The Broken Wedding

Founding his own future on this resolute spirit of his men, Banion next
looked to the order of his own personal affairs. He found prices so high
at Fort Laramie, and the stock of all manner of goods so low, that he
felt it needless to carry his own trading wagons all the way to Oregon,
when a profit of 400 per cent lay ready not a third of the way across
and less the further risk and cost. He accordingly cut down his own
stocks to one wagon, and sold off wagons and oxen as well, until he
found himself possessed of considerably more funds than when he had
started out.

He really cared little for these matters. What need had he for a fortune
or a future now? He was poorer than any jeans-clad ox driver with a
sunbonnet on the seat beside him and tow-headed children on the flour
and bacon sacks, with small belongings beyond the plow lashed at the
tail gate, the ax leaning in the front corner of the box and the rifle
swinging in its loops at the wagon bows. They were all beginning life
again. He was done with it.

The entire caravan now had passed in turn the Prairies and the Plains.
In the vestibule of the mountains they had arrived in the most splendid
out-of-doors country the world has ever offered. The climate was
superb, the scenery was a constant succession of changing beauties new
to the eyes of all. Game was at hand in such lavish abundance as none of
them had dreamed possible. The buffalo ranged always within touch, great
bands of elk now appeared, antelope always were in sight. The streams
abounded in noble game fish, and the lesser life of the open was
threaded across continually by the presence of the great predatory
animals--the grizzly, the gray wolf, even an occasional mountain lion.
The guarding of the cattle herds now required continual exertion, and if
any weak or crippled draft animal fell out its bones were clean within
the hour. The feeling of the wilderness now was distinct enough for the
most adventurous. They fed fat, and daily grew more like savages in look
and practice.