The U.P. Trail | Page 3

the failures, the wanderers, and the lawless
turned their faces from the Golden State. At the start Horn had eleven
men, three women, and the girl. On the way he had killed one of the
men; and another, together with his wife, had yielded to persuasion of
friends at Ogden and had left the party. So when Horn halted for camp
one afternoon in a beautiful valley in the Wyoming hills there were
only nine men with him.
On a long journey through wild country strangers grow close together
or far apart. Bill Horn did not think much of the men who had accepted
the chance he offered them, and daily he grew more aloof. They were
not a responsible crowd, and the best he could get out of them was the
driving of oxen and camp chores indifferently done. He had to kill the
meat and find the water and keep the watch. Upon entering the
Wyoming hills region Horn showed a restlessness and hurry and
anxiety. This in no wise affected the others. They continued to be
aimless and careless as men who had little to look forward to.
This beautiful valley offered everything desirable for a camp site
except natural cover or protection in case of attack. But Horn had to

take the risk. The oxen were tired, the wagons had to be greased, and it
was needful to kill meat. Here was an abundance of grass, a clear brook,
wood for camp-fires, and sign of game on all sides.
"Haul round--make a circle!" Horn ordered the drivers of the oxen.
This was the first time he had given this particular order, and the men
guffawed or grinned as they hauled the great, clumsy prairie- schooners
into a circle. The oxen were unhitched; the camp duffle piled out; the
ring of axes broke the stillness; fires were started.
Horn took his rifle and strode away up the brook to disappear in the
green brush of a ravine.
It was early in the evening, with the sun not yet out of sight behind a
lofty ridge that topped the valley slope. High grass, bleached white,
shone brightly on the summit. Soon several columns of blue smoke
curled lazily aloft until, catching the wind high up, they were swept
away. Meanwhile the men talked at their tasks.
"Say, pard, did you come along this here Laramie Trail goin' West?"
asked one.
"Nope. I hit the Santa Fe Trail," was the reply.
"How about you, Jones?"
"Same fer me."
"Wal," said another, "I went round to California by ship, an' I'd hev
been lucky to drown."
"An' now we're all goin' back poorer than when we started," remarked a
third.
"Pard, you've said somethin'."
"Wal, I seen a heap of gold, if I didn't find any."

"Jones, has this here Bill Horn any gold with him?"
"He acts like it," answered Jones. "An' I heerd he struck it rich out
thar."
The men appeared divided in their opinions of Bill Horn. From him
they drifted to talk of possible Indian raids and scouted the idea; then
they wondered if the famous Pony Express had been over this Laramie
Trail; finally they got on the subject of a rumored railroad to be built
from East to West.
"No railroad can't be built over this trail," said Jones, bluntly.
"Sure not. But couldn't more level ground be dug?" asked another.
"Dug? Across them Utah deserts an' up them mountains? Hell! Men
sure hev more sense than thet," exclaimed the third.
And so they talked and argued at their tasks.
The women, however, had little to say. One, the wife of the loquacious
Jones, lived among past associations of happy years that would not
come again--a sober-faced, middle-aged woman. The other woman was
younger, and her sad face showed traces of a former comeliness. They
called her Mrs. Durade. The girl was her daughter Allie. She appeared
about fifteen years old, and was slight of form. Her face did not seem to
tan. It was pale. She looked tired, and was shy and silent, almost
ashamed. She had long, rich, chestnut-colored hair which she wore in a
braid. Her eyes were singularly large and dark, and violet in color.
"It's a long, long way we are from home yet," sighed Mrs. Jones.
"You call East home!" replied Mrs. Durade, bitterly.
"For land's sake! Yes, I do," exclaimed the other. "If there was a home
in that California, I never saw it. Tents and log cabins and mud-holes!
Such places for a woman to live. Oh, I hated that California! A lot of
wild men, all crazy for gold. Gold that only a few could find and none

could keep! ... I pray every night to live to get back home."
Mrs. Durade had no reply; she