“We heard at St. Louis that the cholera was here, and at St. Joseph,” said Bushrod.
“I reckon what you heard was near about so. That's one reason why we want to pull out of here as soon as we can. When the first man died, there was a right lively stampede.” he sucked at his pipe in silence for a moment. “I ain't partial to cholera myself,” he added.
Then he explained with some show of embarrassment that his reckoning at the tavern where he had lodged since his arrival in Independence, was still unpaid, and that he was looking to the brothers to settle it for him.
As evening fell, the open spaces about the town, common and waste, smoked with the fires of a thousand camps. The rolling upland rioted with feverish life, or vibrated with a boisterous cheerfulness, for hope was everywhere. Numberless white-topped wagons gleamed opaquely in the gathering darkness; black figures moved restlessly to and fro about the fires; there was the continual lowing of oxen; now a noisy chorus of men's voices could be heard; then nearer at hand a clear tenor voice took up the words.
“I soon shall be in 'Frisco,
And then I'll look around,
And when I see the gold lumps there,
I'll pick 'em off the ground.
I'll scrape the mountains clean, my boys,
I'll drain the rivers dry,