loose soil. There
was nothing to break the eye-sweep but the cones of rusted buttes, the
nearer ones showing every crease and shadow thread, the farther
floating detached in the faint, opal shimmer of the mirage.

One afternoon, in a deep-grassed meadow they came upon an encamped
train outflung on the stream bank in wearied disarray. It was from
Ohio, bound for California, and Glen and Bella decided to join it.
This was what the doctor's party had been hoping for, as the slow pace
of the McMurdo oxen held them back. Bella was well and the doctor
could conscientiously leave her. It was time to part.

Early in the morning the two trains rolled out under a heavy drizzle.
Rain fell within the wagons even as it did without, Susan weeping among
the sacks behind Daddy John and Bella with her children whimpering
against her sides, stopping in her knitting to wipe away her tears with
the long strip of stocking leg. They were to meet again in
California--that everyone said. But California looked a long way off,
and now.--For some reason or other it did not gleam so magically bright
at the limit of their vision. Their minds had grown tired of dwelling
on it and sank down wearied to each day's hard setting.

By midday the doctor's wagons had left the others far behind. The rain
fell ceaselessly, a cold and penetrating flood. The crowding crowns
and crests about them loomed through the blur, pale and slowly
whitening with falling snow. Beyond, the greater masses veiled
themselves in cloud. The road skirted the river, creeping through a
series of gorges with black walls down which the moisture spread in a
ripple-edged, glassy glaze. Twice masses of fallen rock blocked the
way, and the horses had to be unhitched and the wagons dragged into the
stream bed. It was heavy work, and when they camped, ferociously
hungry, no fire could be kindled, and there was nothing for it but to
eat the hard-tack damp and bacon raw. Leff cursed and threw his piece
away. He had been unusually morose and ill-humored for the last week,
and once, when obliged to do sentry duty on a wet night, had flown into
a passion and threatened to leave them. No one would have been sorry.
Under the stress of mountain faring, the farm boy was not developing
well.

In the afternoon the rain increased to a deluge. The steady beat on
the wagon hoods filled the interior with a hollow drumming vibration.
Against the dimmed perspective the flanks of the hor