d how could you keep the secret?"

"It was for Will," said Molly simply. "I had given him up. I told him to
go to California and forget me, and to live things down. Don't chide me
any more. I tried to marry the man you wanted me to marry. I'm tired.
I'm going to Oregon--to forget. I'll teach school. I'll never, never
marry--that's settled at last."

"You got a letter from Sara Woodhull too."

"Yes, I did."

"Huh! Does he call that settled? Is he going to California to forget you
and live things down?"

"He says not. I don't care what he says."

"He'll be back."

"Spare his journey! It will do him no good. The Indian did me a
kindness, I tell you!"

"Well, anyways, they're both off on the same journey now, and who knows
what or which? They both may be three hundred years old before they find
a mountain of gold. But to think--I had your chunk of gold right in my
own hands, but didn't know it! The same gold my mother's wedding ring
was made of, that was mine. It's right thin now, child. You could of
made a dozen out of that lump, like enough."

"I'll never need one, mother," said Molly Wingate.

The girl, weeping, threw her arms about her mother's neck. "You ask why
I kept the secret, even then. He kissed me, mother--and he was a thief!"

"Yes, I know. A man he just steals a girl's heart out through her lips.
Yore paw done that way with me once. Git up, Dan! You, Daisy!

"And from that time on," she added laughing, "I been trying to forget
him and to live him down!"

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE CROSSING

Three days out from Fort Hall the vanguard of the remnant of the train,
less than a fourth of the original number, saw leaning against a gnarled
sagebrush a box lid which had scrawled upon it in straggling letters one
word--"California." Here now were to part the pick and the plow.

Jim Bridger, sitting his gaunt horse, rifle across saddle horn, halted
for the head of the train to pull even with him.

"This here's Cassia Creek," said he. "Yan's the trail down Raft River
ter the Humboldt and acrost the Sierrys ter Californy. A long, dry jump
hit is, by all accounts. The Oregon road goes on down the Snake. Hit's
longer, if not so dry."

Small invitation offered in the physical aspect of either path. The
journey had become interminable. The unspeakable monotony, whose only
variant was peril, had smothered the spark of hope and interest. The
allurement of mystery had wholly lost its charm.

The train ha