dy he planned
dominance; but willing to wait and to endure for ten days, meantime he
employed innocence, reticence, dignity, attentiveness, so that he seemed
a suitor misunderstood, misrepresented, unjustly used--to whose patient
soul none the less presently must arrive justice and exoneration, after
which all would be happier even than a marriage bell. After the wedding
bells he, Samuel Woodhull, would show who was master.

Possessed once more of horse, arms and personal equipment, and having
told his own story of persecution to good effect throughout the train,
Woodhull had been allowed to resume a nominal command over a part of the
Wingate wagons. The real control lay in the triumvirate who once had
usurped power, and who might do so again.

Wingate himself really had not much more than nominal control of the
general company, although he continued to give what Caleb Price called
the easy orders. His wagons, now largely changed to ox transport, still
traveled at the head of the train, Molly continuing to drive her own
light wagon and Jed remaining on the cow column.

The advance hardly had left Fort Laramie hidden by the rolling ridges
before Woodhull rode up to Molly's wagon and made excuse to pass his
horse to a boy while he himself climbed up on the seat with his fiancee.

She made room for him in silence, her eyes straight ahead. The wagon
cover made good screen behind, the herdsmen were far in the rear, and
from the wagons ahead none could see them. Yet when, after a moment, her
affianced husband dropped an arm about her waist the girl flung it off
impatiently.

"Don't!" she exclaimed. "I detest love-making in public. We see enough
of it that can't be hid. It's getting worse, more open, the farther we
get out."

"The train knows we are to be married at the halfway stop, Molly. Then
you'll change wagons and will not need to drive."

"Wait till then."

"I count the hours. Don't you, dearest?"

She turned a pallid face to him at last, resentful of his endearments.

"Yes, I do," she said. But he did not know what she meant, or why she
was so pale.

"I think we'll settle in Portland," he went on. "The travelers' stories
say that place, at the head of navigation on the Willamette, has as good
a chance as Oregon City, at the Falls. I'll practice law. The goods I am
taking out will net us a good sum, I'm hoping. Oh, you'll see the day
when you'll not regret that I held you to your promise! I'm not playing
t