in strings. Strange
self-assertions, violences of temper, were under the skin ready to
break out at a jar in the methodical routine. Had the train been
larger, its solidarity less complete, furious quarrels would have taken
place. With an acknowledged leader whom they believed in and obeyed,
the chances of friction were lessened. Three of them could meet the
physical demands of the struggle. It was David's fate that, unable to
do this, he should fall to a position of feeble uselessness, endurable
in a woman, but difficult to put up with in a man.

One morning Susan was waked by angry voices. An oath shook sleep from
her, and thrusting her head out of the wagon where she now slept, she
saw the three men standing in a group, rage on Courant's face, disgust
on Daddy John's, and on David's an abstraction of aghast dismay that
was not unlike despair. To her question Daddy John gave a short
answer. David's horses, insecurely picketed, had pulled up their
stakes in the night and gone. A memory of the young man's exhaustion
the evening before, told the girl the story; David had forgotten to
picket them and immediately after supper had fallen asleep. He had
evidently been afraid to tell and invented the explanation of dragged
picket pins. She did not know whether the men believed it, but she saw
by their faces they were in no mood to admit extenuating circumstances.
The oath had been Courant's. When he heard her voice he shut his lips
on others, but they welled up in his eyes, glowering furiously on the
culprit from the jut of drawn brows.

"What am I to do?" said the unfortunate young man, sending a despairing
glance over the prospect. Under his weak misery, rebellious ill humor
was visible.

"Go after them and bring them back."

Susan saw the leader had difficulty in confining himself to such brief
phrases. Dragging a blanket round her shoulders she leaned over the
seat. She felt like a woman who enters a quarrel to protect a child.

"Couldn't we let them go?" she cried. "We've still my father's horse.
David can ride it and we can put his things in the wagon."

"Not another ounce in the wagon," said Daddy John. "The mules are
doing their limit now." The wagon was his kingdom over which he ruled
an absolute monarch.

Courant looked at her and spoke curtly, ignoring David. "We can't lose
a horse now. We need every one of them. It's not here. It's beyond
in the mountains. We've got to get over by th