One ample soul fanned her infant while answering the questions showered upon her by the rest of her brood, smiling meanwhile at all who caught her eye and occasionally dropping a word of good cheer to the tall lean man who occupied the seat beside her, his eyes roving moodily off across the burned and blackened area of the promised land. A meek little woman near by cried quietly while her man awkwardly sought to dissuade her, speaking gruffly in his concern over this unforeseen situation.
“Close up it sounds like a flock of chattering magpies,” said Carver. “And from a distance it sounds like the everlasting blat of a band of sheep. Whatever do you suppose brought all this swarm together?”
“The need that every human feels,” Molly answered. “The urge to have a home.”
She had pulled up her horse and Carver, following the direction of her gaze, saw an old couple on the seat of a wagon on the very front of the line. The man’s beard was white and a ragged fringe of white hair showed beneath his battered hat; one of the pioneers who had helped hew out homes in the West for others but who had neglected to retain one for himself. For a year old Judd Armstrong had been camped at various points along the line and Caldwell had come to know him. The little old lady beside him was hatless, her hair drawn tightly back from her brows and twisted in a scanty knot behind, the blistering sun falling full upon her wrinkled, weather-beaten face. She gazed serenely forth upon the restless horde of humanity around her, undisturbed by the nearness of the hour which would determine whether at last she should have a home after having been deprived of one for all these many years. Life had handed her many reverses but she had faced them all with that same serenity, confident that old Judd would see her through.
“Is there any chance for them?” the girl anxiously inquired.
Carver shook his head doubtfully as he studied the two patient, bony horses that were destined to carry the ancient couple into the wild scramble of the most desperate stampede of the century.
“Not much, I’m fearing,” he returned. “This will be one awful tangle, with every man for himself. Poor old souls; they oughtn’t to go into it with that worn-out team.”
He turned to Molly and she was looking up at him, in her eyes that same expression which, at that first meeting, had impressed him with the thought that she was in grave need of something.
“Don’t look at me like that, Honey,” he said. “Not with folks looking on. I might lose my head and forget there was any one around. Maybe they’ll find a scrap of ground that the rest have run over without noticing. We’ll hope it transpires that way, won’t we?”
She nodded without speaking and they rode on down the line. A little knot of horsemen appeared some distance out across the blackened landscape, their progress marked by puffs of fine black ashes and tossed aloft by their horses’ hoofs.