ked her, his fingers loosely shaken, meaning, "Where did
you get it?"

The Gros Ventre lied to him like a lady, and told him, on the South
Fork, on the Creek of Bitter Cherries--near where Denver now is; and
where placers once were. That was hundreds of miles away. The Gros
Ventre woman had been there once in her wanderings and had seen some
heavy metal.

Years later, after Fort Laramie was taken over by the Government,
Bordeaux as sutler sold much flour and bacon to men hurrying down the
South Fork to the early Colorado diggings. Meantime in his cups he often
had told the mythical tale of the Gros Ventre woman--long after
California, Idaho, Nevada, Montana were all afire. But one of his
halfbreed children very presently had commandeered the tin cup and its
contents, so that to this day no man knows whether the child swallowed
the nugget or threw it into the Laramie River or the Platte River or the
sagebrush. Some depose that an emigrant bought it of the baby; but no
one knows.

What all men do know is that gold does not die; nay, nor the news of it.
And this news now, like a multiplying germ, was in the wagon train that
had started out for Oregon.

As for Molly, she asked no questions at all about the lost nugget, but
hurried to her own bed, supperless, pale and weeping. She told her
father nothing of the nature of her meeting with Will Banion, then nor
at any time for many weeks.

"Molly, come here, I want to talk to you."

Wingate beckoned to his daughter the second morning after Banion's
visit.

The order for the advance was given. The men had brought in the cattle
and the yoking up was well forward. The rattle of pots and pans was
dying down. Dogs had taken their places on flank or at the wagon rear,
women were climbing up to the seats, children clinging to pieces of
dried meat. The train was waiting for the word.

The girl followed him calmly, high-headed.

"Molly, see here," he began. "We're all ready to move on. I don't know
where Will Banion went, but I want you to know, as I told him, that he
can't travel in our train."

"He'll not ask to, father. He's promised to stick to his own men."

"He's left you at last! That's good. Now I want you to drop him from
your thoughts. Hear that, and heed it. I tell you once more, you're not
treating Sam Woodhull right."

She made him no answer.

"You're still young, Molly," he went on. "Once you're settled you'll
find Oregon all right. Time you were marryin