The Crossing

The decision for or against California was something for serious
weighing now at the last hour, and it affected the fortune and the
future of every man, woman and child in all the train. Never a furrow
was plowed in early Oregon but ran in bones and blood; and never a
dollar was dug in gold in California--or ever gained in gold by any
man--which did not cost two in something else but gold.

Twelve wagons pulled out of the trail silently, one after another, and
took the winding trail that led to the left, to the west and south.
Others watched them, tears in their eyes, for some were friends.

Alone on her cart seat, here at the fateful parting of the ways, Molly
Wingate sat with a letter clasped in her hand, frank tears standing in
her eyes. It was no new letter, but an old one. She pressed the pages to
her heart, to her lips, held them out at arm's length before her in the
direction of the far land which somewhere held its secrets.

"Oh, God keep you, Will!" she said in her heart, and almost audibly.
"Oh, God give you fortune, Will, and bring you back to me!"

But the Oregon wagons closed up once more and held their way, the stop
not being beyond one camp, for Bridger urged haste.

The caravan course now lay along the great valley of the Snake. The
giant deeds of the river in its cañons they could only guess. They heard
of tremendous falls, of gorges through which no boat could pass, vague
rumors of days of earlier exploration; but they kept to the high
plateaus, dipping down to the crossings of many sharp streams, which in
the first month of their journey they would have called impassable. It
all took time. They were averaging now not twenty miles daily, but no
more than half that, and the season was advancing. It was fall. Back
home the wheat would be in stack, the edges of the corn would be seared
with frost.