"Well," said the train captain after a time, "we are striking the Indian country now."
"Shall I bring up our wagons an' jine ye all here at the ford this evenin'?"
"I can't keep you from coming on up the road if you want to. I'll not ask you."
"All right! We'll not park with ye then. But we'll be on the same water. Hit's my own fault we split. We wouldn't take orders from Sam Woodhull, an' we never will."
He nodded to the blackened ruins, to the grim dead hand pointing to the sky, left where it was by the superstitious blood avengers.
Wingate turned away and led the wagon train a half mile up the stream, pitching camp above the ford where the massacre had occurred. The duties of the clergy and the appointed sextons were completed. Silence and sadness fell on the encampment.
Jackson, the scout of the Missouri column, still lingered for some sort of word with Molly Wingate. Some odds and ends of brush lay about. Of the latter Molly began casting a handful on the fire and covering it against the wind with her shawl, which at times she quickly removed. As a result the confined smoke arose at more or less well defined intervals, in separate puffs or clouds.
[pg 89]
"Ef ye want to know how to give the smoke signal right an' proper, Miss Molly," said he at length, quietly, "I'll larn ye how."