box and put in the wagon, anyways."
She was drying her eyes.

"Why, yes, I reckon so. And then a few sacks of dried corn will go
mighty well on the road."

"One thing"--she turned on him in wifely fury--"you shan't keep me from
taking my bureau and my six chairs all the way across! No, nor my garden
seeds, all I saved. No, nor yet my rose roots that I'm taking along. We
got to have a home, Jess--we got to have a home! There's Jed and Molly
coming on."

"Where's Molly now?" suddenly asked her husband. "She'd ought to be
helping you right now."

"Oh, back at the camp, I s'pose--her and Jed, too. I told her to pick a
mess of dandelion greens and bring over. Larking around with them young
fellows, like enough. Huh! She'll have less time. If Jed has to ride
herd, Molly's got to take care of that team of big mules, and drive 'em
all day in the light wagon too. I reckon if she does that, and teaches
night school right along, she won't be feeling so gay."

"They tell me folks has got married going across," she added, "not to
mention buried. One book we had said, up on the Platte, two years back,
there was a wedding and a birth and a burying in one train, all inside
of one hour, and all inside of one mile. That's Oregon!"

"Well, I reckon it's life, ain't it?" rejoined her husband. "One thing,
I'm not keen to have Molly pay too much notice to that young fellow
Banion--him they said was a leader of the Liberty wagons. Huh, he ain't
leader now!"

"You like Sam Woodhull better for Molly, Jess?"

"Some ways. He falls in along with my ideas. He ain't so apt to make
trouble on the road. He sided in with me right along at the last
meeting."

"He done that? Well, his father was a sheriff once, and his uncle, Judge
Henry D. Showalter, he got into Congress. Politics! But some folks said
the Banions was the best family. Kentucky, they was. Well, comes to
siding in, Jess, I reckon it's Molly herself'll count more in that than
either o' them or either o' us. She's eighteen past. Another year and
she'll be an old maid. If there's a wedding going across--"

"There won't be," said her husband shortly. "If there is it won't be her
and no William Banion, I'm saying that."

CHAPTER V

THE BLACK SPANIARD

Meantime the younger persons referred to in the frank discussion of
Wingate and his wife were occupying themselves in their own fashion
their last day in camp. Molly, her basket full of dandelion leaves, was
reluctant to