He moved leisurely off in the direction of their mules, while Jim stowed away the blankets and cooking utensils in the packs. They were soon in the saddle, their mules limping wearily forward. They had gone half a mile when they crossed the dry bed of the stream; its general course until now had been nearly parallel with their trail.
“This must be the head waters of Flynn's Fork,” said Jim.
“I reckon Flynn was a pretty mean spirited cuss or he would never have named such a dribbling chuck hole after himself,” observed his companion. Then he added, “Perhaps he was killed by the Indians heah about and his friends did the naming; all I got to say is it was a mighty mean advantage to take of a dead man.”
“Thawed out?” inquired his companion.
“Not entirely,” and he lapsed into silence for another half mile.
They had met for the first time on the banks of the Missouri. In the party to which they had then belonged were forty wagons and over a hundred men, representing almost every state in the Union; but the cholera had broken out among them just as they were commencing their journey, and had followed them into the mountains beyond Fort Laramie. Their numbers had dwindled day by day; many died, but many more had turned back. Then their overloaded teams failed them; they had thrown away the bulk of their belongings, but still their stock gave out; for thousands of teams had been before them, and grass was scarce along the line of march. At last, these two, abandoning their wagons and taking two of the best mules remaining to them, set out alone for the land of promise.
At Fort Bridger they had fallen in with a truthful trapper who had told them of a route into Salt Lake by way of the Weber, which he had declared to be practicable for mounted men; he had further drawn them a map of the country, whose accuracy was a source of constant joy to the red-whiskered man, who had himself written in the names of the mountains and rivers.
Jim came from Illinois. All his life had been passed on the frontier, where there was still the mystery and romance of new lands into which men went and from which they sometimes returned with tales of wonder for the credulous; and Jim, a meek and silent lad, had cherished a chilling fear that the last Indian would be killed, and the last beaver trapped before he could quit his home.
He had told his companion, while under the spell of the other's frank confidence concerning himself, that his father had only recently died.
“It was him being so old and all crippled up that held me,” he had said. “Or you bet I'd a been out here long ago. Of course I knew he couldn't last forever, but when he did go, I had such a heap of trouble settling up and selling out, some times I almost wished he hadn't died at all.”