The Covered Wagon

The Covered Wagon

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Covered Wagon, by Emerson
Hough This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: The Covered Wagon
Author: Emerson Hough
Release Date: September 6, 2004 [EBook #13384]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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COVERED WAGON ***

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[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: EMERSON HOUGH, THE AUTHOR, DRIVING A
COVERED WAGON.]

THE
COVERED WAGON
BY
EMERSON HOUGH
AUTHOR OF
HEART'S DESIRE, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTOPLAY
A PARAMOUNT PICTURE
NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
1922

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
--YOUTH MARCHES
II.--THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
III.--THE RENDEZVOUS
IV.--FEVER OF NEW FORTUNES

V.--THE BLACK SPANIARD
VI.--ISSUE JOINED
VII.--THE JUMP-OFF
VIII.--MAN AGAINST MAN
IX.--THE BRUTE
X.--OLE MISSOURY
XI.--WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG
XII.--THE DEAD MEN'S TALE
XIII.--WILD FIRE
XIV.--THE KISS
XV.--THE DIVISION
XVI.--THE PLAINS
XVII.--THE GREAT ENCAMPMENT
XVIII.--ARROW AND PLOW
XIX.--BANION OF DONIPHAN'S
XX.--THE BUFFALO
XXI.--THE QUICKSANDS
XXII.--A SECRET OF TWO
XXIII.--AN ARMISTICE
XXIV.--THE ROAD WEST

XXV.--OLD LARAMIE
XXVI.--THE FIRST GOLD
XXVII.--TWO WHO LOVED
XXVIII.--WHEN A MAID MARRIES
XXIX.--THE BROKEN WEDDING
XXX.--THE DANCE IN THE DESERT
XXXI.--HOW, COLA!
XXXII.--THE FIGHT AT THE FORD
XXXIII.--THE FAMILIES ARE COMING
XXXIV.--A MATTER OF FRIENDSHIP
XXXV.--GEE--WHOA--HAW!
XXXVI.--TWO LOVE LETTERS
XXXVII.--JIM BRIDGER FORGETS
XXXVIII.--WHEN THE ROCKIES FELL
XXXIX.--THE CROSSING
XL.--OREGON! OREGON!
XLI.--THE SECRETS OF THE SIERRAS
XLII.--KIT CARSON RIDES
XLIII.--THE KILLER KILLED
XLIV.--YET IF LOVE LACK

XLV.--THE LIGHT OF THE WHOLE WORLD

The COVERED WAGON
CHAPTER I
YOUTH MARCHES
"Look at 'em come, Jesse! More and more! Must be forty or fifty
families."
Molly Wingate, middle-aged, portly, dark browed and strong, stood at
the door of the rude tent which for the time made her home. She was
pointing down the road which lay like an écru ribbon thrown down
across the prairie grass, bordered beyond by the timber-grown bluffs of
the Missouri.
Jesse Wingate allowed his team of harness-marked horses to continue
their eager drinking at the watering hole of the little stream near which
the camp was pitched until, their thirst quenched, they began burying
their muzzles and blowing into the water in sensuous enjoyment. He
stood, a strong and tall man of perhaps forty-five years, of keen blue
eye and short, close-matted, tawny beard. His garb was the loose dress
of the outlying settler of the Western lands three-quarters of a century
ago. A farmer he must have been back home.
Could this encampment, on the very front of the American civilization,
now be called a home? Beyond the prairie road could be seen a double
furrow of jet-black glistening sod, framing the green grass and its
spangling flowers, first browsing of the plow on virgin soil. It might
have been the opening of a farm. But if so, why the crude bivouac?
Why the gear of travelers? Why the massed arklike wagons, the scores
of morning fires lifting lazy blue wreaths of smoke against the morning
mists?
The truth was that Jesse Wingate, earlier and impatient on the front, out

of the very suppression of energy, had been trying his plow in the first
white furrows beyond the Missouri in the great year of 1848. Four
hundred other near-by plows alike were avid for the soil of Oregon; as
witness this long line of newcomers, late at the frontier rendezvous.
"It's the Liberty wagons from down river," said the campmaster at
length. "Missouri movers and settlers from lower Illinois. It's time. We
can't lie here much longer waiting for Missouri or Illinois, either. The
grass is up."
"Well, we'd have to wait for Molly to end her spring term, teaching in
Clay School, in Liberty," rejoined his wife, "else why'd we send her
there to graduate? Twelve dollars a month, cash money, ain't to be
sneezed at."
"No; nor is two thousand miles of trail between here and Oregon,
before snow, to be sneezed at, either. If Molly ain't with those wagons
I'll send Jed over for her to-day. If I'm going to be captain I can't hold
the people here on the river any longer, with May already begun."
"She'll be here to-day," asserted his wife. "She said she would. Besides,
I think that's her riding a little one side the road now. Not that I know
who all is with her. One young man--two. Well"--with maternal
pride--"Molly ain't never lacked for beaus!
"But look at the wagons come!" she added. "All the country's going
West this spring, it certainly seems like."
It was the spring gathering of the west-bound