?"

"Well, they got a railroad running through it now," said Wright, "and a
telegraph, and a lot of soldiers. So don't you count on _me_, Brother
Snow, at any stage of it now or afterwards. I got a pretty sizable
family that would hate to lose me. Look out! Here he comes."

Follett now came up, speaking in a cheerful manner that nevertheless
chilled even the enthusiasm of the good Bishop Snow.

"Now, gentlemen, just by way of friendly advice to you,--like as not
I'll be stepping in front of some of you in the next hour. But it isn't
going to worry me any, and I'll tell you why. I'd feel awful sad for you
all if anything was to happen to me,--if the Injuns got me, or I was
took bad with a chill, or a jack-rabbit crept up and bit me to death, or
anything. You see, there's a train of twenty-five big J. Murphy wagons
will be along here over the San Bernardino trail. They are coming out of
their way, almost any time now, on purpose to pick me up. Fact is, my
ears have been pricking up all morning to hear the old bull-whips crack.
There were thirty-one men in the train when they went down, and there
may be more coming back. It's a train of Ezra Calkins, my adopted
father. You see, they know I've been here on special business, and I
sent word the other day I was about due to finish it, and they wasn't to
go through coming back without me. Well, that bull outfit will stop for
me--and they'll _get_ me or get pay for me. That's their orders. And it
isn't a train of women and babies, either. They're such an outrageous
rough lot, quick-tempered and all like that, that they wouldn't believe
the truth that I had an accident--not if you swore it on a stack of
Mormon Bibles topped off by the life of Joe Smith. They'd go right out
and make Amalon look like a whole cavayard of razor-hoofed buffaloes had
raced back and forth over it. And the rest of the two thousand men on
Ezra Calkins's pay-roll would come hanging around pestering you all with
Winchesters. They'd make you scratch gravel, sure!

"Now let's get to work. I see you'll be awful careful and tender with
me. I'll bet I don't get even a sprained ankle. You folks get him, and
I'll show you where he said the place was."

Two hours later Follett came running back to where Prudence lay on the
saddle-blanket in the warm morning sun.

"The wagon-train is coming--hear the whips? Now, look here, why don't we
go right on with it, in one of the big wagons? They're coming back
light,