The Covered Wagon | Page 3

but I've been away a great deal."
"The law, eh?" Jesse Wingate again looked disapproval of the young man's rather pronouncedly neat turnout. "Then you're not going West?"
"Oh, yes, I am, if you please, sir. I've done little else all my life. Two years ago I marched with all the others, with Doniphan, for Mexico. Well, the war's over, and the treaty's likely signed. I thought it high time to march back home. But you know how it is--the long trail's in my blood now. I can't settle down."
Wingate nodded. The young man smilingly went on:
"I want to see how it is in Oregon. What with new titles and the like--and a lot of fighting men cast in together out yonder, too--there ought to be as much law out there as here, don't you think? So I'm going to seek my fortune in the Far West. It's too close and tame in here now. I'm"--he smiled just a bit more obviously and deprecatingly--"I'm leading yonder caballad of our neighbors, with a bunch of Illinois and Indiana wagons. They call me Col. William Banion. It is not right--I was no more than Will Banion, major under Doniphan. I am not that now."
A change, a shadow came over his face. He shook it off as though it were tangible.
"So I'm at your service, sir. They tell me you've been elected captain of the Oregon train. I wanted to throw in with you if I might, sir. I know we're late--we should have been in last night. I rode in to explain that. May we pull in just beside you, on this water?"
Molly Wingate, on whom the distinguished address of the stranger, his easy manner and his courtesy had not failed to leave their impression, answered before her husband.
"You certainly can, Major Banion."
"Mister Banion, please."
"Well then, Mister Banion. The water and grass is free. The day's young. Drive in and light down. You said you saw our daughter, Molly--I know you did, for that's her now."
The young man colored under his bronze of tan, suddenly shy.
"I did," said he. "The fact is, I met her earlier this spring at Clay Seminary, where she taught. She told me you-all were moving West this spring--said this was her last day. She asked if she might ride out with our wagons to the rendezvous. Well--"
"That's a fine horse you got there," interrupted young Jed Wingate. "Spanish?"
"Yes, sir."
"Wild?"
"Oh, no, not now; only of rather good spirit. Ride him if you like. Gallop back, if you'd like to try him, and tell my people to come on and park in here. I'd like a word or so with Mr. Wingate."
With a certain difficulty, yet insistent, Jed swung into the deep saddle, sitting the restive, rearing horse well enough withal, and soon was off at a fast pace down the trail. They saw him pull up at the head of the caravan and motion, wide armed, to the riders, the train not halting at all.
He joined the two equestrian figures on ahead, the girl and the young man whom his mother had named as Sam Woodhull. They could see him shaking hands, then doing a curvet or so to show off his newly borrowed mount.
"He takes well to riding, your son," said the newcomer approvingly.
"He's been crazy to get West," assented the father. "Wants to get among the buffalo."
"We all do," said Will Banion. "None left in Kentucky this generation back; none now in Missouri. The Plains!" His eye gleamed.
"That's Sam Woodhull along," resumed Molly Wingate. "He was with Doniphan."
"Yes."
Banion spoke so shortly that the good dame, owner of a sought-for daughter, looked at him keenly.
"He lived at Liberty, too. I've known Molly to write of him."
"Yes?" suddenly and with vigor. "She knows him then?"
"Why, yes."
"So do I," said Banion simply. "He was in our regiment--captain and adjutant, paymaster and quartermaster-chief, too, sometimes. The Army Regulations never meant much with Doniphan's column. We did as we liked--and did the best we could, even with paymasters and quartermasters!"
He colored suddenly, and checked, sensitive to a possible charge of jealousy before this keen-eyed mother of a girl whose beauty had been the talk of the settlement now for more than a year.
The rumors of the charm of Molly Wingate--Little Molly, as her father always called her to distinguish her from her mother--now soon were to have actual and undeniable verification to the eye of any skeptic who mayhap had doubted mere rumors of a woman's beauty. The three advance figures--the girl, Woodhull, her brother Jed--broke away and raced over the remaining few hundred yards, coming up abreast, laughing in the glee of youth exhilarated by the feel of good horseflesh under knee and the breath of a vital morning air.
As they flung off Will Banion scarce gave a look to his own