IT was not until the morning of the third day following their arrival in Independence that the members of the Benson and California Mining and Trading Company fell in at the rear of the wagon train that since midnight had been moving in one unbroken line out from the town and its environs.
Day was just breaking when their three wagons, drawn by stout mules, wheeled briskly into place, and as the sun came up and they saw the train stretching out ahead of them, they felt afresh the inspiration of their common hope in this peaceful conquest of fortune. A wave of joyous exultation seemed to sweep along the line; whips cracked, the mounted men galloped to and fro; while out of the uncertain light beyond, as the sun crept up above the horizon, the white lurching tops of the great wagons burst into view, one by one; but growing always smaller until finally they became mere white specks, dropping back in the track of the receding mist.
For the first two hundred miles west from the Missouri the country presented vast reaches of freshest green, gently rolling and intersected at intervals by streams, along whose banks grew scattered elms and cottonwoods. Hidden away in the fertile bottoms they came upon farms or ranches, each with its patch of cultivated land; but as they advanced these became less and less frequent; the uniform view was now one wide, rolling plain, with a distant fringe of timber marking the water-courses.
Then the waves of land ceased, the soil seemed to lose its fertility; and a dead level spread before the unresisting eye. They were entering upon the region of the Platte River and the plains proper. Long ere this the slow-moving oxen had fallen to the rear of the line of white-topped wagons; the mules had outstripped them as they, in their turn, were outstripped by the mounted men. But a greater change was making itself manifest throughout the caravan. The enthusiasm of the gold-seekers was waning in the face of unlooked for hardship and suffering. The cholera had caught them as they left the Missouri, and their line of march was dotted with newly-made graves.
Then, even as Basil Landray had foretold, the faint-hearted sickened of their enterprise, and with the stricken ones who had lost friends or relatives, turned back. The fur trader, giving way to boistrous merriment, showed an inclination to chaff these as they passed; but Stephen sternly bade him keep silent.
He was finding Basil a sore trial, yet the fur trader retained a measure of his faith and confidence, for he displayed a tireless energy in the face of every difficulty. If their mules or horses strayed over night, it was usually Basil who found them in the morning; if there was a stream to be crossed, it was Basil who located the ford; if they needed game, Basil was almost certain to bring it into camp; these were real and tangible benefits which could not be overlooked.
Stephen and Bushrod discussed him privately; at first with a palpable bias in his favour, magnifying each redeeming trait; but gradually their feeling of exasperation toward him was wholly in the ascendent.
“He's positively servile to us,” complained Bushrod. “That's what I can't stand. If he treated us as he treats Rogers, for instance, I don't know but what I'd like him a great deal better; at least I'd have a sufficient excuse to kick him out of camp.”
“Don't you think we've allowed him to wear on us?” said Stephen. “After all, I don't know that we have any right to expect him to be different from what he is; and he certainly is the most useful member of the company; we must admit that.”
“Yes, he's handy with the stock,” said Bushrod grudgingly.