h hours each day.

"Do you think I'm right about all this? I'm sure I don't want Captain
Wingate to be offended. I'm not dividing his power. I'm only trying to
stiffen it."

Woodhull arose, a sneer on his face, but a hand pushed him down. A tall
Missourian stood before him.

"Right ye air, Will!" said he. "Ye've an old head, an' we kin trust hit.
Ef hit wasn't Cap'n Wingate is more older than you, an' already done
elected, I'd be for choosin' ye fer cap'n o' this here hull train right
now. Seein' hit's the way hit is, I move we vote to do what Will Banion
has said is fitten. An' I move we-uns throw in with the big train, with
Jess Wingate for cap'n. An' I move we allow one more day to git in
supplies an' fixin's, an' trade hosses an' mules an' oxens, an' then we
start day atter to-morrow mornin' when the bugle blows. Then hooray fer
Oregon!"

There were cheers and a general rising, as though after finished
business, which greeted this. Jesse Wingate, somewhat crestfallen and
chagrined over the forward ways of this young man, of whom he never had
heard till that very morning, put a perfunctory motion or so, asked
loyalty and allegiance, and so forth.

But what they remembered was that he appointed as his wagon-column
captains Sam Woodhull, of Missouri; Caleb Price, an Ohio man of
substance; Simon Hall, an Indiana merchant, and a farmer by name of
Kelsey, from Kentucky. To Will Banion the trainmaster assigned the most
difficult and thankless task of the train, the captaincy of the cow
column; that is to say, the leadership of the boys and men whose
families were obliged to drive the loose stock of the train.

There were sullen mutterings over this in the Liberty column. Men
whispered they would not follow Woodhull. As for Banion, he made no
complaint, but smiled and shook hands with Wingate and all his
lieutenants and declared his own loyalty and that of his men; then left
for his own little adventure of a half dozen wagons which he was
freighting out to Laramie--bacon, flour and sugar, for the most part;
each wagon driven by a neighbor or a neighbor's son. Among these already
arose open murmurs of discontent over the way their own contingent had
been treated. Banion had to mend a potential split before the first
wheel had rolled westward up the Kaw.

The men of the meeting passed back among their neighbors and families,
and spoke with more seriousness than hitherto. The rifle firing ended,
the hilarity lessened