"I'll go back, Jesse," said Kelsey, the man who had wanted to go to California. "I know her now."
"I'll go with you," added young Jed Wingate, climbing down from his wagon seat and demanding his saddle horse, which he mounted bare-backed.
It was they two who drove and led the spare yokes back to repeat the crossing with the remaining wagons. Those on the bank watched them anxiously, for they drove straighter across to save time, and were carried below the trail on the island. But they came out laughing, and the oxen were rounded up once more and doubled in, so that the last of the train was ready.
"That's a fine mare of Kelsey's," said Wingate to Caleb Price, who with him was watching the daring Kentuckian at his work on the downstream and more dangerous side of the linked teams. "She'll go anywhere."
Price nodded, anxiously regarding the laboring advance of the last wagons.
"Too light," said he. "I started with a ton and a half on the National Pike across Ohio and Indiana. I doubt if we average five hundred now. They ford light."
"Look!" he cried suddenly, and pointed.
They all ran to the brink. The horsemen were trying to stay the drift of the line of cattle. They had worked low and missed footing. Many were swimming--the wagons were afloat!
[pg 342]