[pg 240]
"By a right pretty river, child, and eena'most to Oregon. Come, kiss your mother, Molly. Let's try."
Whereupon, having issued her orders and set everyone to work at something after her practical fashion, the first lady of the train went frizzling her shaved buffalo meat with milk in the frying pan; grumbling that milk now was almost at the vanishing point, and that now they wouldn't see another buffalo; but always getting forward with her meal. This she at last amiably announced.
"Well, come an' git it, people, or I'll throw it to the dogs."
Flat on the sand, on blankets or odds and ends of hide, the emigrants sat and ate, with the thermometer--had they had one--perhaps a hundred and ten in the sun. The men were silent for the most part, with now and then a word about the ford, which they thought it would be wise to make at once, before the river perchance might rise, and while it still would not swim the cattle.
"We can't wait for anyone, not even the Crows," said Wingate, rising and ending the mealtime talk. "Let's get across."
Methodically they began the blocking up of the wagon bodies to the measurement established by a wet pole.
[pg 241]
"Thank the Lord," said Wingate, "they'll just clear now if the bottom is hard all the way."