Kit
told me, that at Laramie--"

"Fer I'm goin' out to Oregon, with my wash pan on my knee!" chanted Bill
Jackson, now solemnly oblivious of most of his surroundings and hence
not consciously discourteous to his friends; "Susannah, don't ye cry!"

They sat, the central figures of a scene wild enough, in a world still
primitive and young. Only one of the three remained sober and silent,
wondering, if one thing lacked, why the world was made.

CHAPTER XLV

THE LIGHT OF THE WHOLE WORLD

At the new farm of Jesse Wingate on the Yamhill the wheat was in stack
and ready for the flail, his deer-skin sacks made ready to carry it to
market after the threshing. His grim and weather-beaten wagon stood, now
unused, at the barnyard fence of rails.

It was evening. Wingate and his wife again sat on their little stoop,
gazing down the path that led to the valley road. A mounted man was
opening the gate, someone they did not recognize.

"Maybe from below," said Molly Wingate. "Jed's maybe sent up another
letter. Leave it to him, he's going to marry the most wonderful girl!
Well, I'll call it true, she's a wonderful walker. All the Prices was."

"Or maybe it's for Molly," she added. "Ef she's ever heard a word from
either Sam Woodhull or--"

"Hush! I do not want to hear that name!" broke in her husband. "Trouble
enough he has made for us!"

His wife made no comment for a moment, still watching the stranger, who
was now riding up the long approach, little noted by Wingate as he sat,
moody and distrait.

"Jess," said she, "let's be fair and shame the devil. Maybe we don't
know all the truth about Will Banion. You go in the house. I'll tend to
this man, whoever he may be."

But she did not. With one more look at the advancing figure, she herself
rose and followed her husband. As she passed she cast a swift glance at
her daughter, who had not joined them for the twilight hour. Hers was
the look of the mother--maternal, solicitious, yet wise and resolved
withal; woman understanding woman. And now was the hour for her ewe lamb
to be alone.

Molly Wingate sat in her own little room, looking through her window at
the far forest and the mountain peaks in their evening dress of many
colors. She was no longer the tattered emigrant girl in fringed frock
and mended moccasins. Ships from the world's great ports served the new
market of the Columbia Valley. It was a trim and trig young woman in the
habiliments of sophisticated