One afternoon, in a deep-grassed meadow they came upon an encamped train outflung on the stream bank in wearied disarray. It was from Ohio, bound for California, and Glen and Bella decided to join it. This was what the doctor's party had been hoping for, as the slow pace of the McMurdo oxen held them back. Bella was well and the doctor could conscientiously leave her. It was time to part.
Early in the morning the two trains rolled out under a heavy drizzle. Rain fell within the wagons even as it did without, Susan weeping among the sacks behind Daddy John and Bella with her children whimpering against her sides, stopping in her knitting to wipe away her tears with the long strip of stocking leg. They were to meet again in California—that everyone said. But California looked a long way off, and now.—For some reason or other it did not gleam so magically bright at the limit of their vision. Their minds had grown tired of dwelling on it and sank down wearied to each day's hard setting.
By midday the doctor's wagons had left the others far behind. The rain fell ceaselessly, a cold and penetrating flood. The crowding crowns and crests about them loomed through the blur, pale and slowly whitening with falling snow. Beyond, the greater masses veiled themselves in cloud. The road skirted the river, creeping through a series of gorges with black walls down which the moisture spread in a ripple-edged, glassy glaze. Twice masses of fallen rock blocked the way, and the horses had to be unhitched and the wagons dragged into the stream bed. It was heavy work, and when they camped, ferociously hungry, no fire could be kindled, and there was nothing for it but to eat the hard-tack damp and bacon raw. Leff cursed and threw his piece away. He had been unusually morose and ill-humored for the last week, and once, when obliged to do sentry duty on a wet night, had flown into a passion and threatened to leave them. No one would have been sorry. Under the stress of mountain faring, the farm boy was not developing well.
In the afternoon the rain increased to a deluge. The steady beat on the wagon hoods filled the interior with a hollow drumming vibration. Against the dimmed perspective the flanks of the horses undulated under a sleek coating of moisture. Back of the train, the horsemen rode, heads lowered against the vicious slant, shadowy forms like drooping, dispirited ghosts. The road wound into a gorge where the walls rose straight, the black and silver of the river curbed between them in glossy outspreadings and crisp, bubbling flashes. The place was full of echoes, held there and buffeted from wall to wall as if flying back and forth in a distracted effort to escape.
David was driving in the lead, Susan under cover beside him. The morning's work had exhausted him and he felt ill, so she had promised to stay with him. She sat close at his back, a blanket drawn over her knees against the intruding wet, peering out at the darkling cleft. The wagon, creaking like a ship at sea, threw her this way and that. Once, as she struck against him he heard her low laugh at his ear.
"It's like a little earthquake," she said, steadying herself with a grab at his coat.
"There must have been a big earthquake here once," he answered. "Look at the rocks. They've been split as if a great force came up from underneath and burst them open."
She craned her head forward to see and he looked back at her. Her face was close to his shoulder, glowing with the dampness. It shone against the shadowed interior rosily fresh as a child's. Her eyes, clear black and white, were the one sharp note in its downy softness. He could see the clean upspringing of her dark lashes, the little whisps of hair against her temple and ear. He could not look away from her. The grinding and slipping of the horses' hoofs did not reach his senses, held captive in a passionate observation.
"You don't curl your hair any more?" he said, and the intimacy of this personal query added to his entrancement.
She glanced quickly at him and broke into shamefaced laughter. A sudden lurch threw her against him and she clutched his arm.