from limp sunbonnets whose stays had been half
dissolved. Children whimpered. Even the dogs, curled nose to tail under
the wagons, growled surlily. But Caleb Price found at last the wagon of
the bugler who had been at the wars and shook him out.

"Sound, man!" said Caleb Price. "Play up Oh, Susannah! Then sound the
Assembly. We've got to have a meeting."

They did have a meeting. Jesse Wingate scented mutiny and remained away.

"There's no use talking, men," said Caleb Price, "no use trying to fool
ourselves. We're almost done, the way things are. I like Jess Wingate as
well as any man I ever knew, but Jess Wingate's not the man. What shall
we do?"

He turned to Hall, but Hall shook his head; to Kelsey, but Kelsey only
laughed.

"I could get a dozen wagons through, maybe," said he. "Here's two
hundred. Woodhull's the man, but Woodhull's gone--lost, I reckon, or
maybe killed and lying out somewhere on these prairies. You take it,
Cale."

Price considered for a time.

"No," said he at length. "It's no time for one of us to take on what may
be done better by someone else, because our women and children are at
stake. The very best man's none too good for this job, and the more
experience he has the better. The man who thinks fastest and clearest at
the right time is the man we want, and the man we'd follow--the only
man. Who'll he be?"

"Oh, I'll admit Banion had the best idea of crossing the Kaw," said
Kelsey. "He got his own people over, too, somehow."

"Yes, and they're together now ten miles below us. And Molly
Wingate--she was caught out with her team by the fire--says it was
Banion who started the back-fire. That saved his train and ours. Ideas
that come too late are no good. We need some man with the right ideas at
the right time."

"You think it's Banion?" Hall spoke.

"I do think it's Banion. I don't see how it can be anyone else."

"Woodhull'd never stand for it."

"He isn't here."

"Wingate won't."

"He'll have to."

The chief of mutineers, a grave and bearded man, waited for a time.

"This is a meeting of the train," said he. "In our government the
majority rules. Is there any motion on this?"

Silence. Then rose Hall of Ohio, slowly, a solid man, with three wagons
of his own.

"I've been against the Missouri outfit," said he. "They're a wild bunch,
with no order or discipline to them. They're not all free-soilers, even
if they're going out to Oregon. But if one man can handle them, he