The Covered Wagon | Page 5

had been another manner
of war, that as ancient as male and female.
That Banion had known Woodhull in the field in Mexico he already

had let slip. What had been the cause of his sudden pulling up of his
starting tongue? Would he have spoken too much of that acquaintance?
Perhaps a closer look at the loose lips, the high cheeks, the narrow,
close-set eyes of young Woodhull, his rather assertive air, his slight,
indefinable swagger, his slouch in standing, might have confirmed
some skeptic disposed to analysis who would have guessed him less
than strong of soul and character. For the most part, such skeptics
lacked.
By this time the last belated unit of the Oregon caravan was at hand.
The feature of the dusty drivers could be seen. Unlike Wingate, the
newly chosen master of the train, who had horses and mules about him,
the young leader, Banion, captained only ox teams. They came now,
slow footed, steady, low headed, irresistible, indomitable, the same
locomotive power that carried the hordes of Asia into Eastern Europe
long ago. And as in the days of that invasion the conquerors carried
their households, their flocks and herds with them, so now did these
half-savage Saxon folk have with them their all.
Lean boys, brown, barefooted girls flanked the trail with driven stock.
Chickens clucked in coops at wagon side. Uncounted children thrust
out tousled heads from the openings of the canvas covers. Dogs
beneath, jostling the tar buckets, barked in hostile salutation. Women in
slatted sunbonnets turned impassive gaze from the high front seats,
back of which, swung to the bows by leather loops, hung the inevitable
family rifle in each wagon. And now, at the tail gate of every wagon,
lashed fast for its last long journey, hung also the family plow.
It was '48, and the grass was up. On to Oregon! The ark of our
covenant with progress was passing out. Almost it might have been
said to have held every living thing, like that other ark of old.
Banion hastened to one side, where a grassy level beyond the little
stream still offered stance. He raised a hand in gesture to the right. A
sudden note of command came into his voice, lingering from late
military days.
"By the right and left flank--wheel! March!"

With obvious training, the wagons broke apart, alternating right and left,
until two long columns were formed. Each of these advanced, curving
out, then drawing in, until a long ellipse, closed at front and rear, was
formed methodically and without break or flaw. It was the barricade of
the Plains, the moving fortresses of our soldiers of fortune, going West,
across the Plains, across the Rockies, across the deserts that lay beyond.
They did not know all these dangers, but they thus were ready for any
that might come.
"Look, mother!" Molly Wingate pointed with kindling eye to the
wagon maneuver. "We trained them all day yesterday, and long before.
Perfect!"
Her gaze mayhap sought the tall figure of the young commander,
chosen by older men above his fellow townsman, Sam Woodhull, as
captain of the Liberty train. But he now had other duties in his own
wagon group.
Ceased now the straining creak of gear and came rattle of yokes as the
pins were loosed. Cattle guards appeared and drove the work animals
apart to graze. Women clambered down from wagon seats. Sober-faced
children gathered their little arms full of wood for the belated breakfast
fires; boys came down for water at the stream.
The west-bound paused at the Missouri, as once they had paused at the
Don.
A voice arose, of some young man back among the wagons busy at his
work, paraphrasing an ante-bellum air:
_Oh, then, Susannah, Don't you cry fer me! I'm goin' out to Oregon,
With my banjo on my knee!_
CHAPTER II
THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
More than two thousand men, women and children waited on the

Missouri for the green fully to tinge the grasses of the prairies farther
west. The waning town of Independence had quadrupled its population
in thirty days. Boats discharged their customary western cargo at the
newer landing on the river, not far above that town; but it all was not
enough. Men of upper Missouri and lower Iowa had driven in herds of
oxen, horses, mules; but there were not enough of these. Rumors came
that a hundred wagons would take the Platte this year via the Council
Bluffs, higher up the Missouri; others would join on from St. Jo and
Leavenworth.
March had come, when the wild turkey gobbled and strutted
resplendent in the forest lands. April had passed, and the wild fowl had
gone north. May, and the upland plovers now were nesting all across
the prairies. But daily