way
know he'd had her name upon his tongue, and would come to-morrow with
angry, accusing looks like an offended goddess. David did not want to
talk about her, he did not quite know why. Before the thought of
traveling a month in her society his mind fell back reeling, baffled by
the sudden entrance of such a dazzling intruder. A month beside this
glowing figure, a month under the impersonal interrogation of those
cool, demanding eyes! It was as if the President or General Zachary
Taylor had suddenly joined them.

But of course she figured larger in their thoughts than any other part
or all the combined parts of Dr. Gillespie's outfit. In their
imaginations--the hungry imaginations of lonely young men--she
represented all the grace, beauty, and mystery of the Eternal Feminine.
They did not reason about her, they only felt, and what they
felt--unconsciously to themselves--was that she had introduced the
last, wildest, and most disturbing thrill into the adventure of the
great journey.

CHAPTER III

The next day broke still and clear. The dawn was yet a pale promise in
the East when from Independence, out through the dripping woods and
clearings, rose the tumult of breaking camps. The rattle of the yoke
chains and the raucous cry of "Catch up! Catch up!" sounded under the
trees and out and away over valley and upland as the lumbering wagons,
freighted deep for the long trail, swung into the road.

David's camp was astir long before the sun was up. The great hour had
come. They were going! They sung and shouted as they harnessed Bess
and Ben, a pair of sturdy roans bought from an emigrant discouraged
before the start, while the saddle horses nosed about the tree roots
for a last cropping of the sweet, thick grass. Inside the wagon the
provisions were packed in sacks and the rifles hung on hooks on the
canvas walls. At the back, on a supporting step, the mess chest was
strapped. It was a businesslike wagon. Its contents included only one
deviation from the practical and necessary--three books of David's.
Joe had laughed at him about them. What did a man want with Byron's
poems and Milton and Bacon's "Essays" crossing the plains? Neither Joe
nor Leff could understand such devotion to the printed page. Their
kits were of the compactest, not a useless article or an unnecessary
pound, unless you counted the box of flower seeds that belonged to Joe,
who had heard that California, though a dry country