About the middle of the morning they passed an emigrant train of a large party still recovering from the storm. Wagons had been capsized, tents torn up bodily, and equipage scattered far and wide. One wagon had been carried away completely.
“How far to the mountains, strangers?” queried one of the emigrants. It was the same old question. All the Pike’s Peak travellers appeared to have the one thing in mind—the mountains.
“Follow us and you’ll get thar,” replied Captain Hi. “What do you know about this cut-off?”
“Nothing at all, stranger. There looked as if somebody had gone up this way, so we came too.”
“It’s a terrible dry road, though,” sighed a woman. “Maybe if we’d have kept on west we’d have done better.”
“Well, by jiminy!” said Hi, as the Hee-Haws toiled on. “I sort of think so, myself. This trail doesn’t look good to me; not a little bit.”
“Shall we turn back?” proposed Mr. Baxter.
“I hate to turn back,” spoke Billy promptly. “I like to keep a-going.”
“Oh, we might as well go on,” added Jim. “I hate to back track, too. But there aren’t many emigrants on this trail, that’s certain.”
“The trouble is they’ll follow like sheep,” asserted the Reverend. “If this cut-off is no good somebody ought to put a sign on it.”