppose it s about David. But what 
 can we do? We can t make David over into an 
 other man, and we can t leave him behind just be 
 cause he s not as strong as the rest of us. I feel 
 as if we were getting to be savages." 
 
 The old man gave a grunt that had a note of 
 cynical acquiescence, then held up his hand in a 
 signal for quiet. The thud of a horse s hoofs came 
 from the outside night. With a quick word to get 
 the supper ready, she ran forward and stood in 
 the farthest rim of the light waiting for her be 
 trothed. 
 
 David was a pitiable spectacle. The dust lay 
 thick on his face, save round his eyes, whence he 
 had rubbed it, leaving the sockets looking unnat 
 urally sunken and black. His collar was open and 
 his neck rose bare and roped with sinews. There 
 was but one horse at the end of the trail rope. As 
 he slid out of the saddle, he dropped the rope on the 
 ground, saying that the other animal was sick, he 
 had left it dying he thought. He had found them 
 miles off, miles and miles with a weak wave of 
 his hand toward the south near an alkaline spring 
 where he supposed they had been drinking. The 
 other couldn t move, this one he had dragged along 
 with him. The men turned their attention to the 
 horse, which, with swollen body and drooping 
 head, looked as if it might soon follow its mate. 
 
 353 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 They touched it, and spoke together, brows knit 
 over the trouble, not paying any attention to David, 
 who, back in the flesh, was sufficiently accounted 
 for. 
 
 Susan was horrified by his appearance. She had 
 never seen him look so much a haggard stranger to 
 himself. He was prostrate with fatigue, and 
 throughout the day he had nursed a sense of bitter 
 injury. Now back among them, seeing the out 
 spread signs of their rest, and with the good smell 
 of their food in his nostrils, this rose to the pitch 
 of hysterical rage, ready to vent itself at the first 
 excuse. The sight of the girl, fresh-skinned from 
 a wash in the river, instead of soothing, further 
 inflamed him. Her glowing well-being seemed 
 bought at his expense. Her words of concern 
 spoke to his sick ear with a note of smug, unfeeling 
 complacence. 
 
 " David, you re half dead. Everything ll be 
 ready in a minute. Sit down and rest. Here, take 
 my blanket." 
 
 She spread her blanket for him, but he stood 
 still, not answering, staring at her with dull, ac 
 cusing eyes. Then, with a dazed movement, he 
 pushed his hand over the crown of his head throw 
 ing off his hat. The hand was unsteady, and it fell, 
 the hooked forefinger catching in the opening of 
 his shirt, dragging it down and showing his bony 
 breast. If he had been nothing to her she would 
 have pitied him. Sense of wrongs done him made 
 the pity passionate. She went to him, the consoling 
 
 354 
 
The Desert 
 
 woman in her eyes, and laid her hand on the one 
 that rested on his chest. 
 
 " David, sit down and rest. Don t move again. 
 I ll get you everything. I never saw you look as 
 you do to-night." 
 
 With an angry movement he threw her hand off. 
 
 " You don t care," he said. " What does it mat 
 ter to you when you ve been comfortable all day? 
 So long as you and the others are all right / don t 
 matter." 
 
 It was so unlike him, his face was so changed 
 and charged with a childish wretchedness, that she 
 felt no check upon her sympathy. She knew it was 
 not David that spoke, but a usurping spirit born of 
 evil days. The other men pricked their ears and 
 listened, but she was indifferent to their watch, and 
 tried again to take his hand, saying, pleadingly: 
 
 " Sit down. W T hen I get your supper you ll be 
 better. I ll have it ready in a few minutes." 
 
 This time he threw her hand off with violence. 
 His face, under its dust mask, flamed with the an 
 ger that had been accumulating through the day. 
 
 " Let me alone," he cried, his voice strangled 
 like a wrathful child s. " I don t want anything 
 to do with you. Eat your supper. When I m ready 
 I ll get mine without any help from you. Let 
 me be." 
 
 He turned from her, and moving over the blan 
 ket, stumbled on its folds. The jar was the break 
 ing touch to his overwrought nerves. He stag 
 gered, caught his breath with a hiccoughing gasp, 
 
 355 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 and dropping his face into his hands burst into 
 hysterical tears. Then in a sudden abandonment of 
 misery he threw himself on the blanket, buried his 
 head in his folded arms and rending sobs broke 
 from him. For a moment they were absolutely still, 
 staring at him in stupefied surprise. Daddy John, 
 his neck craned round the blaze, surveyed him with 
 bright, sharp eyes of unemotional query, then 
 flopped the bacon pan on the embers, and said: 
 " He s all done." 
 
 Courant advanced a step, looked down on him 
 and threw a sidelong glance at Susan, bold with 
 meaning. After her first moment of amazement, 
 she moved to David s side, drew the edge of the 
 blanket over him, touched his head with a light 
 caress, and turned back to the fire. The plates and 
 cups were lying there and she quietly set them out, 
 her eye now and then straying for a needed object, 
 her hand hanging in suspended search then drop 
 ping upon it, and noiselessly putting it in its place. 
 Unconsciously they maintained an awed silence, as 
 if they were sitting by the dead. Daddy John 
 turned the bacon with stealthy care, the scrape of 
 his knife on the pan sounding a rude and unseemly 
 intrusion. Upon this scrupulously maintained 
 quietude the man s weeping broke insistent, the sti 
 fled regular beat of sobs hammering on it as if 
 determined to drive their complacency away and 
 reduce them to the low ebb of misery in which he 
 lay. 
 
 They had almost finished their meal when the 
 
 356 
 
The Desert 
 
 sounds lessened, dwindling to spasmodic, stagger 
 ing gasps with lengthening pauses that broke sud 
 denly in a quivering intake of breath and a vibra 
 tion of the recumbent frame. The hysterical par 
 oxysm was over. He lay limp and turned his head 
 on his arms, too exhausted to feel shame for the 
 shine of tears on his cheek. Susan took a plate of 
 food and a coffee cup and stole toward him, the 
 two men watching her under their eyelids. She 
 knelt beside him and spoke very gently, " Will you 
 take this, David? You ll feel stronger after you ve 
 eaten." 
 
 " Put it down," he said hoarsely, without 
 moving. 
 
 " Shall I give you the coffee? " She hung over 
 him looking into his face. " I can hold the cup and 
 you can drink it." 
 
 " By and by," he muttered. 
 
 She bent lower and laid her hand on his hair. 
 
 " David, I m so sorry," she breathed. 
 
 Courant leaped to his feet and walked to where 
 his horses stood. He struck one of them a blow 
 on the flank that after the silence and the low tones 
 of the girl s crooning voice sounded as violent as a 
 pistol shot. They all started, even David lifted his 
 head. 
 
 "What s the matter now?" said Daddy John, 
 alert for any outbreak of man or beast. 
 
 But Courant made no answer, and moved away 
 into the plain. It was some time before he came 
 back, emerging from the darkness as noiselessly as 
 
 357 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 he had gone. David had eaten his supper and was 
 asleep, the girl sitting beyond him withdrawn from 
 the fire glow. Daddy John was examining the sick 
 horse, and Courant joined him, walking round the 
 beast and listening to the old man s opinions as to 
 its condition. They were not encouraging. It 
 seemed likely that David s carelessness would cost 
 the train two valuable animals. 
 
 To the outward eye peace had again settled on 
 the camp. The low conferrings of the two men, 
 the dying snaps of the charred twigs, were the only 
 sounds. The night brooded serene about the biv 
 ouac, the large stars showing clear now that the 
 central glare had sunk to a red heap of ruin. Far 
 away, on the hills, the sparks of Indian fires 
 gleamed. They had followed the train for days, 
 watching it like the eyes of hungry animals, too 
 timid to come nearer. But there was no cause for 
 alarm, for the desert Indians were a feeble race, 
 averse to bloodshed, thieves at their worst, descend 
 ing upon the deserted camping grounds to carry 
 away what the emigrants left. 
 
 Nevertheless, when the sound of hoof beats came 
 from the trail both men made a quick snatch for 
 their rifles, and Susan jumped to her feet with a 
 cry of " Some one s coming." They could see 
 nothing, the darkness hanging like a curtain across 
 their vision. Courant, with his rifle in the hollow 
 of his arm, moved toward the sounds, his hail 
 reaching clear and deep into the night. An answer 
 came in a man s voice, the hoof beats grew louder, 
 
 358 
 
The Desert 
 
 and the reaching light defined approaching shapes. 
 Daddy John threw a bunch of sage on the fire, and 
 in the rush of flame that flew along its branches, 
 two mounted men were visible. 
 
 They dropped to the ground and came forward. 
 " From California to the States," the foremost said 
 to Susan, seeing a woman with fears to be allayed. 
 He was tall and angular with a frank, copper- 
 tanned face, overtopped by a wide spread of hat, 
 and bearded to the eyes. He wore a loose hickory 
 shirt and buckskin breeches tucked into long boots, 
 already broken from the soles. The other was a 
 small and comical figure with an upstanding crest 
 of sunburned blond hair, tight curled and thick 
 as a sheep s fleece. When he saw Susan he delayed 
 his advance to put on a ragged army overcoat that 
 hung to his heels, and evidently hid discrepancies 
 in his costume not meet for a lady s eye. Both men 
 were powdered with dust, and announced them 
 selves as hungry enough to eat their horses. 
 
 Out came pans and supplies, and the snapping of 
 bacon fat and smell of coffee rose pungent. 
 Though, by their own account, they had ridden hard 
 and far, there was a feverish energy of life in each 
 of them that roused the drooping spirits of the 
 others like an electrifying current. They ate rav 
 enously, pausing between mouthfuls to put quick 
 questions on the condition of the eastward trail, its 
 grazing grounds, what supplies could be had at the 
 Forts. It was evident they were new to journey 
 ing on the great bare highways of the wilderness, 
 
 359 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 but that fact seemed to have no blighting effect on 
 their zeal. What and who they were came out in 
 the talk that gushed in the intervals of feeding. 
 The fair-haired man was a sailor, shipped from Bos 
 ton round the Horn for California eight months be 
 fore. The fact that he was a deserter dropped out 
 with others. He was safe here with a side-long 
 laugh at Susan no more of the sea for him. 
 
 He was going back for money, money and men. 
 It was too late to get through to the States now? 
 Well he d wait and winter at Fort Laramie if he 
 had to, but he guessed he d make a pretty vigorous 
 effort to get to St. Louis. His companion was 
 from Philadelphia, and was going back for his wife 
 and children, also money. He d bring them out 
 next spring, collect a big train, stock it well, and 
 carry them across with him. 
 
 " And start early, not waste any time dawdling 
 round and talking. Start with the first of em and 
 get to California before the rush begins. " 
 
 " Rush ? " said Courant. " Are you looking for 
 a rush next year? " 
 
 The man leaned forward with upraised, arresting 
 hand, " The biggest rush in the history of this 
 country. Friends, there s gold in California." 
 
 Gold! The word came in different keys, their 
 flaccid bodies stiffened into upright eagerness 
 Gold in the Promised Land! 
 
 Then came the great story, the discovery of 
 California s treasure told by wanderers to wander 
 ers under the desert stars. Six months before gold 
 
 360 
 
The Desert 
 
 had been found in the race of Slitter s mill in the 
 foothills. The streams that sucked their life from 
 the snow crests of the Sierras were yellow with 
 it. It lay, a dusty sediment, in the prospector s pan. 
 It spread through the rock cracks in sparkling 
 seams. 
 
 The strangers capped story with story, chanted 
 the tales of fantastic exaggeration that had already 
 gone forth, and up and down California were call 
 ing men from ranch and seaboard. They were 
 coming down from Oregon along the wild spine of 
 the coast ranges and up from the Mission towns 
 strung on highways beaten out by Spanish soldier 
 and padre. The news was now en route to the 
 outer world carried by ships. It would fly from 
 port to port, run like fire up the eastern coast and 
 leap to the inland cities and the frontier villages. 
 And next spring, when the roads were open, would 
 come the men, the regiments of men, on foot, 
 mounted, in long caravans, hastening to California 
 for the gold that was there for anyone who had the 
 strength and hardihood to go. 
 
 The bearded man got up, went to his horse and 
 brought back his pack. He opened it, pulled off the 
 outer blanketing, and from a piece of dirty calico 
 drew a black sock, bulging and heavy. From this 
 in turn he shook a small buckskin sack. He 
 smoothed the calico, untied a shoestring from the 
 sack s mouth, and let a stream of dun-colored dust 
 run out. It shone in the firelight in a slow sifting 
 rivulet, here and there a bright flake like a spangle 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 sending out a yellow spark. Several times a solid 
 particle obstructed the lazy flow, which broke upon 
 it like water on a rock, dividing and sinking in two 
 heavy streams. It poured with unctious delibera 
 tion till the sack was empty, and the man held it 
 up to show the powdered dust of dust clinging to 
 the inside. 
 
 " That s three weeks washing on the river across 
 the valley beyond Sacramento," he said, " and it s 
 worth four thousand dollars in the United States 
 mint" 
 
 The pile shone yellow in the fire s even glow, and 
 they stared at it, wonderstruck, each face showing 
 a sudden kindling of greed, the longing to possess, 
 to know the power and peace of wealth. It came 
 with added sharpness in the midst of their bare dis 
 tress. Even the girl felt it, leaning forward to 
 gloat with brightened eyes on the little pyramid. 
 David forgot his injuries and craned his neck to 
 listen, dreams once more astir. California became 
 suddenly a radiant vision. No longer a faint line 
 of color, vaguely lovely, but a place where fortune 
 waited them, gold to fill their coffers, to bring them 
 ease, to give their aspirations definite shape, to 
 repay them for their bitter pilgrimage. They were 
 seiz-ed with the lust of it, and their attentive faces 
 sharpened with the strain of the growing desire. 
 They felt the onward urge to be up and moving, 
 to get there and lay their hands on the waiting 
 treasure. 
 
 The night grew old and still they talked, their 
 362 
 
The Desert 
 
 fatigue forgotten. They heard the tale of Mar 
 shall s discovery and how it flew right and left 
 through the spacious, idle land. There were few 
 to answer the call, ranches scattered wide over the 
 unpeopled valleys, small traders in the little towns 
 along the coast. In the settlement of Yerba Buena, 
 fringing the edge of San Francisco Bay, men were 
 leaving their goods at their shop doors and going 
 inland. Ships were lying idle in the tide water, 
 every sailor gone to find the golden river. The 
 fair-haired man laughed and told how he d swam 
 naked in the darkness, his money in his mouth, and 
 crawled up the long, shoal shore, waist high in 
 mud. 
 
 The small hours had come when one by one they 
 dropped to sleep as they lay. A twist of the blan 
 ket, a squirming into deeper comfort, and rest was 
 on them. They sprawled in the caked dust like 
 dead men fallen in battle and left as they had 
 dropped. Even the girl forgot the habits of a life 
 long observance and sunk to sleep among them, 
 her head on a saddle, the old servant curled at her 
 feet. 
 
 363 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN the even dawn light the strangers left. It was 
 hail and farewell in desert meetings. They trotted 
 off into the ghostlike stillness of the plain which 
 for a space threw back their hoof beats, and then 
 closed round them. The departure of the westward 
 band was not so prompt. With unbound packs and 
 unharnessed animals, they stood, a dismayed group, 
 gathered round a center of disturbance. David was 
 ill. The exertions of the day before had drained 
 his last reserve of strength. He could hardly stand, 
 complained of pain, and a fever painted his drawn 
 face with a dry flush. Under their concerned looks, 
 he climbed on his horse, swayed there weakly, then 
 slid off and dropped on the ground. 
 
 " I m too sick to go on," he said in the final col 
 lapse of misery. " You can leave me here to die." 
 
 He lay flat, looking up at the sky, his long hair 
 raying like a mourning halo from the outline of his 
 skull, his arms outspread as if his soul had submit 
 ted to its crucifixion and his body was in agreement. 
 That he was ill was beyond question. The men 
 had their suspicions that he, like the horses, had 
 drunk of the alkaline spring. 
 
 Susan was for remaining where they were till he 
 recovered, the others wanted to go on. He gave 
 
 364 
 
The Desert 
 
 no ear to their debate, interrupting it once to an 
 nounce his intention of dying where he lay. This 
 called forth a look of compassion from the girl, a 
 movement of exasperation from the mountain man. 
 Daddy John merely spat and lifted his hat to the 
 faint dawn air. It was finally agreed that David 
 should be placed in the wagon, his belongings 
 packed on his horse, while the sick animal must 
 follow as best it could. 
 
 During the morning s march no one spoke. They 
 might have been a picture moving across a picture 
 for all the animation they showed. The exaltation 
 of the evening before had died down to a spark, 
 alight and warming still, but pitifully shrunk from 
 last night s high-flaming buoyancy. It was hard 
 to keep up hopes in these distressful hours. Cali 
 fornia had again receded. The desert and the 
 mountains were yet to pass. The immediate mo 
 ment hemmed them in so closely that it was an ef 
 fort to look through it and feel the thrill of joys 
 that lay so far beyond. It was better to focus their 
 attention on the lone promontories that cut the dis 
 tance and gradually grew from flat surfaces ap 
 plied on the plain to solid shapes, thick-based and 
 shadow cloven. 
 
 They made their noon camp at a spring, bubbling 
 from a rim of white-rooted grass. David refused 
 to take anything but water, groaning as he sat up 
 in the wagon and stretching a hot hand for the cup 
 that Susan brought. The men paid no attention to 
 him. They showed more concern for the sick horse, 
 
 365 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 which when not incapacitated did its part with good 
 will, giving the full measure of its strength. That 
 they refrained from open anger and upbraiding 
 was the only concession they made to the conven 
 tions they had learned in easier times. Whether 
 David cared or not he said nothing, lying fever- 
 flushed, his wandering glance held to attention 
 when Susan s face appeared at the canvas opening. 
 He hung upon her presence, querulously exacting 
 in his unfamiliar pain. 
 
 Making ready for the start their eyes swept a 
 prospect that showed no spot of green, and they 
 filled their casks neck high and rolled out into the 
 dazzling shimmer of the afternoon. The desert was 
 widening, the hills receding, shrinking away to a 
 crenelated edge that fretted a horizon drawn as 
 straight as a ruled line. The plain unrolled more 
 spacious and grimmer, not a growth in sight save 
 sage, not a trickle of water or leaf murmur, even 
 the mirage had vanished leaving the distance bare 
 and mottled with a leprous white. At intervals, 
 outstretched like a pointing finger, the toothed 
 summit of a ridge projected, its base uplifted in 
 clear, mirrored reflection. 
 
 The second half of the day was as unbroken by 
 speech or incident as the morning. They had noth 
 ing to say, as dry of thought as they were despoiled 
 of energy. The shadows were beginning to length 
 en when they came to a fork in the trail. One 
 branch bore straight westward, the other slanted 
 toward the south, and both showed signs of recent 
 
 366 
 
The Desert 
 
 travel. Following them to the distance was like 
 following the tracks of creeping things traced on 
 a sandy shore. Neither led to anything sage, 
 dust, the up-standing combs of rocky reefs were all 
 the searching eye could see till sight lost itself in 
 the earth s curve. The girl and the two men stood 
 in the van of the train consulting. The region was 
 new to Courant, but they left it to him, and he 
 decided for the southern route. 
 
 For the rest of the afternoon they followed it. 
 The day deepened to evening and they bore across 
 a flaming level, striped with gigantic shadows. 
 Looking forward they saw a lake of gold that 
 lapped the roots of rose and lilac hills. The road 
 swept downward to a crimsoned butte, cleft apart, 
 and holding in its knees a gleam of water. The 
 animals, smelling it, broke for it, tearing the wagon 
 over sand hummocks and crackling twigs. It was 
 a feeble upwelling, exhausted by a single draught. 
 Each beast, desperately nosing in its coolness, 
 drained it, and there was a long wait ere the tiny 
 depression filled again. Finally, it was dried of its 
 last drop, and the reluctant ooze stopped. The ani 
 mals, their thirst half slaked, drooped about it, 
 looking with mournful inquiry at the disturbed 
 faces of their masters. 
 
 It was a bad sign. The men knew there were 
 waterless tracts in the desert that the emigrant must 
 skirt. They mounted to the summit of the butte 
 and scanned their surroundings. The world shone 
 a radiant floor out of which each sage brush rose 
 
 367 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 a floating, feathered tuft, but of gleam or trickle 
 of water there was none. When they came down 
 David lay beside the spring his eyes on its basin, 
 now a muddied hole, the rim patterned with hoof 
 prints. When he heard them coming he rose on his 
 elbow awaiting them with a haggard glance, then 
 seeing their blank looks sank back groaning. To 
 Susan s command that a cask be broached, Courant 
 gave a sullen consent. She drew off the first cup 
 ful and gave it to the sick man, his lean hands 
 straining for it, his fingers fumbling in a search 
 for the handle. The leader, after watching her for 
 a moment, turned aw r ay and swung off, muttering. 
 David dropped back on the ground, his eyes closed, 
 his body curved about the damp depression. 
 
 The evening burned to night, the encampment 
 growing black against the scarlet sky. The brush 
 fire sent a line of smoke straight up, a long milky 
 thread, that slowly disentangled itself and mounted 
 to a final outspreading. Each member of the 
 group was still, the girl lying a dark oblong under 
 her blanket, her face upturned to the stars which 
 blossomed slowly in the huge, unclouded heaven. 
 At the root of the butte, hidden against its shadowy 
 base, the mountain man lay motionless, but his 
 eyes were open and they rested on her, not closing 
 or straying. 
 
 When no one saw him he kept this stealthy 
 watch. In the daytime, with the others about, he 
 still was careful to preserve his brusque indiffer 
 ence, to avoid her, to hide his passion with a jealous 
 
The Desert 
 
 subtlety. But beneath the imposed bonds it grew 
 with each day, stronger and more savage as the 
 way waxed fiercer. It was not an obsession of oc 
 casional moments, it was always with him. As 
 pilot her image moved across the waste before him. 
 When he fell back for words with Daddy John, 
 he was listening through the old man s speech, for 
 the fall of her horse s hoofs. Her voice made his 
 heart stop, the rustle of her garments dried his 
 throat. When his lowered eyes saw her hand on 
 the plate s edge, he grew rigid, unable to eat. If she 
 brushed by him in the bustle of camp pitching, his 
 hands lost their strength and he was sick with the 
 sense of her. Love, courtship, marriage, were 
 words that no longer had any meaning for him. 
 All the tenderness and humanity he had felt for 
 her in the days of her father s sickness were gone. 
 They were burned away, as the water and the grass 
 were. When he saw her solicitude for David, his 
 contempt for the weak man hardened into hatred. 
 He told himself that he hated them both, and he 
 told himself he would crush and kill them both 
 before David should get her. The desire to keep 
 her from David was stronger than the desire to 
 have her for himself. He did not think or care 
 what he felt. She was the prey to be won by cun 
 ning or daring, whose taste or wishes had no place 
 in the struggle. He no longer looked ahead, 
 thought, or reasoned. The elemental in him was 
 developing to fit a scene in which only the ele 
 mental survived. 
 
 369 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 They broke camp at four the next morning. For 
 the last few days the heat had been unbearable, and 
 they decided to start while the air was still cool 
 and prolong the noon halt. The landscape grew 
 barer. There were open areas where the soil was 
 soft and sifted from the wheels like sand, and 
 dried stretches where the alkali lay in a caked, white 
 crust. In one place the earth humped into long, 
 wavelike swells each crest topped with a fringe of 
 brush, fine and feathery as petrified spray. At mid 
 day there was no water in sight. Courant, stand 
 ing on his saddle, saw no promise of it, nothing 
 but the level distance streaked with white moun 
 tain rims, and far to the south a patch of yellow 
 bare sand, he said, as he pointed a horny finger 
 to where it lay. 
 
 They camped in the glare and opened the casks. 
 After the meal they tried to rest, but the sun was 
 merciless. The girl crawled under the wagon and 
 lay there on the dust, sleeping with one arm thrown 
 across her face. The two men sat near by, their 
 hats drawn low over their brows. There was not a 
 sound. The silence seemed transmuted to a slowly 
 thickening essence solidifying round them. It 
 pressed upon them till speech was as impossible 
 as it would be under water. A broken group in 
 the landscape s immensity, they were like a new 
 expression of its somber vitality, motionless yet full 
 of life, in consonance with its bare and brutal 
 verity. 
 
 Courant left them to reconnoiter, and at mid 
 
The Desert 
 
 afternoon came back to announce that farther on 
 the trail bent to an outcropping of red rock where 
 he thought there might be water. It was the hot 
 test hour of the day. The animals strained at their 
 harness with lolling tongues and white-rimmed eye 
 balls, their sweat making tracks on the dust. To 
 lighten the wagon Daddy John walked beside it, 
 plodding on in his broken moccasins, now and then 
 chirruping to Julia. The girl rode behind him, 
 her blouse open at the neck, her hair clinging in 
 a black veining to her bedewed temples. Several 
 times he turned back to look at her as the only other 
 female of the party to be encouraged. When she 
 caught his eye she nodded as though acknowledging 
 the salutation of a passerby, her dumbness an in 
 stinctive hoarding of physical force. 
 
 The red rock came in sight, a nicked edge across 
 the distance. As they approached, it drew up from 
 the plain in a series of crumpled points like the 
 comb of a rooster. The detail of the intervening 
 space was lost in the first crepuscular softness, and 
 they saw nothing but a stretch of darkening purple 
 from which rose the scalloped crest painted in 
 strange colors. Courant trotted forward crying a 
 word of hope, and they pricked after him to where 
 the low bulwark loomed above the plain s swim 
 ming mystery. 
 
 When they reached it he was standing at the edge 
 of a caverned indentation. Dead grasses dropped 
 against the walls, withered weeds thickened toward 
 the apex in a tangled carpet. There had once been 
 
 371 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 water there, but it was gone, dried, or sunk to some 
 hidden channel in the rock s heart. They stood 
 staring at the scorched herbage and the basin where 
 the earth was cracked apart in its last gasping 
 throes of thirst. 
 
 David s voice broke the silence. He had climbed 
 to the front seat, and his face, gilded with the sun 
 light, looked like the face of a dead man painted 
 yellow. 
 
 "Is there water?" he said, then saw the dead 
 grass and dried basin, and met the blank looks of 
 his companions. 
 
 Susan s laconic " The spring s dry," was not 
 necessary. He fell forward on the seat with a 
 moan, his head propped in his hands, his fingers 
 buried in his hair. Courant sent a look of furious 
 contempt over his abject figure, then gave a laugh 
 that fell on the silence bitter as a curse. Daddy 
 John without a word moved off and began un 
 hitching the mules. Even in Susan pity was, for 
 the moment, choked by a swell of disgust. Had 
 she not had the other men to measure him by, had 
 she not within her own sturdy frame felt the spirit 
 still strong for conflict, she might still have known 
 only the woman s sympathy for the feebler creature. 
 But they were a trio steeled and braced for invin 
 cible effort, and this weakling, without the body 
 and the spirit for the enterprise, was an alien 
 among them. 
 
 She went to the back of the wagon and opened 
 the mess chest. As she picked out the supper 
 
 372 
 
The Desert 
 
 things she began to repent. The lean, bent figure 
 and sunken head kept recurring to her. She saw 
 him not as David but as a suffering outsider, and 
 for a second, motionless, with a blackened skillet 
 in her hand, had a faint, clairvoyant understanding 
 of his soul s desolation amid the close-knit unity of 
 their endeavor. She dropped the tin and went back 
 to the front of the wagon. He was climbing out, 
 hanging tremulous to the roof support, a haggard 
 spectacle, with wearied eyes and skin drawn into 
 fine puckerings across the temples. Pity came back 
 in a remorseful wave, and she ran to him and lifted 
 his arm to her shoulder. It clasped her hard and 
 they walked to where at the rock s base the sage 
 grew high. Here she laid a blanket for him and 
 spread another on the top of the bushes, fastening 
 it to the tallest ones till it stretched, a sheltering 
 canopy, over him. She tried to cheer him with as 
 surances that water would be found at the next 
 halting place. He was listless at first, seeming not 
 to listen, then the life in her voice roused his slug 
 gish faculties, his cheeks took color, and his dull 
 glance lit on point after point in its passage to her 
 face, like the needle flickering toward the pole. 
 
 " If I could get water enough to drink, I d be 
 all right," he said. " The pains are gone." 
 
 " They must find it soon," she answered, lifting 
 the weight of his fallen courage, heavy as his body 
 might have been to her arms. " This is a traveled 
 road. There must be a spring somewhere along 
 it." 
 
 373 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 And she continued prying up the despairing 
 spirit till the man began to respond, showing re 
 turning hope in the eagerness with which he hung 
 on her words. When he lay sinking into drowsy 
 quiet, she stole away from him to where the camp 
 was spread about the unlit pyre of Daddy John s 
 sage brush. It was too early for supper, and the 
 old man, with the accouterments of the hunt slung 
 upon his person and his rifle in his hand, was about 
 to go afield after jack rabbit. 
 
 " It s a bad business this," he said in answer to 
 the worry she dared not express. " The animals 
 can t hold out much longer." 
 
 " What are we to do? There s only a little water 
 left in one of the casks." 
 
 " Low s goin to strike across for the other trail. 
 He s goin after supper, and he says he ll ride all 
 night till he gets it. He thinks if he goes due that 
 way," pointing northward, " he can strike it sooner 
 than by goin back." 
 
 They looked in the direction he pointed. Each 
 bush was sending a phenomenally long shadow 
 from its intersection with the ground. There was 
 no butte or hummock to break the expanse between 
 them and the faint, far silhouette of mountains. 
 Her heart sank, a sinking that fatigue and dread of 
 thirst had never given her. 
 
 " He may lose us," she said. 
 
 The old man jerked his head toward the rock. 
 
 " He ll steer by that, and I ll keep the fire going 
 till morning." 
 
 374 
 
The Desert 
 
 "But how can he ride all night? He must be 
 half dead now." 
 
 " A man like him don t die easy. It s not the 
 muscle and the bones, it s the grit. He says it s him 
 that made the mistake and it s him that s goin to 
 get us back on the right road." 
 
 " What will he do for water? " 
 
 "Take an empty cask behind the saddle and 
 trust to God." 
 
 " But there s water in one of our casks yet." 
 
 " Yes, he knows it, but he s goin to leave that 
 for us. And we got to hang on to it, Missy. Do 
 you understand that ? " 
 
 She nodded, frowning and biting her underlip. 
 
 "Are you feelin bad?" said the old man un 
 easily. 
 
 " Not a bit," she answered. " Don t worry about 
 
 me." 
 
 He laid a hand on her shoulder and looked into 
 her face with eyes that said more than his tongue 
 could. 
 
 " You re as good a man as any of us. When we 
 get to California we ll have fun laughing over 
 this." 
 
 He gave the shoulder a shake, then drew back 
 and picked up his rifle. 
 
 " I ll get you a rabbit for supper if I can," he 
 said with his cackling laugh. " That s about the 
 best I can do." 
 
 He left her trailing off into the reddened reaches 
 of the sage, and she went back to the rock, thinking 
 
 375 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 that in some overlooked hollow, water might linger. 
 She passed the mouth of the dead spring, then 
 skirted the spot where David lay, a motionless 
 shape under the canopy of the blanket. A few 
 paces beyond him a buttress extended and, rounding 
 it, she found a triangular opening inclosed on three 
 sides by walls, their summits orange with the last 
 sunlight. There had once been water here for the 
 grasses, and thin-leafed plants grew rank about 
 the rock s base, then outlined in sere decay what 
 had evidently been the path of a streamlet. She 
 knelt among them, thrusting her hands between 
 their rustling stalks, jerking them up and casting 
 them away, the friable soil spattering from their 
 roots. 
 
 The heat was torrid, the noon ardors still impris 
 oned between the slanting walls. Presently she sat 
 back on her heels, and with an earthy hand pushed 
 the moist hair from her forehead. The movement 
 brought her head up, and her wandering eyes, rov 
 ing in morose inspection, turned to the cleft s open 
 ing. Courant was standing there, watching her. 
 His hands hung loose at his sides, his head was 
 drooped forward, his chin lowered toward his 
 throat. The position lent to his gaze a suggestion 
 of animal ruminance and concentration. 
 
 " Why don t you get David to do that? " he said 
 slowly. 
 
 The air in the little cleft seemed to her suddenly 
 heavy and hard to breathe. She caught it into her 
 lungs with a quick inhalation. Dropping her eyes 
 
 376 
 
The Desert 
 
 to the weeds she said sharply, " David s sick. He 
 can t do anything. You know that." 
 
 "He that ought to be out in the desert there 
 looking for water s lying asleep under a blanket. 
 That s your man." 
 
 He did not move or divert his gaze. There was 
 something singularly sinister in the fixed and gleam 
 ing look and the rigidity of his watching face. She 
 plucked at a weed, saw her hand s trembling and 
 to hide it struck her palms together shaking off the 
 dust. The sound filled the silent place. To her 
 ears it was hardly louder than the terrified beating 
 of her heart. 
 
 " That s the man you ve chosen," he went on. 
 " A feller that gives out when the road s hard, who 
 hasn t enough backbone to stand a few days heat 
 and thirst. A poor, useless rag." 
 
 He spoke in a low voice, very slowly, each word 
 dropping distinct and separate. His lowering ex 
 pression, his steady gaze, his deliberate speech, 
 spoke of mental forces in abeyance. It was another 
 man, not the Courant she knew. 
 
 She tried to quell her tremors by simulating in 
 dignation. If her breathing shook her breast into 
 an agitation he could see, the look she kept on him 
 was bold and defiant. 
 
 " Don t speak of him that way," she cried scram 
 bling to her feet. " Keep what you think to your 
 self." 
 
 " And what do you think ? " he said and moved 
 forward toward her. 
 
 377 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 She made no answer, and it was very silent in 
 the cleft. As he came nearer the grasses crackling 
 under his soft tread were the only sound. She saw 
 that his face was pale under the tan, the nostrils 
 slightly dilated. Stepping with a careful lightness, 
 his movements suggested a carefully maintained ad 
 justment, a being quivering in a breathless balance. 
 She backed away till she stood pressed against the 
 rock. She felt her thoughts scattering and made 
 an effort to hold them as though grasping at tangi 
 ble, escaping things. 
 
 He stopped close to her, and neither spoke for a 
 moment, eye hard on eye, then hers shifted and 
 dropped. 
 
 " You think about him as I do," said the man. 
 
 " No," she answered, " no/ but her voice showed 
 uncertainty. 
 
 " Why don t you tell the truth ? Why do you 
 lie?" 
 
 " No," this time the word was hardly audible, 
 and she tried to impress it by shaking her head. 
 
 He made a step toward her and seized one of her 
 hands. She tried to tear it away and flattened her 
 self against the rock, panting, her face gone white 
 as the alkaline patches of the desert. 
 
 " You don t love him. You never did." 
 
 She shook her head again, gasping. " Let me 
 out of here. Let go of me." 
 
 " You liar," he whispered. " You love me." 
 
 She could not answer, her knees shaking, the 
 place blurring on her sight. Through a sick dizzi- 
 
 378 
 
The Desert 
 
 ness she saw nothing but his altered face. He 
 reached for the other hand, spread flat against the 
 stone, and as she felt his grasp upon it, her words 
 came in broken pleading: 
 
 " Yes, yes, it s true. I do. But I ve promised. 
 Let me go." 
 
 " Then come to me," he said huskily and tried 
 to wrench her forward into his arms. 
 
 She held herself rigid, braced against the wall, 
 and tearing one hand free, raised it, palm out, be 
 tween his face and hers. 
 
 " No, no! My father I promised him. I can t 
 tell David now. I will later. Don t hold me. Let 
 me go." 
 
 The voice of Daddy John came clear from out 
 side. "Missy! Hullo, Missy! Where are you?" 
 
 She sent up the old man s name in a quavering 
 cry and the mountain man dropped her arm and 
 stepped back. 
 
 She ran past him, and at the mouth of the open 
 ing, stopped and leaned on a ledge, getting her 
 breath and trying to control her trembling. Daddy 
 John was coming through the sage, a jack rabbit 
 held up in one hand. 
 
 " Here s your supper," he cried jubilant. " Ain t 
 I told you I d get it ? " 
 
 She moved forward to meet him, walking slowly. 
 When he saw her face, concern supplanted his tri 
 umph. 
 
 E< We got to get you out of this," he said. 
 You re as peaked as one of them frontier women 
 379 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 in sunbonnets," and he tried to hook a compassion 
 ate hand in her arm. But she edged away from 
 him, fearful that he would feel her trembling, and 
 answered : 
 
 " It s the heat. It seems to draw the strength all 
 out of me." 
 
 " The rabbit ll put some of it back. I ll go and 
 get things started. You sit by David and rest up," 
 and he skurried away to the camp. 
 
 She went to David, lying now with opened eyes 
 and hands clasped beneath his head. When her 
 shadow fell across him he turned a brightened face 
 on her. 
 
 " I m better," he said. " If I could get some 
 water I think I d soon be all right." 
 
 She stood looking down on him with a clouded, 
 almost sullen, expression. 
 
 " Did you sleep long? " she asked for something 
 to say. 
 
 " I don t know how long. A little while ago I 
 woke up and looked for you, but you weren t any 
 where round, so I just lay here and looked out across 
 to the mountains and began to think of California. 
 I haven t thought about it for a long while." 
 
 She sat down by him and listened as he told her 
 his thoughts. With a renewal of strength the old 
 dreams had come back the cabin by the river, the 
 garden seeds to be planted, and now added to them 
 was the gold they were to find. She hearkened with 
 unresponsive apathy. The repugnance to this mu 
 tually shared future which had once made her re- 
 
 380 
 
The Desert 
 
 coil from it was a trivial thing to the abhorrence 
 of it that was now hers. Dislikes had become loath 
 ings, a girl s whims, a woman s passions. As 
 David babbled on she kept her eyes averted, for she 
 knew that in them her final withdrawal shone 
 coldly. Her thoughts kept reverting to the scene 
 in the cleft, and when she tore them from it and 
 forced them back on him, her conscience awoke and 
 gnawed. She could no more tell this man, return 
 ing to life and love of her, than she could kill him 
 as he lay there defenseless and trusting. 
 
 At supper they measured out the water, half a 
 cup for each. There still remained a few inches in 
 the cask. This was to be hoarded against the next 
 day. If Courant on his night journey could not 
 strike the upper trail and a spring they would have 
 to retrace their steps, and by this route, with the 
 animals exhausted and their own strength dimin 
 ished, the first water was a twelve hours march off. 
 Susan and Courant were silent, avoiding each 
 other s eyes, torpid to the outward observation. 
 But the old man was unusually garrulous, evidently 
 attempting to raise their lowered spirits. He had 
 much to say about California and the gold there, 
 speculated on their chances of fortune, and then 
 carried his speculations on to the joys of wealth 
 and a future in which Susan was to say with the 
 Biblical millionaire, " Now soul take thine ease." 
 She rewarded him with a quick smile, then tipped 
 her cup till the bottom faced the sky, and let the 
 last drop run into her mouth. 
 
 381 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 The night was falling when Courant rode out. 
 She passed him as he was mounting, the canteen 
 strapped to the back of his saddle. " Good-by, and 
 good luck/ she said in a low voice as she brushed 
 by. His " good-by " came back to her instilled 
 with a new meaning. The reserve between them 
 was gone. Separated as the poles, they had sud 
 denly entered within the circle of an intimacy that 
 had snapped round them and shut them in. Her 
 surroundings fell into far perspective, losing their 
 menace. She did not care where she was or how 
 she fared. An indifference to all that had seemed 
 unbearable, uplifted her. It was like an emergence 
 from cramped confines to wide, inspiring spaces. 
 He and she were there the rest was nothing. 
 
 Sitting beside David she could see the rider s fig 
 ure grow small, as it receded across the plain. The 
 night had come and the great level brooded solemn 
 under the light of the first, serene stars. In the 
 middle of the camp Daddy John s fire flared, the 
 central point of illumination in a ring of fluctuant 
 yellow. Touched and lost by its waverings the old 
 man s figure came and went, absorbed in outer 
 darkness, then revealed his arms extended round 
 sheaves of brush. David turned and lay on his side 
 looking at her. Her knees were drawn up, her 
 hands clasped round her ankles. With the ragged 
 detail of her dress obscured, the line of her profile 
 and throat sharp in clear silhouette against the saf 
 fron glow, she was like a statue carved in black 
 marble. He could not see what her glance fol- 
 
 382 
 
The Desert 
 
 lowed, only felt the consolation of her presence, the 
 one thing to which he could turn and meet a hu 
 man response. 
 
 He was feverish again, his thirst returned in an 
 insatiable craving. Moving restlessly he flung out 
 a hand toward her and said querulously : 
 
 " How long will Low be gone ? " 
 
 1 Till the morning unless he finds water by the 
 
 way." 
 
 Silence fell on him and her eyes strained through 
 the darkness for the last glimpse of the rider. He 
 sighed deeply, the hot hand stirring till it lay spread, 
 with separated fingers on the hem of her dress. He 
 moved each finger, their brushing on the cloth the 
 only sound. 
 
 " Are you in pain ? " she asked and shrunk be 
 fore the coldness of her voice. 
 
 " No, but I am dying with thirst." 
 
 She made no answer, resting in her graven quiet 
 ness. The night had closed upon the rider s figure, 
 but she watched where it had been. Over a black 
 ened peak a large star soared up like a bright eye 
 spying on the waste. Suddenly the hand clinched 
 and he struck down at the earth with it. 
 
 " I can t go without water till the morning." 
 
 Try to sleep," she said. " We must stand it 
 the best way we can." 
 
 " I can t sleep." 
 
 He moaned and turned over on his face and ly 
 ing thus rolled from side to side as if in anguish 
 that movement assuaged. For the first time she 
 
 383 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 looked at him, turning upon him a glance of ques 
 tioning anxiety. She could see his narrow, angu 
 lar shape, the legs twisted, the arms bent for a pil 
 low, upon which his head moved in restless pain. 
 
 " David, we ve got to wait." 
 
 " The night through ? Stay this way till morn 
 ing? I ll be dead. I wish I was now." 
 
 She looked away from him seized by temptation 
 that rose from contrition not pity. 
 
 " If you cared for me you could get it. Low s 
 certain to find a spring." 
 
 " Very well. I will," she said and rose to her 
 feet. 
 
 She moved softly to the camp the darkness hid 
 ing her. Daddy John was taking a cat nap by the 
 fire, a barrier of garnered sage behind him. She 
 knew his sleep was light and stole with a tiptoe 
 tread to the back of the wagon where the water 
 cask stood. She drew off a cupful, then, her eye 
 alert on the old man, crept back to David. When 
 he saw her coming he sat up with a sharp breath of 
 satisfaction, and she knelt beside him and held the 
 cup to his lips. He drained it and sank back in a 
 collapse of relief, muttering thanks that she hushed, 
 fearful of the old man. Then she again took her 
 seat beside him. She saw Daddy John get up and 
 pile the fire high, and watched its leaping flame 
 throw out tongues toward the stars. 
 
 Midnight was past when David \voke and again 
 begged for water. This time she went for it with 
 out urging. When he had settled into rest she con- 
 
 384 
 
The Desert 
 
 tinned her watch peaceful at the thought that she 
 had given him what was hers and Courant s. 
 Reparation of a sort had been made. Her mind 
 could fly without hindrance into the wilderness with 
 the lonely horseman. It was a luxury like dearly 
 bought freedom, and she sat on lost in it, abandoned 
 to a reverie as deep and solemn as the night. 
 
 385 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SHE woke when the sun shot its first rays into 
 her eyes. David lay near by, breathing lightly, his 
 face like a pale carven mask against the blanket s 
 folds. Down below in the camp the fire burned 
 low, its flame looking ineffectual and tawdry in the 
 flushed splendor of the sunrise. Daddy John was 
 astir, moving about among the animals and paus 
 ing to rub Julia s nose and hearten her up with 
 hopeful words. 
 
 Susan mounted to a ledge and scanned the dis 
 tance. Her figure caught the old man s eye and he 
 hailed her for news. Nothing yet, she signaled 
 back, then far on the plain s rose-brown limit saw 
 a dust blur and gave a cry that brought him run 
 ning and carried him in nimble ascent to her side. 
 His old eyes could see nothing. She had to point 
 the direction with a finger that shook. 
 
 " There, there. It s moving far away, as if a 
 drop of water had been spilled on a picture and 
 made a tiny blot." 
 
 They watched till a horseman grew from the 
 nebulous spot. Then they climbed down and ran 
 to the camp, got out the breakfast things and threw 
 brush on the fire, speaking nothing but the essen 
 tial word, for hope and fear racked them. When 
 
 386 
 
The Desert 
 
 he was within hail Daddy John ran to meet him, 
 but she stayed where she was, her hands making 
 useless darts among the pans, moistening her lips 
 that they might frame speech easily when he came. 
 With down-bent head she heard his voice hoarse 
 from a dust-dried throat: he had found the trail 
 and near it a spring, the cask he carried was full, 
 it would last them for twelve hours. But the way 
 was heavy and the animals were too spent for a 
 day s march in such heat. They would not start till 
 evening and would journey through the night. 
 
 She heard his feet brushing toward her through 
 the sage, and smelled the dust and sweat upon him 
 as he drew up beside her. She was forced to raise 
 her eyes and murmur a greeting. It was short and 
 cold, and Daddy John marveled at the ways of 
 women, who welcomed a man from such labors as 
 if he had been to the creek and brought up a pail 
 of water. His face, gaunt and grooved with lines, 
 made her heart swell with the pity she had so freely 
 given David, and the passion that had never been 
 his. There was no maternal softness in her now. 
 The man beside her was no helpless creature claim 
 ing her aid, but a conqueror upon whom she leaned 
 and in whom she gloried. 
 
 After he had eaten he drew a saddle back into the 
 rock s shade, spread a blanket and threw himself 
 on it. Almost before he had composed his body 
 in comfort he was asleep, one arm thrown over his 
 head, his sinewy neck outstretched, his chest ris 
 ing and falling in even breaths. 
 
 387 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 At noon Daddy John in broaching the cask dis 
 covered the deficit in the water supply. She came 
 upon the old man with the half-filled coffee-pot in 
 his hand staring down at its contents with a puz 
 zled face. She stood watching him, guilty as a 
 thievish child, the color mounting to her forehead. 
 He looked up and in his eyes she read the shock 
 of his suspicions. Delicacy kept him silent, and 
 as he rinsed the water round in the pot his 
 own face reddened in a blush for the girl he 
 had thought strong in honor and self-denial as he 
 was. 
 
 " I took it," she said slowly. 
 
 He had to make allowances, not only to her, but 
 to himself. He felt that he must reassure her, keep 
 her from feeling shame for the first underhand act 
 he had ever known her commit. So he spoke 
 with all the cheeriness he could command : 
 
 " I guess you needed it pretty bad. Turning out 
 as it has I m glad you done it." 
 
 She saw he thought she had taken it for herself, 
 and experienced relief in the consciousness of un 
 just punishment. 
 
 " You were asleep/ she said, " and I came down 
 and took it twice." 
 
 He did not look at her for he could not bear to 
 see her humiliation. It was his affair to lighten 
 her self-reproach. 
 
 " Well, that was all right. You re the only wom 
 an among us, and you ve got to be kept up." 
 
 " I I couldn t stand it any longer," she fal- 
 
 388 
 
The Desert 
 
 tered now, wanting to justify herself. " It was too 
 much to bear." 
 
 " Don t say no more," he said tenderly. " Ain t 
 you only a little girl put up against things that ud 
 break the spirit of a strong man? " 
 
 The pathos of his efforts to excuse her shook her 
 guarded self-control. She suddenly put her face 
 against his shoulder in a lonely dreariness. He 
 made a backward gesture with his head that he 
 might toss off his hat and lay his cheek on her hair. 
 
 There, there," he muttered comfortingly. 
 " Don t go worrying about that. You ain t done 
 no harm. It s just as natural for you to have taken 
 it as for you to go to sleep when you re tired. And 
 there s not a soul but you and me ll ever know it, 
 and we ll forget by to-night." 
 
 His simple words, reminiscent of gentler days, 
 when tragic problems lay beyond the confines of 
 imagination, loosed the tension of her mood, and 
 she clasped her arms about him, trembling and 
 shaken. He patted her with his free hand, the 
 coffee-pot in the other, thinking her agitation mere 
 ly an expression of fatigue, with no more knowl 
 edge of its complex provocation than he had of the 
 mighty throes that had once shaken the blighted 
 land on which they stood. 
 
 David was better, much better, he declared, and 
 proved it by helping clear the camp and pack the 
 wagon for the night march. He was kneeling by 
 Daddy John, who was folding the blankets, when 
 he said suddenly: 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " If I hadn t got water I think I d have died last 
 night." 
 
 The old man, stopped in his folding to turn a 
 hardening face on him. 
 
 " Water? " he said. " How d you get it? " 
 
 " Susan did. I told her I couldn t stand it, and 
 she went down twice to the wagon and brought it 
 to me. I was at the end of my rope." 
 
 Daddy John said nothing. His ideas were re 
 adjusting themselves to a new point of view. 
 When they were established his Missy was back 
 upon her pedestal, a taller one than ever before, 
 and David was once and for all in the dust at its 
 feet. 
 
 " There s no one like Susan," the lover went on, 
 now with returning forces, anxious to give the 
 mead of praise where it was due. " She tried to 
 talk me out of it, and then when she saw I couldn t 
 stand it she just went quietly off and got it." 
 
 " I guess you could have held out till the morning 
 if you d put your mind to it," said the old man 
 dryly, rising with the blankets. 
 
 For the moment he despised David almost as bit 
 terly as Courant did. It was not alone the weak 
 ness so frankly admitted ; it was that his action had 
 made Daddy John harbor secret censure of the be 
 ing dearest to him. The old man could have spat 
 upon him. He moved away for fear of the words 
 that trembled on his tongue. And another and 
 deeper pain tormented him that his darling 
 should so love this feeble creature that she 
 
 39 
 
The Desert 
 
 could steal for him and take the blame of his mis 
 deeds. This was the man to whom she had given 
 her heart! He found himself wishing that David 
 had never come back from his search for the lost 
 horses. Then the other man, the real man that was 
 her fitting mate, could have won her. 
 
 At sunset the train was ready. Every article that 
 could be dispensed with was left, a rich find for 
 the Indians whose watch fires winked from the hills. 
 To the cry of " Roll out," and the snap of the long 
 whip, the wagon lurched into motion, the thirst- 
 racked animals straining doggedly as it crunched 
 over sage stalks and dragged through powdery 
 hummocks. The old man walked by the wheel, the 
 long lash of his whip thrown afar, flashing in the 
 upper light and descending in a lick of flame on 
 the mules gray flanks. With each blow fell a 
 phrase of encouragement, the words of a friend 
 who wounds and wounding himself suffers. David 
 rode at the rear with Susan. The two men had 
 told him he must ride if he died for it, and met his 
 offended answer that he intended to do so with 
 sullen silence. In advance, Courant s figure brushed 
 between the bushes, his hair a moving patch of cop 
 per color in the last light. 
 
 Darkness quickly gathered round them. The 
 bowl of sky became an intense Prussian blue that 
 the earth reflected. In this clear, deep color the 
 wagon hood showed a pallid arch, and the shapes 
 of man and beast were defined in shaclowless black. 
 In the west a band of lemon-color lingered, and 
 
 391 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 above the stars began to prick through, great scin- 
 tillant sparks, that looked, for all their size, much 
 farther away than the stars of the peopled places. 
 Their light seemed caught and held in aerial gulfs 
 above the earth, making the heavens clear, while 
 the night clung close and undisturbed to the plain s 
 face. Once from afar the cry of an animal arose, 
 a long, swelling howl, but around the train all was 
 still save for the crackling of the crushed sage 
 stalks, and the pad of hoofs. 
 
 It was near midnight when Susan s voice sum 
 moned Daddy John. The wagon halted, and she 
 beckoned him with a summoning arm. He ran to 
 her, circling the bushes with a youth s alertness, 
 and stretched up to hear her as she bent from the 
 saddle. David must go in the wagon, he was unable 
 to ride longer. The old man swept him with a look 
 of inspection. The starlight showed a drooping 
 figure, the face hidden by the shadow of his hat 
 brim. The mules were at the limit of their strength, 
 and the old man demurred, swearing under his 
 breath and biting his nails. 
 
 " You ve got to take him," she said, " if it kills 
 them. He would have fallen off a minute ago if I 
 hadn t put my arm around him." 
 
 " Come on, then," he answered with a surly look 
 at David. " Come on and ride, while the rest of 
 us get along the best way we can." 
 
 " He can t help it," she urged in an angry whis 
 per. " You talk as if he was doing it on pur 
 pose." 
 
 392 
 
The Desert 
 
 David slid off his horse and made for the wagon 
 with reeling steps. The other man followed mut 
 tering. 
 
 " Help him," she called. " Don t you see he can 
 hardly stand?" 
 
 At the wagon wheel Daddy John hoisted him in 
 with vigorous and ungentle hands. Crawling into 
 the back the sick man fell prone with a groan. 
 Courant, who had heard them and turned to watch, 
 came riding up. 
 
 "What is it?" he said sharply. "The mules 
 given out ? " 
 
 " Not they," snorted Daddy John, at once all 
 belligerent loyalty to Julia and her mates, " it s this 
 d d cry baby again," and he picked up the reins 
 exclaiming in tones of fond urgence : 
 
 " Come now, off again. Keep up your heart. 
 There s water and grass ahead. Up there, Julia, 
 honey!" 
 
 The long team, crouching in the effort to start 
 the wagon, heaved it forward, and the old man, 
 leaping over the broken sage, kept the pace beside 
 them. Courant, a few feet in advance, said over his 
 shoulder : 
 
 " What s wrong with him now ? " 
 
 " Oh, played out, I guess. She," with a backward 
 jerk of his head, " won t have it any other way. 
 No good telling her it s nerve not body that he ain t 
 got." 
 
 The mountain man looked back toward the path 
 way between the slashed and broken bushes. He 
 
 393 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 could see Susan s solitary figure, David s horse fol 
 lowing. 
 
 " What s she mind for? " he said. 
 
 " Because she s a woman and they re made that 
 way. She s more set on that chump than she d be 
 on the finest man you could bring her if you hunted 
 the world over for him." 
 
 They fared on in silence, the soft soil muffling 
 their steps. The wagon lurched on a hummock and 
 David groaned. 
 
 "Are you meaning she cares for him?" asked 
 Courant. 
 
 " All her might," answered the old man. " Ain t 
 she goin to marry the varmint ? " 
 
 It was an hour for understanding, no matter how 
 bitter. Daddy John s own dejection made him un 
 sparing. He offered his next words as confirma 
 tion of a condition that he thought would kill all 
 hope in the heart of the leader. 
 
 " Last night he made her get him water the 
 store we had left if you hadn t found any. Twict 
 in the night while I was asleep she took and gave 
 it to him. Then when I found it out she let me 
 think she took it for herself," he spat despondently. 
 " She the same as lied for him. I don t want to 
 hear no more after that." 
 
 The mountain man rode with downdrooped 
 head. Daddy John, who did not know what he did, 
 might well come to such conclusions. He knew 
 the secret of the girl s contradictory actions. He 
 looked into her perturbed spirit and saw how des- 
 
 394 
 
The Desert 
 
 perately she clung to the letter of her obligation, 
 while she repudiated the spirit. Understanding 
 her solicitude for David, he knew that it was 
 strengthened by the consciousness of her disloy 
 alty. But he felt no tenderness for these distracted 
 feminine waverings. It exhilarated him to think 
 that while she held to the betrothed of her father s 
 choice and the bond of her given word, her hold 
 would loosen at his wish As he had felt toward, 
 enemies that he had conquered crushed and sub 
 jected by his will he felt toward her. It was a 
 crowning joy to know that he could make her 
 break her promise, turn her from her course of des 
 perate fidelity, and make her his own, not against 
 her inclination, but against her pity, her honor, her 
 conscience. 
 
 The spoor left by his horse the night before was 
 clear in the starlight. He told Daddy John to follow 
 it and drew up beside the track to let the wagon pass 
 him. Motionless he watched the girl s approaching 
 figure, and saw her rein her horse to a standstill. 
 
 " Come on," he said softly. " I want to speak 
 to you." 
 
 She touched the horse and it started toward him. 
 As she came nearer he could see the troubled shine 
 of her eyes. 
 
 " Why are you afraid ? " he said, as he fell into 
 place beside her. " We re friends now." 
 
 She made no answer, her head bent till her face 
 was hidden by her hat. He laid his hand on her 
 rein and brought the animal to a halt. 
 
 395 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Let the wagon get on ahead," he whispered. 
 " We ll follow at a distance." 
 
 The whisper, so low that the silence was un 
 broken by it, came to her, a clear sound carrying 
 with it a thrill of understanding. She trembled 
 and his arm against hers as his hand held her rein 
 he felt the subdued vibration like the quivering 
 of a frightened animal. The wagon lumbered away 
 with the sifting dust gushing from the wheels. A 
 stirred cloud rose upon its wake and they could 
 feel it thick and stifling in their nostrils. She 
 watched the receding arch cut down the back by the 
 crack in the closed canvas, while he watched her. 
 The sound of crushed twigs and straining wheels 
 lessened, the stillness gathered between these noises 
 of laboring life and the two mounted figures. As 
 it settled each could hear the other s breathing and 
 feel a mutual throb, as though the same leaping 
 artery fed them both. In the blue night encircled 
 by the waste, they were as still as vessels balanced 
 to a hair in which passion brimmed to the edge. 
 
 " Come on," she said huskily, and twitched her 
 reins from his hold. 
 
 The horses started, walking slowly. A strip of 
 mangled sage lay in front, back of them the heavens 
 hung, a star-strewn curtain. It seemed to the man 
 and woman that they were the only living things 
 in the world, its people, its sounds, its interests, 
 were in some undescried distance where life pro 
 gressed with languid pulses. How long the silence 
 lasted neither knew. He broke it with a whisper : 
 
 396 
 
The Desert 
 
 " Why did you get David the water last night? " 
 
 Her answer came so low he had to bend to 
 hear it. 
 
 " He wanted it. I had to." 
 
 " Why do you give him all he asks for ? David 
 is nothing to you." 
 
 This time no answer came, and he stretched his 
 hand and clasped the pommel of her saddle. The 
 horses, feeling the pull of the powerful arm, drew 
 together. His knee pressed on the shoulder of her 
 pony, and feeling him almost against her she bent 
 sideways, flinching from the contact. 
 
 " Why do you shrink from me, Missy ? " 
 
 " I m afraid," she whispered. 
 
 They paced on for a moment in silence. When 
 he tried to speak his lips were stiff, and he moistened 
 them to murmur : 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 She shrunk still further and raised a hand be 
 tween them. He snatched at it, pulling it down, 
 saying hoarsely: 
 
 "Of me?" 
 
 " Of something I don t know what. Of some 
 thing terrible and strange." 
 
 She tried to strike at her horse with the reins, but 
 the man s hand dropped like a hawk on the pommel 
 and drew the tired animal back to the foot pace. 
 
 " If you love me there s no need of fear," he said, 
 then waited, the sound of her terrified breathing 
 like the beating of waves in his ears, and murmured 
 lower than before, " And you love me. I know it." 
 
 397 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Her face showed in dark profile against the deep 
 sky. He stared at it, then suddenly set his teeth 
 and gave the pommel a violent jerk that made the 
 horse stagger and grind against its companion. 
 The creaking of the wagon came faint from a wake 
 of shadowy trail. 
 
 You ve done it for weeks. Before you knew. 
 Before you lied to your father when he tried to 
 make you marry David." 
 
 She dropped the reins and clinched her hands 
 against her breast, a movement of repression and 
 also of pleading to anything that would protect her, 
 any force that w r ould give her strength to fight, not 
 the man alone, but herself. But the will was not 
 within her. The desert grew dim, the faint sounds 
 from the wagon faded. Like a charmed bird, star 
 ing straight before it, mute and enthralled, she 
 rocked lightly to left and right, and then swayed 
 toward him. 
 
 The horse, feeling the dropped rein, stopped, 
 jerking its neck forward in the luxury of rest, its 
 companion coming to a standstill beside it. Cou- 
 rant raised himself in his saddle and gathered her 
 in an embrace that crushed her against his bony 
 frame, then pressed against her face with his, till 
 he pushed it upward and could see it, white, with 
 closed eyes, on his shoulder. He bent till his long 
 hair mingled with hers and laid his lips on her 
 mouth with the clutch of a bee on a flower. 
 
 They stood a compact silhouette, clear in the 
 luminous starlight. The crack in the canvas that 
 
 398 
 
The Desert 
 
 covered the wagon back widened and the eye that 
 had been watching them, stared bright and wide, 
 as if all the life of the feeble body had concentrated 
 in that one organ of sense. The hands, damp and 
 trembling, drew the canvas edges closer, but left 
 space enough for the eye to dwell on this vision of 
 a shattered world. It continued to gaze as Susan 
 slid from the encircling arms, dropped from her 
 horse, and came running forward, stumbling on the 
 fallen bushes, as she ran panting out the old serv 
 ant s name. Then it went back to the mountain 
 man, a black shape in the loneliness of the night. 
 
 399 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A SLOWLY lightening sky, beneath it the trans 
 parent sapphire of the desert wakening to the dawn, 
 and cutting the blue expanse the line of the new 
 trail. A long butte, a bristling outline on the pal 
 ing north, ran out from a crumpled clustering of 
 hills, and the road bent to meet it. The air came 
 from it touched with a cooling freshness, and as 
 they pressed toward it they saw the small, swift 
 shine of water, a little pool, grass-ringed, with 
 silver threads creeping to the sands. 
 
 They drank and then slept, sinking to oblivion as 
 they dropped on the ground, not waiting to undo 
 their blankets or pick out comfortable spots. The 
 sun, lifting a bright eye above the earth s rim, shot 
 its long beams over their motionless figures, " bun 
 dles of life," alone in a lifeless world. 
 
 David alone could not rest. Withdrawn from 
 the others he lay in the shadow of the wagon, 
 watching small points in the distance with a glance 
 that saw nothing. All sense of pain and weakness 
 had left him. Physically he felt strangely light and 
 free of sensation. With his brain endowed with 
 an abnormal activity he suffered an agony of spirit 
 so poignant that there were moments when he drew 
 back and looked at himself wondering how he en- 
 
 400 
 
The Desert 
 
 dured it. He was suddenly broken away from 
 everything cherished and desirable in life. The 
 bare and heart-rending earth about him was as the 
 expression of his ruined hopes. And after these 
 submergences in despair a tide of questions car 
 ried him to livelier torment : Why had she done it ? 
 What had changed her? When had she ceased to 
 care? 
 
 All his deadened manhood revived. He wanted 
 her, he owned her, she was his. Sick and unable to 
 fight for her she had been stolen from him, and 
 he writhed in spasms of self pity at the thought of 
 the cruelty of it. How could he, disabled, broken 
 by unaccustomed hardships, cope with the iron- 
 fibered man whose body and spirit were at one with 
 these harsh settings? He was unfitted for it, for 
 the heroic struggle, for the battle man to man for 
 a woman as men had fought in the world s dawn 
 into which they had retraced their steps. He could 
 not make himself over, become another being to 
 appeal to a sense in her he had never touched. He 
 could only plead with her, beg mercy of her, and 
 he saw that these were not the means that won 
 women grown half savage in correspondence with 
 a savage environment. 
 
 Then came moments of exhaustion when he could 
 not believe it. Closing his eyes he called up the 
 placid life that was to have been his and Susan s, 
 and could not think but that it still must be. Like 
 a child he clung to his hope, to the belief that some 
 thing would intervene and give her back to him; 
 
 401 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 not he, he was unable to, but something that stood 
 for justice and mercy. All his life he had abided 
 by the law, walked uprightly, done his best. Was 
 he to be smitten now through no fault of his own? 
 It was all a horrible dream, and presently there 
 would be an awakening with Susan beside him as 
 she had been in the first calm weeks of their be 
 trothal. The sweetness of those days returned to 
 him with the intolerable pang of a fair time, long 
 past and never to come again. He threw his head 
 back as if in a paroxysm of pain. It could not be 
 and yet in his heart he knew it was true. In the 
 grip of his torment he thought of the God that 
 watching over Israel slumbered not nor slept. 
 With his eyes on the implacable sky he tried to 
 pray, tried to drag down from the empty gulf of 
 air the help that would bring back his lost hap 
 piness. 
 
 At Susan s first waking movement he started 
 and turned his head toward her. She saw him, 
 averted her face, and began the preparations for the 
 meal. He lay watching her and he knew that her 
 avoidance of his glance was intentional. He also 
 saw that her manner of preoccupied bustle was af 
 fected. She was pale, her face set in hard lines. 
 When she spoke once to Daddy John her voice was 
 unlike itself, hoarse and throaty, its mellow music 
 gone. 
 
 They gathered and took their places in silence, 
 save for the old man, who tried to talk, but meet 
 ing no response gave it up. Between the three 
 
 402 
 
The Desert 
 
 others not a word was exchanged. A stifling op 
 pression lay on them, and they did not dare to look 
 at one another. The girl found it impossible to 
 swallow and taking a piece of biscuit from her 
 mouth threw it into the sand. 
 
 The air was sultry, light whisps of mist lying 
 low over the plain. The weight of these vaporous 
 films seemed to rest on them heavy as the weight 
 of water, and before the meal was finished, Susan> 
 overborne by a growing dread and premonition of 
 tragedy, rose and left her place, disappearing round 
 a buttress of the rock. Courant stopped eating and 
 looked after her, his head slowly moving as his eye 
 followed her. To anyone watching it would have 
 been easy to read this pursuing glance, the look 
 of the hunter on his quarry. David saw it and 
 rose to his knees. A rifle lay within arm s reach, 
 and for one furious moment he felt an impulse to 
 snatch it and kill the man. But a rush of inhibiting 
 instinct checked him. Had death or violence men 
 aced her he could have done it, but without the 
 incentive of the immediate horror he could never 
 rise so far beyond himself. 
 
 Susan climbed the rock s side to a plateau on its 
 western face. The sun beat on her like a furnace 
 mouth. Here and there black filigrees of shade 
 shrank to the bases of splintered ledges. Below the 
 plain lay outflung in the stupor of midday. On 
 its verge the mountains stretched, a bright blue, 
 shadowless film. A mirage trembled to the south, 
 a glassy vision, crystal clear amid the chalky streak- 
 
 403 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ings and the rings of parched and blanching sinks. 
 Across the prospect the faint, unfamiliar mist hung 
 as if, in the torrid temperature, the earth was 
 steaming. 
 
 She sat down on a shelf of rock not feeling the 
 burning sunshine or the heat that the baked ledges 
 threw back upon her. The life within her was so 
 intense that no impressions from the outside could 
 enter, even her eyes took in no image of the pros 
 pect they dwelt on. Courant s kiss had brought 
 her to a place toward which, she now realized, she 
 had been moving for a long time, advancing upon 
 it, unknowing, but impelled like a somnambulist 
 willed toward a given goal. What was to happen 
 she did not know. She felt a dread so heavy that 
 it crushed all else from her mind. They had 
 reached a crisis where everything had stopped, a 
 dark and baleful focus to which all that had gone 
 before had been slowly converging. The whole 
 journey had been leading to this climax of sus 
 pended breath and fearful, inner waiting. 
 
 She heard the scraping of ascending feet, and 
 when she saw David stared at him, her eyes un 
 blinking in stony expectancy. He came and stood 
 before her, and she knew that at last he had guessed, 
 and felt no fear, no resistance against the explana 
 tion that must come. He suddenly had lost all sig 
 nificance, was hardly a human organism, or if a 
 human organism, one that had no relation to her. 
 Neither spoke for some minutes. He was afraid, 
 and she waited, knowing what he was going to say, 
 
 404 
 
The Desert 
 
 wishing it was said, and the hampering persistence 
 of his claim was ended. 
 
 At length he said tremulously : 
 
 " Susan, I saw you last night. What did you 
 do it for? What am I to think? " 
 
 That he had had proof of her disloyalty relieved 
 her. There would be less to say in this settling of 
 accounts. 
 
 " Well," she answered, looking into his eyes. 
 "You saw!" 
 
 He cried desperately, " I saw him kiss you. You 
 let him. What did it mean? " 
 
 "Why do you ask? If you saw you know." 
 
 " I don t know. I want to know. Tell me, ex 
 plain to me." He paused, and then cried with a piti 
 ful note of pleading, " Tell me it wasn t so. Tell me 
 I made a mistake." 
 
 He was willing, anxious, for her to lie. Against 
 the evidence of his own senses he would have made 
 himself believe her, drugged his pain with her 
 falsehoods. What remnant of consideration she 
 had vanished. 
 
 " You made no mistake," she answered. " It was 
 as you saw." 
 
 " I don t believe it. I can t. You wouldn t have 
 done it. It s I you re promised to. Haven t I your 
 word? Haven t you been kind as an angel to me 
 when the others would have let me die out here like 
 a dog? What did you do it for if you didn t care? " 
 
 " I was sorry," and then with cold, measured 
 slowness, " and I felt guilty." 
 
 405 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " That s it you felt guilty. It s not your doing. 
 You ve been led away. While I ve been sick that 
 devil s been poisoning you against me. He s tried 
 to steal you from me. But you re not the girl to 
 let him do that. You ll come back to me the man 
 that you belong to, that s loved you since the day 
 we started." 
 
 To her at this naked hour, where nothing lived 
 but the truth, the thought that he would take her 
 back with the other man s kisses on her lips, made 
 her unsparing. She drew back from him, stiffening 
 in shocked repugnance, and speaking with the same 
 chill deliberation. 
 
 " I ll never come back to you. It s all over, that 
 love with you. I didn t know. I didn t feel. I was 
 a child with no sense of what she was doing. Now 
 everything s different. It s he I must go with and 
 be with as long as I live." 
 
 The hideousness of the discovery had been made 
 the night before. Had her words been his first 
 intimation they might have shocked him into stu 
 pefied dumbness and made him seem the hero who 
 meets his fate with closed lips. But hours long 
 he had brooded and knew her severance from him 
 had taken place. With the mad insistance of a 
 thought whirling on in fevered repetition he had 
 told himself that he must win her back, urge, strug 
 gle, plead, till he had got her where she was before 
 or lose her forever. 
 
 " You can t. You can t do it. It s a temporary 
 thing. It s the desert and the wildness and because 
 
 406 
 
The Desert 
 
 he could ride and get water and find the trail. In 
 California it will be different. Out there it ll be 
 the same as it used to be back in the States. 
 You ll think of this as something unreal that never 
 happened and your feeling for him it ll all go. 
 When we get where it s civilized you ll be like 
 you were when we started. You couldn t have 
 loved a savage like that then. Well, you won t 
 when you get where you belong. It s horrible. It s 
 unnatural." 
 
 She shook her head, glanced at him and glanced 
 away. The sweat was pouring off his face and his 
 lips quivered like a weeping child s. 
 
 " Oh, David," she said with a deep breath like a 
 groan, " this is natural for me. The other was 
 not." 
 
 " You don t know what you re saying. And how 
 about your promise? You gave that of your own 
 free will. Was it a thing you give and take back 
 whenever you please? What would your father 
 think of your breaking your word throwing me 
 off for a man no better than a half-blood Indian? 
 Is that your honor ? " Then he was suddenly fear 
 ful that he had said too much and hurt his case, 
 and he dropped to a wild pleading: " Oh, Susan, 
 you can t, you can t. You haven t got the heart to 
 treat me so." 
 
 She looked down not answering, but her silence 
 gave no indication of a softened response. He 
 seemed to throw himself upon its hardness in hope 
 less desperation. 
 
 407 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Send him away. He needn t go on with us. 
 Tell him to go back to the Fort." 
 
 " Where would we be now without him ? " she 
 said and smiled grimly at the thought of their re 
 cent perils with the leader absent. 
 
 " We re on the main trail. We don t need him 
 now. I heard him say yesterday to Daddy John 
 we d be in Humboldt in three or four days. We 
 can go on without him, there s no more danger." 
 
 She smiled again, a slight flicker of one corner 
 of her mouth. The dangers were over and Courant 
 could be safely dispensed with. 
 
 " He ll go on with us," she said. 
 
 " It s not necessary. We don t want him. I ll 
 guide. I ll help. If he was gone I d be all right 
 again. Daddy John and I are enough. If I can 
 get you back as you were before, we ll be happy 
 again, and I can get you back if he goes." 
 
 " You ll never get me back," she answered, and 
 rising moved away from him, aloof and hostile in 
 the deepest of all aversions, the woman to the un 
 loved and urgent suitor. He followed her and 
 caught at her dress. 
 
 " Don t go. Don t leave me this way. I can t 
 believe it. I can t stand it. If I hadn t grown into 
 thinking you were going to be my wife maybe I 
 could. But it s just unbearable when I d got used 
 to looking upon you as mine, almost as good as 
 married to me. You can t do it. You can t make 
 me suffer this way." 
 
 His complete abandonment filled her with pain, 
 408 
 
The Desert 
 
 the first relenting she had had. She could not look 
 at him and longed to escape. She tried to draw 
 her dress from his hands, saying: 
 
 " Oh, David, don t say any more. There s no 
 good. It s over. It s ended. I can t help it. It s 
 something stronger than I am." 
 
 He saw the repugnance in her face and loosened 
 his hold, dropping back from her. 
 
 " It s the end of my life," he said in a muffled 
 voice. 
 
 " I feel as if it was the end of the world," she 
 answered, and going to the pathway disappeared 
 over its edge. 
 
 She walked back skirting the rock s bulk till she 
 found a break in its side, a small gorge shadowed 
 by high walls. The cleft penetrated deep, its mouth 
 open to the sky, its apex a chamber over which the 
 cloven walls slanted like hands with finger tips 
 touching in prayer. It was dark in this interior 
 space, the floor mottled with gleaming sun-spots. 
 Across the wider opening, unroofed to the pale blue 
 of the zenith, the first slow shade was stretching, 
 a creeping gray coolness, encroaching on the burn 
 ing ground. Here she threw herself down, look 
 ing out through the entrance at the desert shim 
 mering through the heat haze. The mist wreaths 
 were dissolving, every line and color glassily clear. 
 Her eyes rested vacantly on it, her body inert, her 
 heart as heavy as a stone. 
 
 David made no movement to follow her. He 
 had clung to his hope with the desperation of a 
 
 409 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 weak nature, but it was ended now. No interfer 
 ence, no miracle, could restore her to him. He saw 
 he had to see that she was lost to him as com 
 pletely as if death had claimed her. More com 
 pletely, for death would have made her a stranger. 
 Now it was the Susan he had loved who had looked 
 at him with eyes not even indifferent but charged 
 with a hard hostility. She was the same and yet 
 how different! Hopeless! Hopeless! He won 
 dered if the word had ever before voiced so abject 
 a despair. 
 
 He turned to the back of the plateau and saw the 
 faint semblance of a path leading upward to higher 
 levels, a trail worn by the feet of other emigrants 
 who had climbed to scan with longing eyes the weary 
 way to the land of their desire. As he walked up it 
 and the prospect widened on his sight, its message 
 came, clearer with every mounting step. Thus for 
 ever would he look out on a blasted world uncheered 
 by sound or color. The stillness that lapped him 
 round was as the stillness of his own dead heart. 
 The mirage quivered brilliant in the distance, and 
 he paused, a solitary shape against the exhausted 
 sky, to think that his dream of love had had no 
 more reality. Beautiful and alluring it had floated 
 in his mind, an illusion without truth or substance. 
 
 He reached the higher elevation, barren and iron 
 hard, the stone hot to his feet. On three sides the 
 desert swept out to the horizon, held in its awful 
 silence. Across it, a white seam, the Emigrant 
 Trail wound, splindling away into the west, a line 
 
 410 
 
The Desert 
 
 of tortuous curves, a loop, a straight streak, and 
 then a tiny thread always pressing on to that won 
 derful land which he had once seen as a glowing 
 rim on the world s remotest verge. It typified the 
 dauntless effort of man, never flagging, never broken, 
 persisting to its goal. He had not been able to thus 
 persist, the spirit had not reached far enough to 
 know its aim and grasp it. He knew his weakness, 
 his incapacity to cope with the larger odds of life, 
 a watcher not an actor in the battle, and under 
 standing that his failure had come from his own 
 inadequacy he wished that he might die. 
 
 On one side the eminence broke away in a sheer 
 fall to the earth below. At its base a scattering of 
 sundered bowlders and fragments lay, veiled by a 
 growth of small, bushy shrubs to which a spring 
 gave nourishment. Behind this the long spine of 
 the rock tapered back to the parent ridge that ran, 
 a bristling rampart, east and west. He sat down 
 on the edge of the precipice watching the trail. 
 He had no idea how long he remained thus. A 
 shadow falling across him brought him back to life. 
 He turned and saw Courant standing a few feet 
 from him. 
 
 Without speech or movement they eyed one an 
 other. In his heart each hated the other, but in 
 David the hate had come suddenly, the hysteric 
 growth of a night s anguish. The mountain man s 
 was tempered by a process of slow-firing to a steely 
 inflexibility. He hated David that he had ever been 
 his rival, that he had ever thought to lay claim to 
 
 411 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 the woman who was his, that he had ever aspired 
 to her, touched her, desired her. He hated him 
 when he saw that, all unconsciously, he had still a 
 power to hold her from the way her passion led. 
 And back of all was the ancient hatred, the heri 
 tage from ages lost in the beginnings of the race, 
 man s of man in the struggle for a woman. 
 
 David rose from his crouching posture to his 
 knees. The other, all his savage instincts primed 
 for onslaught, saw menace in the movement, and 
 stood braced and ready. Like Susan he understood 
 that David had guessed the secret. He could judge 
 him only by his own measure, and he knew the 
 settling of the score had come. There was no right 
 or justice in his claim, only the right of the 
 stronger to win what he wanted, but that to him 
 was the supreme right. 
 
 David s sick fury shot up into living flame. He 
 judged Susan innocent, a tool in ruthless hands. 
 He saw the destroyer of their lives, a devil who had 
 worked subtly for his despoilment. The air grew 
 dark and in the center of the darkness, his hate con 
 centrated on the watching face, and an impulse, the 
 strongest of his life, nerved him with the force to 
 kill. For once he broke beyond himself, rose outside 
 the restrictions that had held him cowering within 
 his sensitive shell. His rage had the vehemence of 
 a distracted woman s, and he threw himself upon 
 his enemy, inadequate now as always, but at last 
 unaware and unconscious. 
 
 They clutched and rocked together. From the 
 412 
 
The Desert 
 
 moment of the grapple it was unequal a sick and 
 wounded creature struggling in arms that were as 
 iron bands about his puny frame. But as a furious 
 child fights for a moment successfully with its en 
 raged elder, he tore and beat at his opponent, strik 
 ing blindly at the face he loathed, writhing in the 
 grip that bent his body and sent the air in sobbing 
 gasps from his lungs. Their trampling was muf 
 fled on the stone, their shadows leaped in contorted 
 waverings out from their feet and back again. 
 Broken and twisted in Courant s arms, David felt 
 no pain only the blind hate, saw the livid plain 
 heaving about him, the white ball of the sun, and 
 twisting through the reeling distance the pale 
 thread of the Emigrant Trail, glancing across his 
 ensanguined vision like a shuttle weaving through 
 a blood-red loom. 
 
 They staggered to the edge of the plateau and 
 there hung. It was only for a moment, a last mo 
 ment of strained and swaying balance. Courant 
 felt the body against his weaken, wrenched himself 
 free, and with a driving blow sent it outward over 
 the precipice. It fell with the arms flung wide, 
 the head dropped backward, and from the open 
 mouth a cry broke, a shrill and dreadful sound that 
 struck sharp on the plain s abstracted silence, spread 
 and quivered across its surface like widening rings 
 on the waters of a pool. The mountain man threw 
 himself on the edge and looked down. The figure 
 lay limp among the bushes thirty feet below. He 
 watched it, his body still as a panther s crouched 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 for a spring. He saw one of the hands twitch, 
 a loosened sliver of slate slide from the wall, and 
 cannoning on projections, leap down and bury it 
 self in the outflung hair. The face looking up at 
 him with half-shut eyes that did not wink as the 
 rock dust sifted into them, was terrible, but he felt 
 no sensation save a grim curiosity. 
 
 He stole down a narrow gulley and crept with 
 stealthy feet and steadying hands toward the still 
 shape. The shadows were cool down there, and 
 as he touched the face its warmth shocked him. 
 It should have been cold to have matched its look 
 and the hush of the place. He thrust his hand in 
 side the shirt and felt at the heart. No throb rose 
 under his palm, and he sent it sliding over the up 
 per part of the body, limp now, but which he knew 
 would soon be stiffening. The man was dead. 
 
 Courant straightened himself and sent a rapid 
 glance about him. The bushes among which the 
 body lay were close matted in a thick screen. 
 Through their roots the small trickle of the spring 
 percolated, stealing its way to the parched sands 
 outside. It made a continuous murmuring, as if 
 nature was lifting a voice of low, insistent protest 
 against the desecration of her peace. 
 
 The man standing with stilled breath and rigid 
 muscles listened for other sounds. Reassured that 
 there were none, his look swept right and left for 
 a spot wherein to hide the thing that lay at his feet. 
 At its base the rock wall- slanted outward leaving a 
 hollow beneath its eave where the thin veneer of 
 
 414 
 
The Desert 
 
 water gleamed from the shadows. He took the 
 dead man under the arms and dragged him to it, 
 careful of branches that might snap under his foot, 
 pausing to let the echoes of rolling stones die away 
 a figure of fierce vitality with the long, limp body 
 hanging from his hands. At the rock he crouched 
 and thrust his burden under the wall s protecting 
 cope, the trickle of the water dying into a sudden, 
 scared silence. Stepping back he brushed the bushes 
 into shape, hiding their breakage, and bent to 
 gather the scattered leaves and crush them into 
 crevices. When it was done the place showed no 
 sign of the intruder, only the whispering of the 
 streamlet told that its course was changed and it 
 was feeling for a new channel. 
 
 Then he crept softly out to the plain s edge where 
 the sunlight lay long and bright. It touched his 
 face and showed it white, with lips close set and 
 eyes gleaming like crystals. He skirted the rock, 
 making a soft, quick way to where the camp lay. 
 Here the animals stood, heads drooped as they 
 cropped the herbage round the spring. Daddy 
 John sat in the shade of the wagon, tranquilly 
 cleaning a gun. The mountain man s passage was 
 so soundless that he did not hear it. The animals 
 raised slow eyes to the moving figure, then dropped 
 them indifferently. He passed them, his step grow 
 ing lighter, changing as he withdrew from the old 
 man s line of vision, to a long, rapid glide. His 
 blood-shot eyes nursed the extending buttresses, 
 and as he came round them, with craned neck and 
 
 415 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 body reaching forward, they sent a glance into each 
 recess that leaped round it like a flame. 
 
 Susan had remained in the same place. She 
 made no note of the passage of time, but the sky 
 between the walls was growing deeper in color, the 
 shadows lengthening along the ground. She was 
 lying on her side looking out through the rift s 
 opening when Courant stood there. He made an 
 instant s pause, a moment when his breath caught 
 deep, and, seeing him, she started to her knees with 
 a blanching face. As he came upon her she held 
 out her hands, crying in uprising notes of terror, 
 "No! No! No!" But he gathered her in his arms, 
 stilled her cries with his kisses, and bending low 
 carried her back into the darkened cavern over 
 which the rocks closed like hands uplifted in prayer. 
 
 416 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 TILL the afternoon of the next day they held the 
 train for David. When evening fell and he did not 
 come Daddy John climbed the plateau and kindled 
 a beacon fire that threw its flames against the stars. 
 Then he took his rifle and skirted the rock s loom 
 ing bulk, shattering the stillness with reports that let 
 loose a shivering flight of echoes. All night they 
 sat by the fire listening and waiting. As the hours 
 passed their alarm grew and their speculations 
 became gloomier and more sinister. Courant was 
 the only one who had a plausible theory. The mov 
 ing sparks on the mountains showed that the Indians 
 were still following them and it was his opinion 
 that David had strayed afar and been caught by a 
 foraging party. It was not a matter for desperate 
 alarm as the Diggers were harmless and David 
 would no doubt escape from them and join a later 
 train. This view offered the only possible explana 
 tion. It was Courant s opinion and so it carried 
 with the other two. 
 
 Early in the evening the girl had shown no in 
 terest. Sitting back from the firelight, a shawl over 
 her head, she seemed untouched by the anxiety that 
 prompted the old man s restless rovings. As the 
 night deepened Daddy John had come back to 
 
 417 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Courant who was near her. He spoke his fears 
 low, for he did not want to worry her. Glancing 
 to see if she had heard him, he was struck by 
 the brooding expression of her face, white between 
 the shawl folds. He nodded cheerily at her but her 
 eyes showed no responsive gleam, dwelling on him 
 wide and unseeing. As he moved away he heard 
 her burst into sudden tears, such tears as she had 
 shed at the Fort, and turning back with arms ready 
 for her comforting, saw her throw herself against 
 Courant s knees, her face buried in the folds of her 
 shawl. He stood arrested, amazed not so much by 
 the outburst as by the fact that it was to Courant 
 she had turned and not to him. But when he spoke 
 to her she drew the shawl tighter over her head 
 and pressed her face against the mountain man s 
 knees. Daddy John had no explanation of her con 
 duct but that she had been secretly fearful about 
 David and had turned for consolation to the human 
 being nearest her. 
 
 The next day her anxiety was so sharp that she 
 could not eat and the men grew accustomed to the 
 sight of her mounted on the rock s summit, or walk 
 ing slowly along the trail searching with untiring 
 eyes. When alone with her lover he kissed and 
 caressed her fears into abeyance. As he soothed her, 
 clasped close against him, her terrors gradually sub 
 sided, sinking to a quiescence that came, not alone 
 from his calm and practical reassurances, but from 
 the power of his presence to drug her reason and 
 banish all thoughts save those of him. He wanted 
 
 418 
 
The Desert 
 
 her mind free of the dead man, wanted him elimi 
 nated from her imagination. The spiritual image 
 of David must fade from her thoughts as his cor 
 poreal part would soon fade in the desiccating 
 desert airs. Alone by the spring, held against 
 Courant s side by an arm that trembled with a 
 passion she still only half understood, she told him 
 of her last interview with David. In an agony of 
 self-accusation she whispered : 
 
 "Oh, Low, could he have killed himself?" 
 
 " Where ? " said the man. " Haven t we searched 
 every hole and corner of the place? He couldn t 
 have hidden his own body." 
 
 The only evidence that some mishap had befallen 
 David was Daddy John s, who, on the afternoon of 
 the day of the disappearance had heard a cry, a 
 single sound, long and wild. It had seemed to 
 come from the crest of the rock, and the old man 
 had listened and hearing no more had thought it 
 the yell of some animal far on the mountains. This 
 gave color to Courant s theory that the lost man 
 had been seized by the Diggers. Borne away along 
 the summit of the ridge he would have shouted to 
 them and in that dry air the sound would have 
 carried far. He could have been overpowered with 
 out difficulty, weakened by illness and carrying no 
 arms. 
 
 They spent the morning in a fruitless search and 
 in the afternoon Courant insisted on the train mov 
 ing on. They cached provisions by the spring and 
 scratched an arrow on the rock pointing their way, 
 
 419 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 and underneath it the first letters of their names. 
 It was useless, the leader said, to leave anything in 
 the form of a letter. As soon as their dust was 
 moving on the trail the Diggers would sweep down 
 on the camp and carry away every scrap of rag and 
 bone that was there. This was why he overrode 
 Susan s plea to leave David s horse. Why present 
 to the Indians a horse when they had only sufficient 
 for themselves ? She wrung her hands at the grew- 
 some picture of David escaping and stealing back to 
 find a deserted camp. But Courant was inexorable 
 and the catching-up went forward with grim speed. 
 
 She and the old man were dumb with depression 
 as the train rolled out. To them the desertion 
 seemed an act of appalling heartlessness. But the 
 mountain man had overcome Daddy John s scruples 
 by a picture of their own fate if they delayed and 
 were caught in the early snows of the Sierras. The 
 girl could do nothing but trust in the word that was 
 already law to her. He rode beside her murmuring 
 reassurances and watching her pale profile. Her 
 head hung low on her breast, her hat casting a 
 slant of shadow to her chin. Her eyes looked 
 gloomily forward, sometimes as his words touched 
 a latent chord of hope, turning quickly upon him 
 and enveloping him in a look of pathetic trust. 
 
 At the evening halt she ate nothing, sitting in a 
 muse against the wagon wheel. Presently she put 
 her plate down and, mounting on the axle, scanned 
 the way they had come. She could see the rock, 
 rising like the clumsy form of a dismantled galleon 
 
 420 
 
The Desert 
 
 from the waters of a darkling sea. For a space she 
 stood, her hand arched above her eyes, then 
 snatched the kerchief from her neck and, straining 
 an arm aloft, waved it. The white and scarlet rag 
 flapped with a languid motion, an infinitesimal 
 flutter between the blaze of the sky and the purpling 
 levels of the earth. Her arm dropped, her signal 
 fallen futile on the plain s ironic indifference. 
 
 During the next day s march she constantly 
 looked back, and several times halted, her hand de 
 manding silence as if she were listening for pursu 
 ing footsteps. Courant hid a growing irritation, 
 which once escaped him in a query as to whether 
 she thought David, if he got away from the Indians, 
 could possibly catch them up. She answered that if 
 he had escaped with a horse he might, and fell 
 again to her listening and watching. At the night 
 camp she ordered Daddy John to build the beacon 
 fire higher than ever, and taking a rifle moved 
 along the outskirts of the light firing into the dark 
 ness. Finally, standing with the gun caught in the 
 crook of her arm, she sent up a shrill call of 
 " David." The cry fell into the silence, cleaving it 
 with a note of wild and haunting appeal. Courant 
 went after her and brought her back. When they 
 returned to the fire the old man, who was busy with 
 the cooking, looked up to speak but instead gazed 
 in silence, caught by something unusual in their 
 aspect, revivifying, illuminating, like the radiance of 
 an inner glow. It glorified the squalor of their 
 clothing, the drawn fatigue of their faces. It gave 
 
 421 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 them the fleeting glamour of spiritual beauty that 
 comes to those in whom being has reached its high 
 est expression, the perfect moment of completion 
 caught amid life s incompleteness. 
 
 In the following days she moved as if the dust 
 cloud that inclosed her was an impenetrable medium 
 that interposed itself between her and the weird 
 setting of the way. She was drugged with the wine 
 of a new life. She did not think of sin, of herself 
 in relation to her past, of the breaking with every 
 tie that held her to her old self. All her background 
 was gone. Her conscience that, in her dealings 
 with David, had been so persistently lively, now, 
 when it came to herself, was dead. Question of 
 right or wrong, secret communings, self judgment, 
 had no place in the exaltation of her mood. To 
 look at her conduct and reason of it, to do anything 
 but feel, was as impossible for her as it would have 
 been to disengage her senses from their tranced 
 concentration and restore them to the composed 
 serenity of the past. 
 
 It was not the sudden crumbling of a character, 
 the collapse of a structure reared on a foundation 
 of careful training. It was a logical growth, 
 forced by the developing process of an environment 
 with which that character was in harmony. Before 
 she reached the level where she could surrender 
 herself, forgetful of the rites imposed by law, un- 
 shocked by her lover s brutality, she had been losing 
 every ingrafted and inherited modification that had 
 united her with the world in which she had been an 
 
 422 
 
The Desert 
 
 exotic. The trials of the trail that would have 
 dried the soul and broken the mettle of a girl 
 whose womanhood was less rich, drew from hers the 
 full measure of its strength. Every day had made 
 her less a being of calculated, artificial reserves, 
 of inculcated modesties, and more a human animal, 
 governed by instincts that belonged to her age and 
 sex. She was normal and chaste and her chastity 
 had made her shrink from the man whose touch 
 left her cold, and yield to the one to whom her first 
 antagonism had been first response. When she had 
 given Courant her kiss she had given herself. There 
 was no need for intermediary courtship. After 
 that vacillations of doubt and conscience ended. 
 The law of her being was all that remained. 
 
 She moved on with the men, dust-grimed, her 
 rags held together with pins and lacings of deer 
 hide. She performed her share of the work with 
 automatic thoroughness, eating when the hour 
 came, sleeping on the ground under the stars, stag 
 gering up in the deep-blue dawn and buckling her 
 horse s harness with fingers that fatigue made 
 clumsy. She was more silent than ever before, 
 often when the old man addressed her making no 
 reply. He set down her abstraction to grief over 
 David. When he tried to cheer her, her absorbed 
 preoccupation gave place to the old restlessness, 
 and once again she watched and listened. These 
 were her only moods periods of musing when she 
 rode in front of the wagon with vacant eyes fixed 
 on the winding seam of the trail, and periods of 
 
 423 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 nervous agitation when she turned in her saddle to 
 sweep the road behind her and ordered him to build 
 the night fire high and bright. 
 
 The old servant was puzzled. Something foreign 
 in her, an inner vividness of life, a deeper current 
 of vitality, told him that this was not a woman 
 preyed upon by a gnawing grief. He noted, with 
 out understanding, a change in her bearing to 
 Courant and his to her. Without words to give it 
 expression he saw in her attitude to the leader a 
 pliant, docile softness, a surreptitious leap of light 
 in the glance that fell upon him in quick welcome 
 before her lids shut it in. With Courant the change 
 showed in a possessive tenderness, a brooding con 
 cern. When, at the morning start, he waited as she 
 rode toward him, his face was irradiated with a 
 look that made the old man remember the dead 
 loves of his youth. It was going to be all right 
 Daddy John thought. David gone, whether for 
 ever or for an unknown period, the mountain man 
 might yet win her. And then again the old man 
 fell a wondering at something in them that did not 
 suggest the unassured beginnings of courtship, a 
 settled security of relation as of complete unity in 
 a mutual enterprise. 
 
 One afternoon a faint spot of green rose and 
 lingered on the horizon. They thought it a mirage 
 and watched it with eyes grown weary of the 
 desert s delusions. But as the road bore toward it, 
 it steadied to their anxious gaze, expanded into a 
 patch that lay a living touch on the earth s dead face. 
 
 424 
 
The Desert 
 
 By the time that dusk gathered they saw that it was 
 trees and knew that Humboldt was in sight. At 
 nightfall they reached it, the first outpost sent into 
 the wilderness by the new country. The red light 
 of fires came through the dusk like a welcoming 
 hail from that unknown land which was to be theirs. 
 After supper Daddy John and Courant left the girl 
 and went to the mud house round which the camps 
 clustered. The darkness was diluted by the red 
 glow of fires and astir with dusky figures. There 
 were trains for California and Oregon and men 
 from the waste lands to the eastward and the south, 
 flotsam and jetsam thrown up on the desert s shore. 
 Inside, where the air was thick with smoke and the 
 reek of raw liquors, they heard again the great 
 news from California. The old man, determined to 
 get all the information he could, moved from group 
 to group, an observant listener in the hubbub. Pres 
 ently his ear was caught by a man who declared he 
 had been on the gold river and was holding a circle 
 in thrall by his tales. Daddy John turned to beckon 
 to Courant and, not seeing him, elbowed his way 
 through the throng spying to right and left. But 
 the mountain man had gone. Daddy John went back 
 to the gold seeker and drew him dry of information, 
 then foregathered with a thin individual who had a 
 humorous eye and was looking on from a corner. 
 This stranger introduced himself as a clergyman, 
 returning from the East to Oregon by way of Cali 
 fornia. They talked together, Daddy John finding 
 his new acquaintance a tolerant cheery person 
 
 425 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 versed in the lore of the trail. The man gave him 
 many useful suggestions for the last lap of the 
 journey and he decided to go after Courant, to 
 whom the route over the Sierra was unknown 
 ground. 
 
 The camps had sunk to silence, the women and 
 children asleep. He skirted their tents, bending his 
 course to where he saw the hood of his own wagon 
 and the shadowy forms of Julia and her mates. 
 The fire still burned bright and on its farther side 
 he could make out the figures of Susan and Courant 
 seated on the ground. They were quiet, the girl 
 sitting with her feet tucked under her, idly throwing 
 scraps of sage on the blaze. He was about to hail 
 Courant when he saw him suddenly drop to a re 
 clining posture beside her, draw himself along the 
 earth and curl about her, his elbow on the ground, 
 his head propped on a sustaining hand. With the 
 other he reached forward, caught Susan s and 
 drawing it toward him pressed it against his cheek. 
 Daddy John watche-d the sacrilegious act with 
 starting eyes. He would have burst in upon them 
 had he not seen the girl s shy smile, and her body 
 gently droop forward till her lips rested on the 
 mountain man s. When she drew back the old serv 
 ant came forward into the light. Its reflection hid 
 his pallor, but his heart was thumping like a 
 hammer and his throat was dry, for suddenly he 
 understood. At his step Susan drew away from 
 her companion and looked at the advancing shape 
 with eyes darkly soft as those of an antelope. 
 
 426 
 
The Desert 
 
 " Where have you been ? " she said. " You were 
 a long time away." 
 
 " In the mud house," said Daddy John. 
 
 "Did you find anyone interesting there?" 
 
 " Yes. When I was talkin with him I didn t 
 know he was so powerful interesting but sence I 
 come out o there I ve decided he was." 
 
 They both looked at him without much show of 
 curiosity, merely, he guessed, that they might not 
 look at each other and reveal their secret. 
 
 " What was he ? " asked Courant. 
 
 " A clergyman." 
 
 This time they both started, the girl into sudden 
 erectness, then held her head down as if in shame. 
 For a sickened moment, he thought she was afraid 
 to look at her lover for fear of seeing refusal in his 
 face. Courant leaned near her and laid his hand 
 on hers. 
 
 " If there s a clergyman here we can be married," 
 he said quietly. 
 
 She drew her hand away and with its fellow 
 covered her face. Courant looked across the fire 
 and said : 
 
 " Go and get him, Daddy John. He can do the 
 reading over us now." 
 
 427 
 
PART V 
 
 The Promised Land 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 IN the light of a clear September sun they stood 
 and looked down on it the Promised Land. 
 
 For days they had been creeping up through defiles 
 in the mountain wall, crawling along ledges with 
 murmurous seas of pine below and the snow lying 
 crisp in the hollows. On the western slope the 
 great bulwark dropped from granite heights to 
 wooded ridges along the spines of which the road 
 wound. Through breaks in the pine s close ranks 
 they saw blue, vaporous distances, and on the far 
 side of aerial chasms the swell of other mountains, 
 clothed to their summits, shape undulating beyond 
 shape. 
 
 Then on this bright September afternoon a sun- 
 filled pallor of empty space shone between the tree 
 trunks, and they had hurried to the summit of a 
 knoll and seen it spread beneath them California! 
 
 The long spurs, broken apart by ravines, wound 
 downward to where a flat stretch of valley ran out 
 to a luminous horizon. It was a yellow floor, dotted 
 with the dark domes of trees and veined with a line 
 of water. The trail, a red thread, was plain along 
 the naked ridges, and then lost itself in the dusk of 
 forests. Right and left summit and slope swelled 
 and dropped, sun-tipped, shadow filled. Slants of 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 light, rifts of shade, touched the crowded pine tops 
 to gold, darkened them to sweeps of unstirred olive. 
 The air, softly clear, was impregnated with a power 
 ful aromatic scent, the strong, rich odor of the earth 
 and its teeming growths. It lay placid and indolent 
 before the way-worn trio, a new world waiting for 
 their conquering feet. 
 
 The girl, with a deep sigh, dropped her head 
 upon her husband s shoulder and closed her eyes. 
 She weakened with the sudden promise of rest. It 
 was in the air, soft as a caress, in the mild, benefi 
 cent sun, in the stillness which had nothing of the 
 desert s sinister quiet. Courant put his arm about 
 her, and looking into her face, saw it drawn and 
 pinched, all beauty gone. Her closed eyelids were 
 dark and seamed with fine folds, the cheek bones 
 showed under her skin, tanned to a dry brown, its 
 rich bloom withered. Round her forehead and ears 
 her hair hung in ragged locks, its black gloss hidden 
 under the trail s red dust. Even her youth had left 
 her, she seemed double her age. It was as if he 
 looked at the woman she would be twenty years 
 from now. 
 
 Something in the sight of her, unbeautiful, en 
 feebled, her high spirit dimmed, stirred in him a 
 new, strange tenderness. His arm tightened about 
 her, his look lost its jealous ardor and wandering 
 over her blighted face, melted to a passionate con 
 cern. The appeal of her beauty gave place to a 
 stronger, more gripping appeal, never felt by him 
 before. She was no longer the creature he owned 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 and ruled, no longer the girl he had broken to an 
 abject submission, but the woman he loved. Up 
 lifted in the sudden realization he felt the world 
 widen around him and saw himself another man. 
 Then through the wonder of the revelation came 
 the thought of what he had done to win her. It 
 astonished him as a dart of pain would have done. 
 Why had he remembered it? Why at this rich 
 moment should the past send out this eerie remin 
 der? He pushed it from him, and bending toward 
 her murmured a lover s phrase. 
 
 She opened her eyes and they met an expression 
 in his that she had felt the need of, hoped and 
 waited for, an answer to what she had offered and 
 he had not seen or wanted. It was completion, 
 arrival at the goal, so longed for and despaired of, 
 and she turned her face against his shoulder, her 
 happiness too sacred even for his eyes. He did not 
 understand the action, thought her spirit lan 
 guished and, pointing outward, cried in his mount 
 ing gladness: 
 
 " Look that s where our home will be." 
 
 She lifted her head and followed the directing 
 finger. The old man stood beside them also gazing 
 down. 
 
 " It s a grand sight," he said. " But it s as yellow 
 as the desert. Must be almighty dry." 
 
 " There s plenty of water," said Courant. 
 " Rivers come out of these mountains and go down 
 there into the plain. And they carry the gold, the 
 gold that s going to make us rich." 
 
 433 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 He pressed her shoulder with his encircling arm 
 and she answered dreamily: 
 
 " We are rich enough." 
 
 He thought she alluded to the Doctor s money 
 that was hidden in the wagon. 
 
 " But we ll be richer. We ve got here before the 
 rest of em. We re the first comers and it s ours. 
 You ll be queen here, Susan. I ll make you one." 
 His glance ranged over the splendid prospect, eager 
 with the man s desire to fight and win for his own. 
 She thought little of what he said, lost in her per 
 fect content. 
 
 " When we ve got the gold we ll take up land 
 and I ll build a house for you, a good house, my 
 wife won t live in a tent. It ll be of logs, strong 
 and water tight, and as soon as they bring things 
 in and the ships will be coming soon we ll fur 
 nish it well. And that ll be only the beginning." 
 
 " Where will we build it? " she said, catching his 
 enthusiasm and straining her eyes as if then and 
 there to pick out the spot. 
 
 " By the river under a pine." 
 
 " With a place for Daddy John," she cried, 
 stretching a hand toward the old man. " He must 
 be there too." 
 
 He took it and stood linked to the embracing 
 pair by the girl s warm grasp. 
 
 " I ll stick by the tent," he said ; " no four walls 
 for me." 
 
 " And you two," she looked from one to the 
 other, " will wash for the gold and I ll take care of 
 
 434 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 you. I ll keep everything clean and comfortable. 
 It ll be a cozy little home our log house under the 
 pine." 
 
 She laughed, the first time in many weeks, and 
 the clear sound rang joyously. 
 
 " And when we ve got all the dust we want," 
 Courant went on, his spirit expanding on the music 
 of her laughter, " we ll go down to the coast. 
 They ll have a town there soon for the shipping. 
 We ll grow up with it, build it into a city, and as it 
 gets richer so will we. It s going to be a new em 
 pire, out here by the Pacific, with the gold rivers 
 back of it and the ocean in front. And it s going to 
 be ours." 
 
 She looked over the foreground of hill and 
 vale to the shimmering sweep of the rich still land. 
 Her imagination, wakened by his words, passed 
 from the log house to the busy rush of a city where 
 the sea shone between the masts of ships. It was a 
 glowing future they were to march on together, 
 with no cloud to mar it now that she had seen the 
 new look in his eyes. 
 
 A few days later they were in the Sacramento 
 Valley camped near the walls of Sutter s Fort. The 
 plain, clad with a drab grass, stretched to where the 
 low-lying Sacramento slipped between oozy banks. 
 Here were the beginnings of a town, shacks and 
 tents dumped down in a helter skelter of slovenly 
 hurry. Beyond, the American river crept from the 
 mountains and threaded the parched land. Between 
 the valley and the white sky-line of the Sierra, the 
 
 435 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 foot hills swelled, indented with ravines and 
 swathed in the matted robe of the chaparral. 
 
 While renewing their supplies at the fort they 
 camped under a live oak. It was a mighty growth, 
 its domed outline fretted with the fineness of horny 
 leaves, its vast boughs outflung in contorted curves. 
 The river sucked about its roots. Outside its shade 
 the plain grew dryer under unclouded suns, huge 
 trees casting black blots of shadow in which the 
 Fort s cattle gathered. Sometimes vaqueros came 
 from the gates in the adobe walls, riding light and 
 with the long spiral leap of the lasso rising from 
 an upraised hand. Sometimes groups of half-naked 
 Indians trailed through the glare, winding a way 
 to the spot of color that was their camp. 
 
 To the girl it was all wonderful, the beauty, the 
 peace, the cessation of labor. When the men were 
 at the Fort she lay beneath the great tree watching 
 the faint, white chain of the mountains, or the 
 tawny valley burning to orange in the long after 
 noons. For once she was idle, come at last to the 
 end of all her journeyings. Only the present, the 
 tranquil, perfect present, existed. What did not 
 touch upon it, fit in and have some purpose in her 
 life with the man of whom she was a part, was 
 waste matter. She who had once been unable to 
 endure the thought of separation from her father 
 could now look back on his death and say, " How 
 I suffered then," and know no reminiscent pang. 
 She would have wondered at herself if, in the happi 
 ness in which she was lapped, she could have drawn 
 
 436 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 her mind from its contemplation to wonder at any 
 thing. There was no world beyond the camp, no 
 interest in what did not focus on Courant, no people 
 except those who added to his trials or his welfare. 
 
 The men spent much of their time at the Fort, 
 conferring with others en route to the river bed be 
 low Sutler s mill. When they came back to the 
 camp there was lively talk under the old tree. The 
 silence of the trail was at an end. The pendulum 
 swung far, and now they were garrulous, carried 
 away by the fever of speculation. The evening 
 came and found them with scattered stores and un- 
 cleaned camp, their voices loud against the low 
 whisperings of leaves and water. 
 
 Courant returned from these absences aglow with 
 fortified purpose. Reestablished contact with the 
 world brightened and humanized him, acting with 
 an eroding effect on a surface hardened by years of 
 lawless roving. In his voluntary exile he had not 
 looked for or wanted the company of his fellows. 
 Now he began to soften under it, shift his view 
 point from that of the all-sufficing individual to 
 that of the bonded mass from which he had so long 
 been an alien. The girl s influence had revivified 
 a side almost atrophied by disuse. Men s were aid 
 ing it. As her sympathies narrowed under the ob 
 session of her happiness, his expanded, awaked by 
 a reversion to forgotten conditions. 
 
 One night, lying beside her under the tent s roof, 
 he found himself wakeful. It was starless and still, 
 the song of the river fusing in a continuous flow 
 
 437 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 of low sound with the secret, self-communings of 
 the tree. The girl s light breathing was at his ear, 
 a reminder of his ownership and its responsibilities. 
 In the idleness of the unoccupied mind he mused 
 on the future they were to share till death should 
 come between. It was pleasant thinking, or so it 
 began. Then, gradually, something in the darkness 
 and the lowered vitality of night caused it to lose 
 its joy, become suffused by a curious, doubting un 
 easiness. He lay without moving, given up to the 
 strange feeling, not knowing what induced it or 
 from whence it came. It grew in poignancy, 
 clearer and stronger, till it led him like a clew to the 
 body of David. 
 
 For the first time that savage act came back to 
 him with a surge of repudiation, of scared denial. 
 He had a realizing sense of how it would look to 
 other men the men he had met at the Fort. Dis 
 tinctly, as if their mental attitude were substituted 
 for his, he saw it as they would see it, as the world 
 he was about to enter would see it. His heart be 
 gan to thump with something like terror and the 
 palms of his hands grew moist. Turning stealthily 
 that he might not wake her, he stared at the tri 
 angle of paler darkness that showed through the 
 tent s raised flap. He had no fear that Susan would 
 find out. Even if she did, he knew her securely his, 
 till the end of time, her thoughts to take their color 
 from him, her fears to be lulled at his wish. But 
 the others the active, busy, practical throng into 
 which he would be absorbed. His action, in the 
 
 438 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 heat of a brutal passion, had made him an outsider 
 from the close-drawn ranks of his fellows. He had 
 been able to do without them, defied their laws, 
 scorned their truckling to public opinion but 
 now? 
 
 The girl turned in her sleep, pressing her head 
 against his shoulder and murmuring drowsily. He 
 edged away from her, flinching from the contact, 
 feeling a grievance against her. She was the link 
 between him and them. Hers was the influence that 
 was sapping the foundations of his independence. 
 She was drawing him back to the place of lost 
 liberty outside which he had roamed in barbarous 
 content. His love was riveting bonds upon him, 
 making his spirit as water. He felt a revolt, a re 
 sistance against her power, which was gently im 
 pelling him toward home, hearth, neighbors the 
 life in which he felt his place was gone. 
 
 The next day the strange mood seemed an ugly 
 dream. It was not he who had lain wakeful and 
 questioned his right to bend Fate to his own de 
 mands. He rode beside his wife at the head of the 
 train as they rolled out in the bright, dry morning 
 on the road to the river. There were men behind 
 them, and in front the dust rose thick on the rear 
 of pack trains. They filed across the valley, watch 
 ing the foot hills come nearer and the muffling robe 
 of the chaparral separate into checkered shadings 
 where the manzanita glittered and the faint, bluish 
 domes of small pines rose above the woven green 
 ery. 
 
 439 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Men were already before them, scattered along 
 the river s bars, waist high in the pits. Here and 
 there a tent showed white, but a blanket under a 
 tree, a pile of pans by a blackened heap of fire 
 marked most of the camps. Some of the gold- 
 hunters had not waited to undo their packs which 
 lay as they had been dropped, and the owners, squat 
 ting by the stream s lip, bent over their pans round 
 which the water sprayed in a silver fringe. There 
 were hails and inquiries, answering cries of good or 
 ill luck. Many did not raise their eyes, too ab 
 sorbed by the hope of fortune to waste one golden 
 moment. 
 
 These were the vanguard, the forerunners of 
 next year s thousands, scratching the surface of the 
 lower bars. The sound of their voices was soon 
 left behind and the river ran free of them. Pack 
 trains dropped from the line, spreading themselves 
 along the rim of earth between the trail and the 
 shrunken current. Courant s party moved on, going 
 higher, veiled in a cloud of brick-colored dust. The 
 hills swept up into bolder lines, the pines mounted 
 in sentinel files crowding out the lighter leafage. 
 At each turn the vista showed a loftier uprise, crest 
 peering above crest, and far beyond, high and snow- 
 touched, the summits of the Sierra. The shadows 
 slanted cool from wall to wall, the air was fresh 
 and scented with the forest s resinous breath. 
 Across the tree tops, dense as the matted texture 
 of moss, the winged shadows of hawks floated, and 
 paused, and floated again. 
 
 440 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 Here on a knoll under a great pine they pitched 
 the tent. At its base the river ran, dwindled to a 
 languid current, the bared mud banks waiting for 
 their picks. The walls of the canon drew close, a 
 drop of naked granite opposite, and on the slopes 
 beyond were dark-aisled depths, golden-moted, 
 and stirred to pensive melodies. The girl start 
 ed to help, then kicked aside the up-piled blank 
 ets, dropped the skillets into the mess chest, and 
 cried : 
 
 " Oh, I can t, I want to look and listen. Keep 
 still " The men stopped their work, and the music 
 of the murmurous boughs and the gliding water 
 filled the silence. She turned her head, sniffing the 
 forest s scents, her glance lighting on the blue 
 shoulders of distant hills. 
 
 " And look at the river, yellow, yellow with gold! 
 I can t work now, I want to see it all and feel it 
 too," and she ran to the water s edge where she sat 
 down on a rock and gazed up and down the canon. 
 
 When the camp was ready Courant joined her. 
 The rock was wide enough for two and he sat be 
 side her. 
 
 " So you like it, Missy ? " he said, sending a side 
 long glance at her flushed face. 
 
 " Like it ! " though there was plenty of room she 
 edged nearer to him, " I m wondering if it really 
 is so beautiful or if I just think it so after the 
 trail." 
 
 " You ll be content to stay here with me till we ve 
 made our pile ? " 
 
 441 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 She looked at him and nodded, then slipped her 
 fingers between his and whispered, though there was 
 no one by to hear, " I d be content to stay anywhere 
 with you." 
 
 He was growing accustomed to this sort of reply. 
 Deprived of it he would have noticed the omission, 
 but it had of late become so common a feature in the 
 conversation he felt no necessity to answer in kind. 
 He glanced at the pine trunks about them and said : 
 
 " If the claim s good, we ll cut some of those and 
 build a cabin. You ll see how comfortable I can 
 make you, the way they do on the frontier." 
 
 She pressed his fingers for answer and he went 
 on: 
 
 " When the winter comes we can move farther 
 down. Up here we may get snow. But there ll be 
 time between now and then to put up something 
 warm and waterproof." 
 
 " Why should we move down ? With a good 
 cabin we can be comfortable here. The snow won t 
 be heavy this far up. They told Daddy John all 
 about it at the Fort. And you and he can ride in 
 there sometimes when we want things." 
 
 These simple words gratified him more than she 
 guessed. It was as if she had seen into the secret 
 springs of his thought and said what he was fearful 
 she would not say. That was why in a spirit of 
 testing a granted boon to prove its genuineness 
 he asked with tentative questioning: 
 
 " You won t be lonely ? There are no people 
 here." 
 
 442 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 She made the bride s answer and his contentment 
 increased, for again it was what he would have 
 wished her to say. When he answered he spoke 
 almost sheepishly, with something of uneasy con 
 fession in his look : 
 
 " I d like to live in places like this always. I feel 
 choked and stifled where there are walls shutting 
 out the air and streets full of people. Even in the 
 Fort I felt like a trapped animal. I want to be 
 where there s room to move about and nobody 
 bothering with different kinds of ideas. It s only 
 in the open, in places without men, that I m myself." 
 
 For the first time he had dared to give expres 
 sion to the mood of the wakeful night. Though it 
 was dim in the busy brightness of the present a 
 black spot on the luster of cheerful days he 
 dreaded that it might come again with its scaring 
 suggestions. With a nerve that had never known 
 a tremor at any menace from man, he was fright 
 ened of a thought, a temporary mental state. In 
 speaking thus to her, he recognized her as a help 
 meet to whom he could make a shamed admission 
 of weakness and fear no condemnation or diminu 
 tion of love. This time, however, she made the 
 wrong reply: 
 
 " But we ll go down to the coast after a while, if 
 our claim s good and we get enough dust out of it. 
 I think of it often. It will be so nice to live in a 
 house again, and have some one to do the cooking, 
 and wear pretty clothes. It will be such fun living 
 where there are people and going about among 
 
 443 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 them, going to parties and maybe having parties of 
 
 our own." 
 
 He withdrew his hand from hers and pushed the 
 hair back from his forehead. Though he said noth 
 ing she was conscious of a drop in his mood. She 
 bent forward to peer into his face and queried with 
 bright, observing eyes : 
 
 " You don t seem to like the thought of it." 
 
 " Oh, it s not me," he answered. " I was just 
 wondering at the queer way women talk. A few 
 minutes ago you said you d be content anywhere 
 with me. Now you say you think it would be such 
 fun living in a city and going to parties." 
 
 " With you, too," she laughed, pressing against 
 his shoulder. " I don t want to go to the parties 
 alone." 
 
 " Well, I guess if you ever go it ll have to be 
 alone," he said roughly. 
 
 She understood now that she had said something 
 that annoyed him, and not knowing how she had 
 come to do it, felt aggrieved and sought to justify 
 herself: 
 
 " But we can t live here always. If we make 
 money we ll want to go back some day where there 
 are people, and comforts and things going on. 
 We ll want friends, everybody has friends. You 
 don t mean for us always to stay far away from 
 everything in these wild, uncivilized places ? " 
 
 " Why not ? " he said, not looking at her, noting 
 her rueful tone and resenting it. 
 
 " But we re not that kind of people. You re not 
 444 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 a real mountain man. You re not like Zavier or the 
 men at Fort Laramie. You re Napoleon Duchesney 
 just as I m Susan Gillespie. Your people in St. 
 Louis and New Orleans were ladies and gentlemen. 
 It was just a wild freak that made you run off into 
 the mountains. You don t want to go on living 
 that way. That part of your life s over. The rest 
 will be with me." 
 
 " And you ll want the cities and the parties? " 
 
 " I ll want to live the way Mrs. Duchesney should 
 live, and you ll want to, too." He did not answer, 
 and she gave his arm a little shake and said, 
 "Won t you?" 
 
 " I m more Low Courant than I am Napoleon 
 Duchesney," was his answer. 
 
 " Well, maybe so, but whichever you are, you ve 
 got a wife now and that makes a great difference." 
 
 She tried to infuse some of her old coquetry into 
 the words, but the eyes, looking sideways at him, 
 were troubled, for she did not yet see where she had 
 erred. 
 
 " I guess it does," he said low, more as if speak 
 ing to himself than her. 
 
 This time she said nothing, feeling dashed and 
 repulsed. They continued to sit close together on 
 the rock, the man lost in morose reverie, the girl 
 afraid to move or touch him lest he should show 
 further annoyance. 
 
 The voice of Daddy John calling them to supper 
 came to both with relief. They walked to the camp 
 side by side, Low with head drooped, the girl at his 
 
 445 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 elbow stealing furtive looks at him. As they ap 
 proached the fire she slid her hand inside his arm 
 and, glancing down, he saw the timid questioning of 
 her face and was immediately contrite. He laid his 
 hand on hers and smiled, and she caught her breath 
 in a deep sigh and felt happiness come rushing back. 
 Whatever it was she had said that displeased him 
 she would be careful not to say it again, for she had 
 already learned that the lion in love is still the lion. 
 
 446 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THEIR claim was rich and they buckled down to 
 work, the old man constructing a rocker after a 
 model of his own, and Courant digging in the pits. 
 Everything was with them, rivals were few, the 
 ground uncrowded, the season dry. It was the 
 American River before the Forty-niners swarmed 
 along its edges, and there was gold in its sands, sunk 
 in a sediment below its muddy deposit, caked in 
 cracks through the rocks round which its currents 
 had swept for undisturbed ages. 
 
 They worked feverishly, the threat of the winter 
 rains urging them on. The girl helped, leaving her 
 kettle settled firm on a bed of embers while the wa 
 ter heated for dish washing, to join them on the 
 shore, heaped with their earth piles. She kept the 
 rocker in motion while the old man dipped up 
 the water in a tin ladle and sent it running over the 
 sifting bed of sand and pebbles. The heavier labor 
 of digging was Courant s. Before September was 
 over the shore was honeycombed with his excava 
 tions, driven down to the rock bed. The diminish 
 ing stream shrunk with each day and he stood in 
 it knee high, the sun beating on his head, his clothes 
 pasted to his skin by perspiration, and the thud of 
 
 447 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 his pick falling with regular stroke on the monot 
 onous rattle of the rocker. 
 
 Sometimes she was tired and they ordered her to 
 leave them and rest in the shade of the camp. She 
 loitered about under the spread of the pine boughs, 
 cleaning and tidying up, and patching the ragged 
 remnants of their clothes. Often, as she sat propped 
 against the trunk, her sewing fell to her lap and 
 she looked out with shining, spell-bound eyes. The 
 men were shapes of dark importance against the 
 glancing veil of water, the soaked sands and the 
 low brushwood yellowing in the autumn s soft, 
 transforming breath. Far away the film of whit 
 ened summits dreamed against the blue. In the 
 midwash of air, aloft and dreaming, too, the hawk s 
 winged form poised, its shadow moving below it 
 across the sea of tree tops. 
 
 She would sit thus, motionless and idle, as the 
 long afternoon wore away, and deep-colored veils 
 of twilight gathered in the canon. She told the 
 men the continuous sounds of their toil made her 
 drowsy. But her stillness was the outward sign of 
 an inner concentration. If delight in rest had re 
 placed her old bodily energy, her mind had gained 
 a new activity. She wondered a little at it, not yet 
 at the heart of her own mystery. Her thoughts 
 reached forward into the future, busied themselves 
 with details of the next twelve months, dwelt anx 
 iously on questions of finance. The nest-building 
 instinct was astir in her and she pondered on the 
 house they were to build, how they must arrange 
 
 448 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 something for a table, and maybe fashion arm 
 chairs of barrels and red flannel. Finally, in a last 
 voluptuous flight of ecstasy, she saw herself riding 
 into Sacramento with a sack of dust and abandon 
 ing herself to an orgie of bartering. 
 
 One afternoon three men, two Mexicans and an 
 Australian sailor from a ship in San Francisco cove, 
 stopped at the camp for food. The Australian was 
 a loquacious fellow, with faculties sharpened by 
 glimpses of life in many ports. He told them of the 
 two emigrant convoys he had just seen arrive in 
 Sacramento, worn and wasted by the last forced 
 marches over the mountains. Susan, who had been 
 busy over her cooking, according him scant atten 
 tion, at his description of the trains, suddenly lifted 
 intent eyes and leaned toward him : 
 
 " Did you see a man among them, a young man, 
 tall and thin, with black hair and beard ? " 
 
 "All the men were tall and thin, or any ways 
 thin," said the sailor, laughing. "How tall was 
 he?" 
 
 " Six feet," she replied, her face devoid of any 
 answering smile, " with high shoulders and walking 
 with a stoop. He had a fine, handsome face, and 
 long black hair to his shoulders and gray eyes." 
 
 " Have you lost your sweetheart ? " said the man, 
 who did not know the relations of the party. 
 
 " No," she said gravely, " my friend." 
 
 Courant explained: 
 
 " She s my wife. The man she s speaking of was 
 a member of our company that we lost on the desert. 
 
 449 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 We thought Indians had got him and hoped he d 
 get away and join with a later westbound train. 
 His name was David." 
 
 The sailor shook his head. 
 
 " Ain t seen no one answering to that name, nor 
 to that description. There wasn t a handsome-fea 
 tured one in the lot, nor a David. But if you re 
 expecting him along, why don t you take her in 
 and let her look em over? They told me at the 
 Fort the trains was mostly all in or ought to be. 
 Any time now the snow on the summit will be too 
 deep for em. If they get caught up there they 
 can t be got out, so they re coming over hot foot 
 and are dumped down round Hock Farm. Not 
 much to see, but if you re looking for a friend it s 
 worth trying." 
 
 That night Courant was again wakeful. Susan s 
 face, as she had questioned the sailor, floated before 
 him on the darkness. With it came the thought of 
 the dead man. In the silence David called upon him 
 from the sepulcher beneath the rock, sent a message 
 through the night which said that, though he was 
 hidden from mortal vision, the memory of him was 
 still alive, imbued with an unquenchable vitality. 
 His unwinking eyes, with the rock crumbs sifting 
 on them, looked at those of his triumphant enemy 
 and spoke through their dusted films. In the mo 
 ment of death they had said nothing to him, now 
 they shone not angrily accusing as they had been 
 in life but stern with a vindictive purpose. 
 
 Courant began to have a fearful understanding 
 
 450 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 of their meaning. Though dead to the rest of the 
 world, David would maintain an intense and secret 
 life in his murderer s conscience. He had never 
 fought such a subtle and implacable foe, and he lay 
 thinking of how he could create conditions that 
 would give him escape, push the phantom from him, 
 make him forget, and be as he had been when no one 
 had disputed his sovereignty over himself. He tried 
 to think that time would mitigate this haunting dis 
 comfort. His sense of guilt, his fear of his wife, 
 would die when the novelty of once again being one 
 with the crowd had worn away. It was not pos 
 sible that he, defiant of man and God, could languish 
 under this dread of a midnight visitation or a dis 
 covery that never would be made. It was the re- 
 entering into the communal life that had upset his 
 poise or was it the influence of the woman, the 
 softly pervasive, enervating influence? He came up 
 against this thought with a dizzying impact and felt 
 himself droop and sicken as one who is faced with 
 a task for which his strength is inadequate. 
 
 He turned stealthily and lay on his back, his face 
 beaded with sweat. The girl beside him waked and 
 sat up casting a side glance at him. By the starlight, 
 slanting in through the raised tent door, she saw his 
 opened eyes and, leaning toward him, a black shape 
 against the faintly blue triangle, said : 
 
 "Low, are you awake?" 
 
 He answered without moving, glad to hear her 
 speak, to know that sleep had left her and her voice 
 might conjure away his black imaginings. 
 
 451 - 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " Why aren t you sleeping? " she asked. " You 
 must be half dead after such work as you did to 
 day." 
 
 "I was thinking " then hastily, for he was 
 afraid that she might sense his mood and ply him 
 with sympathetic queries : " Sometimes people are 
 too tired to sleep. I am, and so I was lying here 
 just thinking of nothing." 
 
 His fears were unnecessary. She was as health 
 ily oblivious of his disturbance as he was morbidly 
 conscious of it. She sat still, her hands clasped 
 round her knees, about which the blanket draped 
 blackly. 
 
 " I was thinking, too," she said. 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Of what that man was saying of David." 
 
 There was a silence. He lay motionless, his 
 trouble coming back upon him. He wished that he 
 might dare to impose upon her a silence on that one 
 subject. David, given a place in her mind, would 
 sit at every feast, walk beside them, lie between 
 them in their marriage bed." 
 
 " Why do you think of him? " he asked. 
 
 " Because " her tone showed surprise. " It s 
 natural, isn t it? Don t you? I m sure you do. I 
 do often, much oftener than you think. I m always 
 hoping that he ll come." 
 
 " You never loved him," he said, in a voice from 
 which all spring was gone. 
 
 " No, but he was my friend, and I would like to 
 keep him so for always. I think of his kindness, his 
 
 452 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 gentleness, all the good part of him before the trail 
 broke him down. And, I think, too, how cruel I 
 was to him." 
 
 The darkness hid her face, but her voice told that 
 she, too, had her little load of guilt where David was 
 concerned. 
 
 The man moved uneasily. 
 
 " That s foolishness. You only told the truth. If 
 it was cruel, that s not your affair." 
 
 " He loved me. A woman doesn t forget that." 
 
 " That s over and done with. He s probably here 
 somewhere, come through with a train that s scat 
 tered. And, anyway, you can t do any good by 
 thinking about him." 
 
 This time the false reassurances came with the 
 pang that the dead man was rousing in tardy retribu 
 tion. 
 
 " I should like to know it," she said wistfully, " to 
 feel sure. It s the only thing that mars our happi 
 ness. If I knew he was safe and well somewhere 
 there d be nothing in the world for me but perfect 
 joy." 
 
 Her egotism of satisfied body and spirit jarred 
 upon him. The passion she had evoked had found 
 no peace in its fulfillment. She had got what he had 
 hoped for. All that he had anticipated was de 
 stroyed by the unexpected intrusion of a part of him 
 self that had lain dead till she had quickened it, and 
 quickening it she had killed his joy. In a flash of 
 divination he saw that, if she persisted in her worry 
 over David, she would rouse in him an antagonism 
 
 453 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 that would eventually drive him from her. He 
 spoke with irritation : 
 
 " Put him out of your mind. Don t worry about 
 him. You can t do any good, and it spoils our love." 
 
 After a pause, she said with a hesitating attempt 
 at cajolery : 
 
 " Let me and Daddy John drive into the valley 
 and try and get news of him. We need supplies 
 and we ll be gone only two or three days. We can 
 inquire at the Fort and maybe go on to Sacramento, 
 and if he s been there we ll hear of it. If we could 
 only hear, just hear, he was safe, it would be such 
 a relief. It would take away this dreary feeling of 
 anxiety, and guilt too, Low. For I feel guilty when 
 I think of how we left him." 
 
 " Where was the guilt ? You ve no right to say 
 that. You understood we had to go. I could take 
 no risks with you and the old man." 
 
 " Yes," she said, slowly, tempering her agree 
 ment with a self-soothing reluctance, " but even 
 so, it seemed terrible. I often tell myself we couldn t 
 have done anything else, but " 
 
 Her voice dropped to silence and she sat staring 
 out at the quiet night, her head blurred with the fila 
 ments of loosened hair. 
 
 He did not speak, gripped by his internal torment, 
 aggravated now by torment from without. He won 
 dered, if he told her the truth, would she understand 
 and help him to peace. But he knew that such 
 knowledge would set her in a new attitude toward 
 him, an attitude of secret judgment, of distracted 
 
 454 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 pity, of an agonized partisanship built on loyalty and 
 the despairing passion of the disillusioned. He could 
 never tell her, for he could never support the loss 
 of her devoted belief, which was now the food of 
 his life. 
 
 "Can I go?" she said, turning to look at him, 
 smiling confidently as one who knows the formal 
 demand unnecessary. 
 
 " If you want," he answered. 
 
 "Then we ll start to-morrow," she said, and, 
 leaning down, kissed him. 
 
 He was unresponsive to the touch of her lips, lay 
 inert as she nestled down into soft-breathing, child 
 like sleep. He watched the tent opening pale into a 
 glimmering triangle wondering what their life would 
 be with the specter of David standing in the path, 
 an angel with a flaming sword barring the way to 
 Paradise. 
 
 Two days later she and Daddy John, sitting on 
 the front seat of the wagon, saw the low drab out 
 lines of the Fort rising from the plain. Under their 
 tree was a new encampment, one tent with the hood 
 of a wagon behind it, and oxen grazing in the sun. 
 As they drew near they could see the crouched 
 forms of two children, the light filtering through 
 the leafage on the silky flax of their heads. They 
 were occupied over a game, evidently a serious busi 
 ness, its floor of operations the smooth ground worn 
 bare about the camp fire. One of them lay flat with 
 a careful hand patting the dust into mounds, the 
 other squatted near by watching, a slant of white 
 
 455 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 hair falling across a rounded cheek. They did not 
 heed the creak of the wagon wheels, but as a wom 
 an s voice called from the tent, raised their heads 
 listening, but not answering, evidently deeming si 
 lence the best safeguard against interruption. 
 
 Susan laid a clutching hand on Daddy John s arm. 
 
 " It s the children," she cried in a choked voice. 
 " Stop, stop ! " and before he could rein the mules to 
 order she was out and running toward them, calling 
 their names. 
 
 They made a clamor of welcome, Bob running to 
 her and making delighted leaps up at her face, the 
 little girl standing aloof for the first bashful mo 
 ment, then sidling nearer with mouth upheld for 
 kisses. Bella heard them and came to the tent door, 
 gave a great cry, and ran to them. There were 
 tears on her cheeks as she clasped Susan, held her 
 off and clutched her again, with panted ejaculations 
 of " Deary me ! " and " Oh, Lord, Missy, is it you? " 
 
 It was like a meeting on the other side of the 
 grave. They babbled their news, both talking at 
 once, not stopping to finish sentences, or wait for 
 the answer to questions of the marches they had not 
 shared. Over the clamor they looked at each other 
 with faces that smiled and quivered, the tie between 
 them strengthened by the separation when each had 
 longed for the other, closer in understanding by 
 the younger s added experience, both now women. 
 
 Glen was at the Fort and Daddy John rolled off 
 to meet him there. The novelty of the moment over, 
 the children returned sedately to their play, and the 
 
 45 6 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 women sat together under the canopy of the tree. 
 Bella s adventures had been few and tame, Susan s 
 was the great story. She was not discursive about 
 her marriage. She was still shy on the subject and 
 sensitively aware of the disappointment that Bella 
 was too artlessly amazed to conceal. She passed 
 over it quickly, pretending that she did not hear 
 Bella s astonished: 
 
 " But why did you get married at Humboldt ? 
 Why didn t you wait till you got here? " 
 
 It was the loss of David that she made the point 
 of her narrative, anxiously impressing on her listener 
 their need of going on. She stole quick looks at 
 Bella, watchful for the first shade of disapprobation, 
 with all Low s arguments ready to sweep it aside. 
 But Bella, with maternal instincts in place of a com 
 prehensive humanity, agreed that Low had done 
 right. Nature, in the beginning, combined with the 
 needs of the trail, had given her a viewpoint where 
 expediency counted for more than altruism. She 
 with two children and a helpless man would have 
 gone on and left anyone to his fate. She did not 
 say this, but Susan, with intelligence sharpened by 
 a jealous passion, felt that there was no need to de 
 fend her husband s action. As for the rest of the 
 world deep in her heart she had already decided it 
 should never know. 
 
 " You couldn t have done anything else," said 
 Bella. " I ve learned that when you re doing that 
 sort of thing, you can t have the same feelings you 
 can back in the States, with everything handy and 
 
 457 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 comfortable. You can be fair, but you got to fight 
 for your own. They got to come first." 
 
 She had neither seen nor heard anything of David. 
 No rumor of a man held captive by the Indians had 
 reached their train. She tried not to let Susan see 
 that she believed the worst. But her melancholy 
 headshake and murmured " Poor David and him 
 such a kind, whole-hearted man " was as an obituary 
 on the dead. 
 
 " Well," she said in pensive comment when Su 
 san had got to the end of her history, " you can t 
 get through a journey like that without some one 
 coming to grief. It s not in human nature. But 
 your father that grand man ! And then the young 
 feller that would have made you such a good hus 
 band " Susan moved warningly " Not but what 
 I m sure you ve got as good a one as it is. And 
 we ve got to take what we can get in this world," 
 she added, spoiling it all by the philosophical ac 
 ceptance of what she evidently regarded as a make 
 shift adjusting to Nature s needs. 
 
 When the men came back Glen had heard all about 
 the gold in the river and was athirst to get there. 
 Work at his trade could wait, and, anyway, he had 
 been in Sacramento and found, while his services 
 were in demand on every side, the materials where 
 with he was to help raise a weatherproof city were 
 not to be had. Men were content to live in tents 
 and cloth shacks until the day of lumber and saw 
 mills dawned, and why wait for this millennium 
 when the river called from its golden sands? 
 
 458 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 No one had news of David. Daddy John had 
 questioned the captains of two recently arrived con 
 voys, but learned nothing. The men thought it like 
 ly he was dead. They agreed as to the possibility 
 of the Indian abduction and his future reappearance. 
 Such things had happened. But it was too late now 
 to do anything. No search party could be sent out 
 at this season when at any day the mountain trails 
 might be neck high in snow. There was nothing 
 to do but wait till the spring. 
 
 Susan listened with lowered brows. It was heavy 
 news. She did not know how she had hoped till 
 she heard that all hope must lie in abeyance for at 
 least six months. It was a long time to be patient. 
 She was selfishly desirous to have her anxieties at 
 rest, for, as she had told her husband, they were 
 the only cloud on her happiness, and she wanted 
 that happiness complete. It was not necessary for 
 her peace to see David again. To know he was safe 
 somewhere would have satisfied her. 
 
 The fifth day after leaving the camp they sighted 
 the pitted shores of their own diggings. Sitting in 
 the McMurdos wagon they had speculated gayly 
 on Low s surprise. Susan, on the seat beside Glen, 
 had been joyously full of the anticipation of it, 
 wondered what he would say, and then fell to im 
 agining it with closed lips and dancing eyes. When 
 the road reached the last concealing buttress she 
 climbed down and mounted beside Daddy John, 
 whose wagon was some distance in advance. 
 
 " It s going to be a surprise for Low," she said 
 459 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 in the voice of a mischievous child. " You mustn t 
 say anything. Let me tell him." 
 
 The old man, squinting sideways at her, gave his 
 wry smile. It was good to see his Missy this way 
 again, in bloom like a refreshed flower. 
 
 " Look," she cried, as her husband s figure came 
 into view kneeling by the rocker. " There he is, and 
 he doesn t see us. Stop ! " 
 
 Courant heard their wheels and, turning, started 
 to his feet and came forward, the light in his face 
 leaping to hers. She sprang down and ran toward 
 him, her arms out. Daddy John, slashing the way 
 side bushes with his whip, looked reflectively at the 
 bending twigs while the embrace lasted. The Mc- 
 Murdos curiosity was not restrained by any such 
 inconvenient delicacy. They peeped from under the 
 wagon hood, grinning appreciatively, Bella the while 
 maintaining a silent fight with the children, who 
 struggled for an exit. None of them could hear 
 what the girl said, but they saw Courant suddenly 
 look with a changed face, its light extinguished, 
 at the second wagon. 
 
 " He don t seem so terrible glad to see us," said 
 Glen. " I guess he wanted to keep the place for 
 himself." 
 
 Bella noted the look and snorted. 
 
 " He s a cross-grained thing," she said ; " I don t 
 see what got into her to marry him when she could 
 have had David." 
 
 " She can t have him when he ain t round to be 
 had," her husband answered. " Low s better than 
 
 460 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 a man that s either a prisoner with the Indians or 
 dead somewhere. David was a good boy, but I 
 don t seem to see he d be much use to her now." 
 
 Bella sniffed again, and let the squirming children 
 go to get what good they could out of the un 
 promising moment of the surprise. 
 
 What Low had said to Susan was an angry, 
 
 " Why did you bring them? " 
 
 She fell back from him not so crestfallen at his 
 words as at his dark frown of disapproval. 
 
 " Why, I wanted them," she faltered, bewildered 
 by his obvious displeasure at what she thought 
 would be welcome news, " and I thought you 
 would." 
 
 " I d rather you hadn t. Aren t we enough by 
 ourselves ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course. But they re our friends. We 
 traveled with them for days and weeks, and it s made 
 them like relations. I was so glad to see them I 
 cried when I saw Bella. Oh, do try and seem more 
 as if you liked it. They re here and I ve brought 
 them." 
 
 He slouched forward to greet them. She was 
 relieved to see that he made an effort to banish his 
 annoyance and put some warmth of welcome into 
 his voice. But the subtlety with which he could 
 conceal his emotions when it behooved him had de 
 serted him, and Bella and Glen saw the husband did 
 not stand toward them as the wife did. 
 
 It was Susan who infused into the meeting a fe 
 vered and fictitious friendliness, chattering over the 
 
 461 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 pauses that threatened to fall upon it, leaving them 
 a reunited company only in name. She presently 
 swept Bella to the camp, continuing her nervous 
 prattle as she showed her the tent and the spring 
 behind it, and told of the log house they were to 
 raise before the rains came. Bella was placated. 
 After all, it was a lovely spot, good for the children, 
 and if Glen could do as well on a lower bend of the 
 river as they had done here, it looked as if they had 
 at last found the Promised Land. 
 
 After supper they sat by Daddy John s fire, which 
 shot an eddying column of sparks into the plumed 
 darkness of the pine. It was like old times only 
 with a glance outward toward the water and the 
 star-strewn sky so much more what was the 
 word ? Not quiet ; they could never forget the desert 
 silence. " Homelike," Susan suggested, and they 
 decided that was the right word. 
 
 :f You feel as if you could stay here and not want 
 to move on," Bella opined. 
 
 Glen thought perhaps you felt that way because 
 you knew you d come to the end and couldn t move 
 much farther. 
 
 But the others argued him down. They all 
 agreed there was something in the sun maybe, or 
 the mellow warmth of the air, or the richness of 
 wooded slope and plain, that made them feel they 
 had found a place where they could stay, not for a 
 few days rest, but forever. Susan had hit upon the 
 word " homelike," the spot on earth that seemed to 
 you the one best fitted for a home. 
 
 462 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 The talk swung back to days on the trail and 
 finally brought up on David. They rehearsed the 
 tragic story, conned over the details that had be 
 gun to form into narrative sequence as in the time- 
 worn lay of a minstrel. Bella and Glen asked all 
 the old questions that had once been asked by Su 
 san and Daddy John, and heard the same answers, 
 leaning to catch them while the firelight played on 
 the strained attention of their faces. With the night 
 pressing close around them, and the melancholy, sea- 
 like song sweeping low from the forest, a chill crept 
 upon them, and their lost comrade became invested 
 with the unreality of a spirit. Dead in that bleak 
 and God-forgotten land, or captive in some Indian 
 stronghold, he loomed a tragic phantom remote 
 from them and their homely interests like a his 
 torical figure round which legend has begun to ac 
 cumulate. 
 
 The awed silence that had fallen was broken by 
 Courant rising and walking away toward the dig 
 gings. This brought their somber pondering to an 
 end. Bella and Glen picked up the sleeping children 
 and went to their tent, and Susan, peering beyond 
 the light, saw her man sitting on a stone, dark 
 against the broken silver of the stream. She stole 
 down to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. 
 He started as if her touch scared him, then saw who 
 it was and turned away with a gruff murmur. The 
 sound was not encouraging, but the wife, already so 
 completely part of him that his moods were com 
 municated to her through the hidden subways of 
 
 463 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 instinct, understood that he was in some unconfessed 
 trouble. 
 
 " What s the matter, Low ? " she asked, bending 
 to see his face. 
 
 He turned it toward her, met the penetrating in 
 quiry of her look, and realized his dependence on 
 her, feeling his weakness but not caring just then 
 that he should be weak. 
 
 " Nothing," he answered. " Why do they harp 
 so on David ? " 
 
 "Don t you like them to?" she asked in some 
 surprise. 
 
 He took a splinter from the stone and threw it 
 into the water, a small silvery disturbance marking 
 its fall. 
 
 There s nothing more to be said. It s all useless 
 talk. We can do no more than we ve done." 
 
 " Shall I tell them you don t like the subject, not 
 to speak of it again ? " 
 
 He glanced at her with sudden suspicion : 
 
 " No, no, of course not. They ve a right to say 
 anything they please. But it s a waste of time, 
 there s nothing but guessing now. What s the use 
 of guessing and wondering all through the winter. 
 Are they going to keep on that way till the spring? " 
 
 " I ll tell them not to," she said as a simple solu 
 tion of the difficulty. " I ll tell them it worries you." 
 
 " Don t," he said sharply. " Do you hear ? Don t. 
 Do you want to act like a fool and make me angry 
 with you ? " 
 
 He got up and moved away, leaving her staring 
 464 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 blankly at his back. He had been rough to her 
 often, but never before spoken with this note of per 
 emptory, peevish displeasure. She felt an obscure 
 sense of trouble, a premonition of disaster. She 
 went to him and, standing close, put her hand inside 
 his arm. 
 
 " Low," she pleaded, "what s wrong with you? 
 You were angry that they came. Now you re an 
 gry at what they say. I don t understand. Tell me 
 the reason of it. If there s something that I don t 
 know let me hear it, and I ll try and straighten things 
 out." 
 
 For a tempted moment he longed to tell her, to 
 gain ease by letting her share his burden. The hand 
 upon his arm was a symbol of her hold upon him 
 that no action of his could ever loose. If he could 
 admit her within the circle of his isolation he 
 would have enough. He would lose the baleful con 
 sciousness of forever walking apart, separated from 
 his kind, a spiritual Ishmaelite. She had strength 
 enough. For the moment he felt that she was the 
 stronger of the two, able to bear more than he, able 
 to fortify him and give him courage for the fu 
 ture. He had a right to claim such a dole of her 
 love, and once the knowledge hers, they two would 
 stand, banished from the rest of the world, knit to 
 gether by the bond of their mutual knowledge. 
 
 The temptation clutched him and his breast con 
 tracted in the rising struggle. His pain clamored 
 for relief, his weakness for support. The lion man, 
 broken and tamed by the first pure passion of his 
 
 465 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 life, would have cast the weight of his sin upon the 
 girl he had thought to bear through life like a pam 
 pered mistress. 
 
 With the words on his lips he looked at her. She 
 met the look with a smile that she tried to make 
 brave, but that was only a surface grimace, her spir 
 it s disturbance plain beneath it. There was pathos 
 in its courage and its failure. He averted his eyes, 
 shook his arm free of her hand, and, moving toward 
 the water, said : 
 
 " Go back to the tent and go to bed." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " she called after 
 him, her voice sounding plaintive. Its wistful note 
 gave him strength : 
 
 " Walk for a while. I m not tired. I ll be back 
 in an hour," and he walked away, down the edge of 
 the current, past the pits and into the darkness. 
 
 She watched him, not understanding, vaguely 
 alarmed, then turned and went back to the tent. 
 
 466 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE stretch of the river where the McMurdos 
 had settled was richer than Courant s location. Had 
 Glen been as mighty a man with the pick, even in 
 the short season left to him, he might have accumu 
 lated a goodly store. But he was a slack worker. 
 His training as a carpenter made him useful, find 
 ing expression in an improvement on Daddy John s 
 rocker, so they overlooked his inclination to lie off in 
 the sun with his ragged hat pulled over his eyes. 
 In Courant s camp Bella was regarded as the best 
 man of the two. To her multiform duties she added 
 that of assistant in the diggings, squatting beside 
 her husband in the mud, keeping the rocker going, 
 and when Glen was worked out, not above taking a 
 hand at the shovel. Her camp showed a comfort 
 able neatness, and the children s nakedness was cov 
 ered with garments fashioned by the firelight from 
 old flour sacks. 
 
 There was no crisp coming of autumn. A yel 
 lowing of the leafage along the river s edge was all 
 that denoted the season s change. Nature seemed 
 loth to lay a desecrating hand on the region s tran 
 quil beauty. They had been told at the Fort that 
 they might look for the first rains in November. 
 
 467 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 When October was upon them they left the pits and 
 set to work felling trees for two log huts. 
 
 Susan saw her home rising on the knoll, a square 
 of logs, log roofed, with a door of woven saplings 
 over which canvas was nailed. They built a chim 
 ney of stones rounded by the water s action, and for 
 a hearth found a slab of granite which they sunk in 
 the earth before the fireplace. The bunk was a 
 frame of young pines with canvas stretched across, 
 and cushioned with spruce boughs and buffalo robes. 
 She watched as they nailed up shelves of small, split 
 trunks and sawed the larger ones into sections for 
 seats. The bottom of the wagon came out and, 
 poised on four log supports, made the table. 
 
 Her housewife s instincts rose jubilant as the shell 
 took form, and she sang to herself as she stitched 
 her flour sacks together for towels. No princess 
 decked her palace with a blither spirit. All the little 
 treasures that had not been jettisoned in the last 
 stern march across the desert came from their hid 
 ing places for the adornment of the first home of 
 her married life. The square of mirror stood on the 
 shelf near the door where the light could fall on it, 
 and the French gilt clock that had been her mother s 
 ticked beside it. The men laughed as she set out on 
 the table the silver mug of her baby days and a 
 two-handled tankard bearing on its side a worn 
 coat of arms, a heritage from the adventurous Pou- 
 trincourt, a drop of whose blood had given boldness 
 and courage to hers. 
 
 It was her home very different from the home 
 468 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 she had dreamed of but so was her life different 
 from the life she and her father had planned to 
 gether in the dead days of the trail. She delighted 
 in it, gloated over it. Long before the day of in 
 stallation she moved in her primitive furnishings, 
 disposed the few pans with an eye to their effect as 
 other brides arrange their silver and crystal, hung 
 her flour-sack towels on the pegs with as careful a 
 hand as though they had been tapestries, and folded 
 her clothes neat and seemly in her father s chest. 
 Then came a night when the air was sharp, and they 
 kindled the first fire in the wide chimney mouth. It 
 leaped exultant, revealing the mud-filled cracks, 
 playing on the pans, and licking the bosses of the 
 old tankard. The hearthstone shone red with its 
 light, and they sat drawn back on the seats of pine 
 looking into its roaring depths housed, sheltered, 
 cozily content. When Glen and Bella retired to 
 their tent a new romance seemed to have budded in 
 the girl s heart. It was her bridal night beneath a 
 roof, beside a hearth, with a door to close against 
 the world, and shut her away with her lover. 
 
 In these days she had many secret conferrings 
 with Bella. They kept their heads together and 
 whispered, and Bella crooned and fussed over her 
 and pushed the men into the background in a mas 
 terful, aggressive manner. Susan knew now what 
 had waked the nest-building instinct. The knowl 
 edge came with a thrilling, frightened joy. She 
 sat apart adjusting herself to the new outlook, 
 sometimes fearful, then uplifted in a rapt, still ela- 
 
 469 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 tion. All the charm she had once held over the 
 hearts of men was gone. Glen told Bella she was 
 getting stupid, even Daddy John wondered at her 
 dull, self-centered air. She would not have cared 
 what they had said or thought of her. Her interest 
 in men as creatures to snare and beguile was gone 
 with her lost maidenhood. All that she had of 
 charm and beauty she hoarded, stored up and jeal 
 ously guarded, for her husband and her child. 
 
 " It ll be best for you to go down to the town," 
 Bella had said to her, reveling discreetly in her po 
 sition as high priestess of these mysteries, " there ll 
 be doctors in Sacramento, some kind of doctors." 
 
 " I ll stay here/ Susan answered. " You re here 
 and my husband and Daddy John. I d die if I was 
 sent off among strangers. I can t live except with 
 the people I m fond of. I m not afraid." 
 
 And the older woman decided that maybe she was 
 right. She could see enough to know that this girl 
 of a higher stock and culture, plucked from a home 
 of sheltered ease to be cast down in the rude life 
 of the pioneer, was only a woman like all the rest, 
 having no existence outside her own small world. 
 So the bright, monotonous days filed by, always 
 sunny, always warm, till it seemed as if they were 
 to go on thus forever, glide into a winter which was 
 still spring. An excursion to Sacramento, a big 
 day s clean up, were their excitements. They taught 
 little Bob to help at the rocker, and the women sat 
 by the cabin door sewing, long periods of silence 
 broken by moments of desultory talk. Susan had 
 
 470 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 grown much quieter. She would sit with idle hands 
 watching the shifting lights and the remoter hills 
 turning from the afternoon s blue to the rich purple 
 of twilight. Bella said she was lazy, and urged in 
 dustry and the need of speed in the preparation of 
 the new wardrobe. She laughed indolently and said, 
 time enough later on. She had grown indifferent 
 about her looks her hair hanging elfish round her 
 ears, her blouse unfastened at the throat, the new 
 boots Low had brought her from Sacramento un 
 worn in the cabin corner, her feet clothed in the 
 ragged moccasins he had taught her to make. 
 
 In the evening she sat on a blanket on the cabin 
 floor, blinking sleepily at the flames. Internally she 
 brimmed with a level content. Life was coming to 
 the flood with her, her being gathering itself for its 
 ultimate expression. All the curiosity and interest 
 she had once turned out to the multiple forms and 
 claims of the world were now concentrated on the 
 two lives between which hers stood. She was the 
 primitive woman, a mechanism of elemental in 
 stincts, moving up an incline of progressive passions. 
 The love of her father had filled her youth, and that 
 had given way to the love of her mate, which in 
 time would dim before the love of her child. Out 
 side these phases of a governing prepossession 
 filial, conjugal, maternal she knew nothing, felt 
 nothing, and could see nothing. 
 
 Low, at first, had brooded over her with an almost 
 ferocious tenderness. Had she demanded a removal 
 to the town he would have given way. He would 
 
 47 1 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 have acceded to anything she asked, but she asked 
 nothing. As the time passed her demands of him, 
 even to his help in small matters of the household, 
 grew less. A slight, inscrutable change had come 
 over her : she was less responsive, often held him 
 with an eye whose blankness told of inner imagin 
 ings, when he spoke made no answer, concentrated 
 in her reverie. When he watched her withdrawn in 
 these dreams, or in a sudden attack of industry, 
 fashioning small garments from her hoarded store 
 of best clothes, he felt an alienation in her, and he 
 realized with a start of alarmed divination that the 
 child would take a part of what had been his, steal 
 from him something of that blind devotion in the 
 eternal possession of which he had thought to find 
 solace. 
 
 It was a shock that roused him to a scared scru 
 tiny of the future. He put questions to her for the 
 purpose of drawing out her ideas, and her answers 
 showed that all her thoughts and plans were gath 
 ering round the welfare of her baby. Her desire for 
 its good was to end her unresisting subservience to 
 him. She was thinking already of better things. 
 Ambitions were awakened that would carry her 
 out of the solitudes, where he felt himself at rest, 
 back to the world where she would struggle to 
 make a place for the child she had never wanted 
 for herself. 
 
 " We ll take him to San Francisco soon " it was 
 always " him " in her speculations " We can t 
 keep him here." 
 
 472 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 " Why not? " he asked. " Look at Bella s chil 
 dren. Could anything be healthier and happier?" 
 
 " Bella s children are different. Bella s different. 
 She doesn t know anything better, she doesn t care. 
 To have them well fed and healthy is enough for 
 her. We re not like that. Our child s going to have 
 everything." 
 
 You re content enough here by yourself and 
 you re a different sort to Bella." 
 
 " For myself ! " she gave a shrug. " I don t care 
 any more than Bella does. But for my child my 
 son I want everything. Want him a gentleman 
 like his ancestors, French and American " she 
 gave his arm a propitiating squeeze for she knew he 
 disliked this kind of talk " want him to be educated 
 like my father, and know everything, and have a 
 profession." 
 
 " You re looking far ahead." 
 
 " Years and years ahead," and then with depre 
 cating eyes and irrepressible laughter, " Now don t 
 say I m foolish, but sometimes I think of him get 
 ting married and the kind of girl I ll choose for him 
 not stupid like me, but one who s good and beau 
 tiful and knows all about literature and geography 
 and science. The finest girl in the world, and I ll 
 find her for him." 
 
 He didn t laugh, instead he looked sulkily 
 thoughtful : 
 
 " And where will we get the money to do all 
 this?" 
 
 " We ll make it. We have a good deal now. 
 
 473 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 Daddy John told me the other day he thought we 
 had nearly ten thousand dollars in dust beside what 
 my father left. That will be plenty to begin on, and 
 you can go into business down on the coast. They 
 told Daddy John at the Fort there would be hun 
 dreds and thousands of people coming in next spring. 
 They ll build towns, make Sacramento and San 
 Francisco big places with lots going on. We can 
 settle in whichever seems the most thriving and get 
 back into the kind of life where we belong." 
 
 It was her old song, the swan song of his hopes. 
 
 He felt a loneliness more bitter than he had ever 
 before conceived of. In the jarring tumult of a 
 growing city he saw himself marked in his own eyes, 
 aloof in the street and the market place, a stranger 
 by his own fireside. In his fear he swore that he 
 would thwart her, keep her in the wild places, crush 
 her maternal ambitions and force her to share his 
 chosen life, the life of the outcast. He knew that 
 it would mean conflict, the subduing of a woman 
 nerved by a mother s passion. And as he worked 
 in the ditches he thought about it, arranging the 
 process by which he would gradually break her to 
 his will, beat down her aspirations till she was re 
 duced to the abject docility of a squaw. Then he 
 would hold her forever under his hand and eye, 
 broken as a dog to his word, content to wander with 
 him on those lonely paths where he would tread out 
 the measure of his days. 
 
 Toward the end of November the rains came. 
 First in hesitant showers, then in steadier down- 
 
 474 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 pourings, finally, as December advanced, in torren 
 tial fury. Veils of water descended upon them, 
 swept round their knoll till it stood marooned amid 
 yellow eddies. The river rose boisterous, swirled 
 into the pits, ate its way across the honey-combed 
 reach of mud and fingered along the bottom of their 
 hillock. They had never seen such rain. The pines 
 bowed and wailed under its assault, and the slopes 
 were musical with the voices of liberated streams. 
 Moss and mud had to be pressed into the cabin s 
 cracks, and when they sat by the fire in the evening 
 their voices fell before the angry lashings on the 
 roof and the groaning of the tormented forest. 
 
 Daddy John and Courant tried to work but gave 
 it up, and the younger man, harassed by the seces 
 sion of the toil that kept his body wearied and gave 
 him sleep, went abroad on the hills, roaming free 
 in the dripping darkness. Bella saw cause for sur 
 prise that he should absent himself willingly from 
 their company. She grumbled about it to Glen, and 
 noted Susan s acquiescence with the amaze of the 
 woman who holds absolute sway over her man. One 
 night Courant came back, drenched and staggering, 
 on his shoulders a small bear that he had shot on 
 the heights above. The fresh bear meat placated 
 Bella, but she shook her head over the mountain 
 man s morose caprices, and in the bedtime hour 
 made dismal prophecies as to the outcome of her 
 friend s strange marriage. 
 
 The bear hunt had evil consequences that she did 
 not foresee. It left Courant, the iron man, stricken 
 
 475 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 by an ailment marked by shiverings, when he sat 
 crouched over the fire, and fevered burnings when 
 their combined entreaties could not keep him from 
 the open door and the cool, wet air. When the 
 clouds broke and the landscape emerged from its 
 mourning, dappled with transparent tints, every twig 
 and leaf washed clean, his malady grew worse and 
 he lay on the bed of spruce boughs tossing in a sick 
 ness none of them understood. 
 
 They were uneasy, came in and out with disturbed 
 looks and murmured inquiries. He refused to an 
 swer them, but on one splendid morning, blaring 
 life like a trumpet call, he told them he was better 
 and was going back to work. He got down to the 
 river bank, fumbled over his spade, and then Daddy 
 John had to help him back to the cabin. With gray 
 face and filmed eyes he lay on the bunk while they 
 stood round him, and the children came peeping 
 fearfully through the doorway. They were thor 
 oughly frightened, Bella standing by with her chin 
 caught in her hand and her eyes fastened on him, 
 and Susan on the ground beside him, trying to say 
 heartening phrases with lips that were stiff. The 
 men did not know what to do. They pushed the 
 children from the door roughly, as if it were their 
 desire to hurt and abuse them. In some obscure 
 way it seemed to relieve their feelings. 
 
 The rains came back more heavily than ever. For 
 three days the heavens descended in a downpour 
 that made the river a roaring torrent and isled the 
 two log houses on their hillocks. The walls of the 
 
 476 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 cabin trickled with water. The buffets of the wind 
 ripped the canvas covering from the door, and Su 
 san and Daddy John had to take a buffalo robe from 
 the bed and nail it over the rent. They kept the 
 place warm with the fire, but the earth floor was 
 damp to their feet, and the tinkle of drops falling 
 from the roof into the standing pans came clear 
 through the outside tumult. 
 
 The night when the storm was at its fiercest the 
 girl begged the old man to stay with her. Courant 
 had fallen into a state of lethargy from which it 
 was hard to rouse him. Her anxiety gave place to 
 anguish, and Daddy John was ready for the worst 
 when she shook him into wakefulness, her voice at 
 his ear: 
 
 " You must go somewhere and get a doctor. I m 
 afraid." 
 
 He blinked at her without answering, wondering 
 where he could find a doctor and not wanting to 
 speak till he had a hope to offer. She read his 
 thoughts and cried as she snatched his hat and coat 
 from a peg: 
 
 " There must be one somewhere. Go to the Fort, 
 and if there s none there go to Sacramento. I d go 
 with you but I m afraid to leave him." 
 
 Daddy John went. She stood in the doorway and 
 saw him lead the horse from the brush shed and, 
 with his head low against the downpour, vault into 
 the saddle. The moaning of the disturbed trees 
 mingled with the triumphant roar of the river. 
 There was a shouted good-by, and she heard the clat- 
 
 477 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 ter of the hoofs for a moment sharp and distinct, 
 then swallowed in the storm s high clamor. 
 
 In three days he was back with a ship s doctor, 
 an Englishman, who described himself as just ar 
 rived from Australia. Daddy John had searched the 
 valley, and finally run his quarry to earth at the Por 
 ter Ranch, one of a motley crew waiting to swarm 
 inland to the rivers. The man, a ruddy animal with 
 some rudimentary knowledge of his profession, 
 pronounced the ailment " mountain fever." He 
 looked over the doctor s medicine chest with an 
 air of wisdom and at Susan with subdued gal 
 lantry. 
 
 " Better get the wife down to Sacramento," he 
 said to Daddy John. " The man s not going to last 
 and you can t keep her up here." 
 
 " Is he going to die ? " said the old man. 
 
 The doctor pursed his lips. 
 
 "He oughtn t to. He s a Hercules. But the 
 strongest of em go this way with the work and ex 
 posure. Think they can do anything and don t last 
 as well sometimes as the weak ones." 
 
 " Work and exposure oughtn t to hurt him. He s 
 bred upon it. Why should he cave in and the others 
 of us keep up? " 
 
 " Can t say. But he s all burned out hollow. 
 There s no rebound. He s half gone now. Doesn t 
 seem to have the spirit that you d expect in such a 
 body." 
 
 " Would it do any good to get him out of here, 
 down to the valley or the coast? " 
 
 478 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 " It might change of air sometimes knocks out 
 these fevers. You could try the coast or Hock 
 Farm. But if you want my opinion I don t think 
 there s much use." 
 
 Then on the first fine day the doctor rode away 
 with some of their dust in his saddlebags, spying on 
 the foaming river for good spots to locate when the 
 rains should cease and he, with the rest of the world, 
 could try his luck. 
 
 His visit had done no good, had given no heart 
 to the anguished woman or roused no flicker of life 
 in the failing man. Through the weakness of his 
 wasting faculties Courant realized the approach of 
 death and welcomed it. In his forest roamings, be 
 fore his illness struck him, he had thought of it as 
 the one way out. Then it had come to him vaguely 
 terrible as a specter in dreams. Now bereft of the 
 sustaining power of his strength the burden of the 
 days to come had grown insupportable. To live 
 without telling her, to live beside her and remain a 
 partial stranger, to live divorcing her from all she 
 would desire, had been the only course he saw, and 
 in it he recognized nothing but misery. Death was 
 the solution for both, and he relinquished himself 
 to it with less grief at parting from her than relief 
 at the withdrawal from an existence that would de 
 stroy their mutual dream. What remained to him 
 of his mighty forces went to keep his lips shut on 
 the secret she must never know. Even as his brain 
 grew clouded, and his senses feeble, he retained the 
 resolution to leave her her belief in him. This would 
 
 479 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 be his legacy. His last gift of love would be the 
 memory of an undimmed happiness. 
 
 But Susan, unknowing, fought on. The doctor 
 had not got back to the Porter Ranch before she be 
 gan arranging to move Low to Sacramento and 
 from there to the Coast. He would get better care, 
 they would find more competent doctors, the change 
 of air would strengthen him. She had it out with 
 Bella, refusing to listen to the older woman s objec 
 tions, pushing aside all references to her own health. 
 Bella was distracted. " For/ as she said afterwards 
 to Glen, " what s the sense of having her go ? She 
 can t do anything for him, and it s like as not the 
 three of them ll die instead of one." 
 
 There was no reasoning with Susan. The old will 
 fulness was strengthened to a blind determination. 
 She plodded back through the rain to Daddy John 
 and laid the matter before him. As of old he did 
 not dispute with her, only stipulated that he be per 
 mitted to go on ahead, make arrangements, and then 
 come back for her. He, too, felt there was no hope, but 
 unlike the others he felt the best hope for his Missy 
 was in letting her do all she could for her husband. 
 
 In the evening, sitting by the fire, they talked it 
 over the stage down the river, the stop at the Fort, 
 then on to Sacramento, and the long journey to the 
 seaport settlement of San Francisco. The sick man 
 seemed asleep, and their voices unconsciously rose, 
 suddenly dropping to silence as he stirred and spoke : 
 
 " Are you talking of moving me ? Don t. I ve 
 had twelve years of it. Let me rest now." 
 
 480 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 Susar. went to him and sat at his feet. 
 
 " But we must get you well/ she said, trying to 
 smile. l They ll want you in the pits. You must 
 be back there working with them by the spring." 
 
 He looked at her with a wide, cold gaze, and 
 said : 
 
 1 The spring. We re all waiting for the spring. 
 Everything s going to happen then." 
 
 A silence fell. The wife sat with drooped head, 
 unable to speak. Daddy John looked into the fire. 
 To them both the Angel of Death seemed to have 
 paused outside the door, and in the stillness they 
 waited for his knock. Only Courant was indiffer 
 ent, staring at the wall with eyes full of an unfath 
 omable unconcern. 
 
 The next day Daddy John left. He was to find 
 the accommodations, get together such comforts as 
 could be had, and return for them. He took a sack 
 of dust and the fleetest horse, and calculated to be 
 back inside two days. As he clattered away he 
 turned for a last look at her, standing in the sun 
 shine, her hand over her eyes. Man or devil would 
 not stop him, he thought, as he buckled to his task, 
 and his seventy years sat as light as a boy s twenty, 
 the one passion of his heart beating life through 
 him. 
 
 Two days later, at sundown, he came back. She 
 heard the ringing of hoofs along the trail and ran 
 forward to meet him, catching the bridle as the 
 horse, a white lather of sweat, came to a panting 
 halt. She did not notice the lined exhaustion of the 
 
 481 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 old man s face, had no care for anything but his 
 news. 
 
 " I ve got everything fixed," he cried, and then slid 
 off holding to the saddle for he was stiff and spent. 
 " The place is ready and I ve found a doctor and got 
 him nailed. It ll be all clean and shipshape for you. 
 How s Low?" 
 
 An answer was unnecessary. He could see there 
 were no good tidings. 
 
 " Weaker a little," she said. " But if it s fine we 
 can start to-morrow." 
 
 He thought of the road he had traveled and felt 
 they were in God s hands. Then he stretched a 
 gnarled and tremulous claw and laid it on her 
 shoulder. 
 
 " And there s other news, Missy. Great news. 
 I m thinking that it may help you." 
 
 There was no news that could help her but news 
 of Low. She was so fixed in her preoccupation 
 that her eye was void of interest, as his, bright and 
 expectant, held it: 
 
 " I seen David." 
 
 He was rewarded. Her face flashed into excite 
 ment and she grabbed at him with a wild hand: 
 
 "David! Where?" 
 
 " In Sacramento. I seen him and talked to him." 
 
 " Oh, Daddy John, how wonderful ! Was he 
 well?" 
 
 " Well and hearty, same as he used to be. 
 Plumped up considerable." 
 
 " How had he got there? " 
 482 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 " A train behind us picked him up, found him ly- 
 in by the spring where he d crawled lookin for us." 
 
 " Then, it wasn t Indians? Had he got lost? " 
 
 " That s what I says to him first-off Well, gol 
 darn yer, what happened to yer ? and before he an 
 swers me he says quick, How s Susan? It ain t 
 no use settin on bad news that s bound to come out 
 so I give it to him straight that you and Low was 
 married at Humboldt. And he took it very quiet, 
 whitened up a bit, and says no words for a spell, 
 walkin off a few steps. Then he turns back and 
 says, Is she happy ? 
 
 Memory broke through the shell of absorption 
 and gave voice to a forgotten sense of guilt : 
 
 "Oh, poor David! He always thought of me 
 first." 
 
 " I told him you was. That you and Low was 
 almighty sot on each other and that Low was sick. 
 And he was quiet for another spell, and I could see 
 his thoughts was troublesome. So to get his mind 
 off it I asked him how it all happened. He didn t 
 answer for a bit, standin thinkin with his eyes look- 
 in out same as he used to look at the sunsets be 
 fore he got broke down. And then he tells me it 
 was a fall, that he clum up to the top of the rock 
 and thinks he got a touch o sun up there. For 
 first thing he knew he was all dizzy and staggerin 
 round, goin this side and that, till he got to the 
 edge where the rock broke off and over he went. 
 He come to himself lying under a ledge alongside 
 some bushes, with a spring tricklin over him. He 
 
 483 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 guessed he rolled there and that s why we couldn t 
 find him. He don t know how long it was, or how 
 long it took him to crawl round to the camp may 
 be a day, he thinks, for he was bout two thirds dead. 
 But he got there and saw we was gone. The In 
 dians hadn t come down on the place, and he seen 
 the writing on the rock and found the cache. The 
 food and the water kep him alive, and after a bit a 
 big train come along, the finest train he even seen 
 eighteen wagons and an old Ashley man for pilot. 
 They was almighty good to him ; the women nursed 
 him like Christians, and he rid in the wagons and 
 come back slow to his strength. The reason we 
 didn t hear of him before was because they come by 
 a southern route that took em weeks longer, mov 
 ing slow for the cattle. They was fine people, he 
 says, and he s thick with one of the men who s a 
 lawyer, and him and David s goin to the coast to 
 set up a law business there." 
 
 The flicker of outside interest was dying. 
 " Thank Heaven," she said on a rising breath, then 
 cast a look at the cabin and added quickly: 
 
 " I ll go and tell Low. Maybe it ll cheer him up. 
 He was always so worried about David. You tell 
 Bella and then come to the cabin and see how you 
 think he is." 
 
 There was light in the cabin, a leaping radiance 
 from the logs on the hearth, and a thin, pale twi 
 light from the uncovered doorway. She paused 
 there for a moment, making her step light and com 
 posing her features into serener lines. The gaunt 
 
 484 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 form under the blanket was motionless. The face, 
 sunk away to skin clinging on sharp-set bones, was 
 turned in profile. He might have been sleeping but 
 for the glint of light between the eyelids. She was 
 accustomed to seeing him thus, to sitting beside the 
 inanimate shape, her hand curled round his, her 
 eyes on the face that took no note of her impas 
 sioned scrutiny. Would her tidings of David rouse 
 him ? She left herself no time to wonder, hungrily 
 expectant. 
 
 " Low," she said, bending over him, " Daddy 
 John s been to Sacramento and has brought back 
 wonderful news." 
 
 He turned his head with an effort and looked at 
 her. His glance was vacant as if he had only half 
 heard, as if her words had caught the outer edges 
 of his senses and penetrated no farther. 
 
 " He has seen David." 
 
 Into the dull eyes a slow light dawned, struggling 
 through their apathy till they became the eyes of a 
 live man, hanging on hers, charged with a staring 
 intelligence. He made an attempt to move, lifted a 
 wavering hand and groped for her shoulder. 
 
 " David ! " he whispered. 
 
 The news had touched an inner nerve that thrilled 
 to it. She crouched on the edge of the bunk, her 
 heart beating thickly : 
 
 " David, alive and well." 
 
 The fumbling hand gripped on her shoulder. 
 She felt the fingers pressing in stronger than she 
 had dreamed they could be. It pulled her down 
 
 485 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 toward him, the eyes fixed on hers, searching her 
 face, glaring fearfully from blackened hollows, riv 
 eted in a desperate questioning. 
 
 " What happened to him ? " came the husky whis 
 per. 
 
 " He fell from the rock ; thinks he had a sunstroke 
 up there and then lost his balance and fell over and 
 rolled under a ledge. And after a few days a train 
 came by and found him." 
 
 "Is that what he said ?" 
 
 Her answering voice began to tremble, for the 
 animation of his look grew wilder and stranger. It 
 was as if all the life in his body was burning in those 
 hungry eyes. The hand on her shoulder clutched 
 like a talon, the muscles informed with an unnatural 
 force. Was it the end coming with a last influx of 
 strength and fire? Her tears began to fall upon 
 his face, and she saw it through them, ravaged and 
 fearful, with new life struggling under the ghastli- 
 ness of dissolution. There was an awfulness in this 
 rekindling of the spirit where death had set its stamp 
 that broke her fortitude, and she forgot the legend 
 of her courage and cried in her agony: 
 
 " Oh, Low, don t die, don t die ! I can t bear it. 
 Stay with me ! " 
 
 The hand left her shoulder and fumblingly 
 touched her face, feeling blindly over its tear-washed 
 surface. 
 
 " I m not going to die," came the feeble whisper. 
 " I can live now." 
 
 Half an hour later when Daddy John came in he 
 486 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 found her sitting on the side of the bunk, a hunched, 
 dim figure against the firelight. She held up a 
 warning hand, and the old man tiptoed to her side 
 and leaned over her to look. Courant was sleeping, 
 his head thrown back, his chest rising in even 
 breaths. Daddy John gazed for a moment, then bent 
 till his cheek was almost against hers. 
 
 " Pick up your heart, Missy," he whispered. 
 " He looks to me better." 
 
 487 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FROM the day of the good news Courant rallied. 
 At first they hardly dared to hope. Bella and Daddy 
 John talked about it together and wondered if it 
 were only a pause in the progress of his ailment. 
 But Susan was confident, nursing her man with a 
 high cheerfulness that defied their anxious faces. 
 
 She had none of their fear of believing. She saw 
 their doubts and angrily scouted them. " Low will 
 be all right soon," she said, in answer to their 
 gloomily observing looks. In her heart she called 
 them cowards, ready to join hands with death, not 
 rise up and fight till the final breath. Her resolute 
 hope seemed to fill the cabin with light and life. It 
 transformed her haggardness, made her a beaming 
 presence, with eyes bright under tangled locks of 
 hair, and lips that hummed snatches of song. He 
 was coming back to her like a child staggering to 
 its mother s outheld hands. While they were yet 
 unconvinced * when Low gets well " became a con 
 stant phrase on her tongue. She began to plan 
 again, filled their ears with speculations of the time 
 when she and her husband would move to the coast. 
 They marveled at her, at the dauntlessness of her 
 spirit, at the desperate courage that made her grip 
 her happiness and wrench it back from the enemy. 
 
 488 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 They marveled more when they saw she had been 
 right Susan who had been a child so short a time 
 before, knowing more than they, wiser and stronger 
 in the wisdom and strength of her love. 
 
 There was a great day when Low crept out to 
 the door and sat on the bench in the sun with his 
 wife beside him. To the prosperous passerby they 
 would have seemed a sorry pair a skeleton man 
 with uncertain feet and powerless hands, a worn 
 woman, ragged and unkempt. To them it was the 
 halcyon hour, the highest point of their mutual ad 
 venture. The cabin was their palace, the soaked 
 prospect a pleasance decked for their delight. And 
 from this rude and ravaged outlook their minds 
 reached forward in undefined and unrestricted 
 visioning to all the world that lay before them, 
 which they would soon advance on and together 
 win. 
 
 Nature was with them in their growing gladness. 
 The spring was coming. The river began to fall, 
 and Courant s eyes dwelt longingly on the expand 
 ing line of mud that waited for his pick. April came 
 with a procession of cloudless days, with the tin 
 kling of streams shrinking under the triumphant 
 sun, with the pines exhaling scented breaths, and a 
 first, faint sprouting of new green. The great re 
 freshed landscape unveiled itself, serenely brooding 
 in a vast, internal energy of germination. The earth 
 was coming to life as they were, gathering itself 
 for the expression of its ultimate purpose. It was 
 rising to the rite of rebirth and they rose with it, 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 with faces uplifted to its kindling glory and hearts 
 in which joy was touched by awe. 
 
 On a May evening, when the shadows were con 
 gregating in the canon, Susan lay on the bunk with 
 her son in the hollow of her arm. The children 
 came in and peeped fearfully at the little hairless 
 head, pulling down the coverings with careful fin 
 gers and eying the newcomer dubiously, not sure 
 that they liked him. Bella looked over their shoul 
 ders radiating proud content. Then she shooed 
 them out and went about her work of " redding 
 up," pacing the earthen floor with the proud tread 
 of victory. Courant was sitting outside on the log 
 bench. She moved to the door and smiled down at 
 him over the tin plate she was scouring. 
 
 " Come in and sit with her while I get the sup 
 per/ she said. " Don t talk, just sit where she can 
 see you." 
 
 He came and sat beside her, and she drew the 
 blanket down from the tiny, crumpled face. They 
 were silent, wondering at it, looking back over the 
 time when it had cried in their blood, inexorably 
 drawn them together, till out of the heat of their 
 passion the spark of its being had been struck. 
 Both saw in it their excuse and their pardon. 
 
 She recovered rapidly, all her being revivified and 
 reinforced, coming back glowingly to a maturer 
 beauty. Glimpses of the Susan of old began to re 
 appear. She wanted her looking-glass, and, sitting 
 up in the bunk with the baby against her side, ar 
 ranged her hair in the becoming knot and twisted 
 
 49 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 the locks on her temples into artful tendrils. She 
 would sew soon, and kept Bella busy digging into 
 the trunks and bringing out what was left of her 
 best things. They held weighty conferences over 
 these, the foot of the bunk littered with wrinkled 
 skirts and jackets that had fitted a slimmer and more 
 elegant Susan. A trip to Sacramento was talked of, 
 in which Daddy John was to shop for a lady and 
 baby, and buy all manner of strange articles of 
 which he knew nothing. 
 
 " Calico, that s a pretty color/ he exclaimed tes 
 tily. " How am I to know what s a pretty color ? 
 Now if it was a sack of flour or a spade but I ll 
 do my best, Missy," he added meekly, catching her 
 eye in which the familiar imperiousness gleamed 
 through softening laughter. 
 
 Soon the day came when she walked to the door 
 and sat on the bench. The river was settling de 
 corously into its bed, and in the sunlight the 
 drenched shores shone under a tracery of pools and 
 rillets as though a silvery gauze had been rudely 
 torn back from them, catching and tearing here and 
 there. The men were starting the spring work. The 
 rocker was up, and the spades and picks stood 
 propped against the rock upon which she and Low 
 had sat on that first evening. He sat there now, 
 watching the preparations soon to take part again. 
 His lean hand fingered among the picks, found his 
 own, and he walked to the untouched shore and 
 struck a tentative blow. Then he dropped the pick, 
 laughing, and came back to her. 
 
 491 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 " I ll be at it in a week," he said, sitting down on 
 the bench. " It ll be good to be in the pits again 
 and feel my muscles once more." 
 
 " It ll be good to see you," she answered. 
 
 In a week he was back, in two weeks he was 
 himself again the mightiest of those mighty men 
 who, sixty years ago, measured their strength along 
 the American River. The diggings ran farther up 
 stream and were richer than the old ones. The 
 day s takings were large, sometimes so large that 
 the men s elation beat like a fever in their blood. At 
 night they figured on their wealth, and Susan lis 
 tened startled to the sums that fell so readily from 
 their lips. They were rich, rich enough to go to the 
 coast and for Courant to start in business there. 
 
 It was he who wanted this. The old shrinking 
 and fear of the city were gone. Now, with a wife 
 and child, he turned his face that way. He was 
 longing to enter the fight for them, to create and 
 acquire for them, to set them as high as the labor of 
 his hands and work of his brain could compass. 
 New ambitions possessed him. As Susan planned 
 for a home and its comforts, he did for his work in 
 the market place in competition with those who had 
 once been his silent accusers. 
 
 But there was also a strange humbleness in him. 
 It did not weaken his confidence or clog his aspira 
 tion, but it took something from the hard arrogance 
 that had recognized in his own will the only law. 
 He had heard from Daddy John of that interview 
 with David, and he knew the reason of David s lie. 
 
 492 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 He knew, too, that David would stand to that lie 
 forever. Of the two great passions that the woman 
 had inspired the one she had relinquished was the 
 finer. He had stolen her from David, and David 
 had shown that for love of her he could forego ven 
 geance. Once such an act would have been inexplic 
 able to the mountain man. Now he understood, and 
 in his humility he vowed to make the life she had 
 chosen as perfect as the one that might have been. 
 Through this last, and to him, supremest sacrifice, 
 David ceased to be the puny weakling and became 
 the hero, the thought of whom would make Courant 
 " go softly all his days." 
 
 The summer marched upon them, with the men 
 doing giant labor on the banks and the women 
 under the pine at work beside their children. The 
 peace of the valley was broken by the influx of the 
 Forty-niners, who stormed its solitudes, and changed 
 the broken trail to a crowded highway echoing with 
 the noises of life. The river yielded up its treasure 
 to their eager hands, fortunes were made, and 
 friendships begun that were to make the history of 
 the new state. These bronzed and bearded men, 
 these strong-thewed women, were waking from her 
 sleep the virgin California. 
 
 Sometimes in the crowded hours Susan dropped 
 her work and, with her baby in her arms, walked 
 along the teeming river trail or back into the shad 
 ows of the forest, All about her was the stir of a 
 fecund earth, growth, expansion, promise. From 
 beneath the pines she looked up and saw the as- 
 
 493 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 piration of their proud up-springing. At her feet 
 the ground was bright with flower faces complet 
 ing themselves in the sunshine. Wherever her 
 glance fell there was a busyness of development, a 
 progression toward fulfillment, a combined, har 
 monious striving in which each separate particle had 
 its purpose and its meaning. The shell of her old 
 self-engrossment cracked, and the call of a wider 
 life came to her. It pierced clear and arresting 
 through the fairy flutings of " the horns of elfland " 
 that were all she had heretofore heard. 
 
 The desire to live as an experiment in happiness, 
 to extract from life all there was for her own en 
 joying, left her. Slowly she began to see it as a 
 vast concerted enterprise in which she was called 
 to play her part. The days when th world was 
 made for her pleasure were over. The days had be 
 gun when she saw her obligation, not alone to the 
 man and child who were part of her, but out and 
 beyond these to the diminishing circles of existences 
 that had never touched hers. Her love that had met 
 so generous a response, full measure, pressed down 
 and running over, must be paid out without the stip 
 ulation of recompense. Her vision widened, dimly 
 descried horizons limitless as the prairies, saw faint 
 ly how this unasked giving would transform a gray 
 and narrow world as the desert s sunsets had 
 done. 
 
 So gradually the struggling soul came into being 
 and possessed the fragile tissue that had once been 
 a girl and was now a woman. 
 
 494 
 
The Promised Land 
 
 They left the river on a morning in September, 
 the sacks of dust making the trunk heavy. The old 
 wagon was ready, the mess chest strapped to the 
 back, Julia in her place. Bella and the children were 
 to follow as soon as the rains began, so the parting 
 was not sad. The valley steeped in crystal shadow, 
 the hills dark against the flush of dawn, held Su 
 san s glance for a lingering minute as she thought 
 of the days in the tent under the pine. She looked 
 at her husband and met his eyes in which she saw 
 the same memory. Then the child, rosy with life, 
 leaped in her arms, bending to snatch with dimpled 
 hands at its playmates, chuckling baby sounds as 
 they pressed close to give him their kisses. 
 
 Daddy John, mounting to his seat, cried: 
 
 " There s the sun coming up to wish us God 
 speed." 
 
 She turned and saw it rising huge and red over 
 the hill s shoulder, and held up her son to see. The 
 great ball caught his eyes and he stared in tranced 
 delight. Then he leaped against the restraint of her 
 arm, kicking on her breast with his heels, stretching 
 a grasping hand toward the crimson ball, a bright 
 and shining toy to play with. 
 
 Its light fell red on the three faces the child s 
 waiting for life to mold its unformed softness, the 
 woman s stamped with the gravity of deep experi 
 ence, the man s stern with concentrated purpose. 
 They watched in silence till the baby gave a cry, a 
 thin, sweet sound of wondering joy that called them 
 back to it. Again they looked at one another, but 
 
 495 
 
The Emigrant Trail 
 
 this time their eyes held no memories. The thoughts 
 of both reached forward to the coming years, and 
 they saw themselves shaping from this offspring of 
 their lawless passion what should be a man, a molder 
 of the new Empire, a builder of the Promised Land. 
 
 FINIS 
 
 496 
 
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 LD 21-95w-7, 37 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY