"I could get a dozen wagons through, maybe," said he. "Here's two hundred. Woodhull's the man, but Woodhull's gone--lost, I reckon, or maybe killed and lying out somewhere on these prairies. You take it, Cale."
Price considered for a time.
"No," said he at length. "It's no time for one of us to take on what may be done better by someone else, because our women and children are at stake. The very best man's none too good for this job, and the more experience he has the better. The man who thinks fastest and clearest at the right time is the man we want, and the man we'd follow--the only man. Who'll he be?"
"Oh, I'll admit Banion had the best idea of crossing the Kaw," said Kelsey. "He got his own people over, too, somehow."
[pg 118]
"Yes, and they're together now ten miles below us. And Molly Wingate--she was caught out with her team by the fire--says it was Banion who started the back-fire. That saved his train and ours. Ideas that come too late are no good. We need some man with the right ideas at the right time."
"You think it's Banion?" Hall spoke.
"I do think it's Banion. I don't see how it can be anyone else."
"Woodhull'd never stand for it."