_ CHAPTER XVII. THE GREAT ENCAMPMENT
As the long columns of the great wagon train broke through the screening sand hills there was disclosed a vast and splendid panorama. The valley of the Platte lay miles wide, green in the full covering of spring. A crooked and broken thread of timber growth appeared, marking the moister soil and outlining the general course of the shallow stream, whose giant cottonwoods were dwarfed now by the distances. In between, and for miles up and down the flat expanse, there rose the blue smokes of countless camp fires, each showing the location of some white-topped ship of the Plains. Black specks, grouped here and there, proved the presence of the livestock under herd.
Over all shone a pleasant sun. Now and again the dark shadow of a moving cloud passed over the flat valley, softening its high lights for the time. At times, as the sun shone full and strong, the faint loom of the mirage added the last touch of mysticism, the figures of the wagons rising high, multiplied many-fold, with giant creatures passing between, so that the whole seemed, indeed, some wild phantasmagoria of the desert.
"Look!" exclaimed Wingate, pulling up his horse. "Look, Caleb, the Northern train is in and waiting for us! A hundred wagons! They're camped over the whole bend."
The sight of this vast re-enforcement brought heart to every man, woman and child in all the advancing train. Now, indeed, Oregon was sure. There would be, all told, four hundred--five hundred--above six hundred wagons. Nothing could withstand them. They were the same as arrived!
As the great trains blended before the final emparkment men and women who had never met before shook hands, talked excitedly, embraced, even wept, such was their joy in meeting their own kind. Soon the vast valley at the foot of the Grand Island of the Platte--ninety miles in length it then was--became one vast bivouac whose parallel had not been seen in all the world.
Even so, the Missouri column held back, an hour or two later on the trail. Banion, silent and morose, still rode ahead, but all the flavor of his adventure out to Oregon had left him--indeed, the very savor of life itself. He looked at his arms, empty; touched his lips, where once her kiss had been, so infinitely and ineradicably sweet. Why should he go on to Oregon now?
As they came down through the gap in the Coasts, looking out over the Grand Island and the great encampment, Jackson pulled up his horse.
"Look! Someone comin' out!"
Banion sat his horse awaiting the arrival of the rider, who soon cut down the intervening distance until he could well be noted. A tall, spare man he was, middle-aged, of long lank hair and gray stubbled beard, and eyes overhung by bushy brows. He rode an Indian pad saddle, without stirrups, and was clad in the old costume of the hunter of the Far West--fringed shirt and leggings of buckskin. Moccasins made his foot-covering, though he wore a low, wide hat. As he came on at speed, guiding his wiry mount with a braided rope looped around the lower jaw, he easily might have been mistaken for a savage himself had he not come alone and from such company as that ahead. He jerked up his horse close at hand and sat looking at the newcomers, with no salutation beyond a short "How!"
Banion met him.
"We're the Westport train. Do you come from the Bluffs? Are you for Oregon?"
"Yes. I seen ye comin'. Thought I'd projeck some. Who's that back of ye?" He extended an imperative skinny finger toward Jackson. "If it hain't Bill Jackson hit's his ghost!"
"The same to you, Jim. How!"
The two shook hands without dismounting. Jackson turned grinning to Banion.
"Major," said he, "this is Jim Bridger, the oldest scout in the Rockies, an' that knows more West than ary man this side the Missoury. I never thought to see him agin, sartain not this far east."
"Ner me," retorted the other, shaking hands with one man after another.
"Jim Bridger? That's a name we know," said Banion. "I've heard of you back in Kentucky."
"Whar I come from, gentlemen--whar I come from more'n forty year ago, near's I can figger. Leastways I was borned in Virginny an' must of crossed Kentucky sometime. I kain't tell right how old I am, but I rek'lect perfect when they turned the water inter the Missoury River." He looked at them solemnly.
"I come back East to the new place, Kansas City. It didn't cut no mustard, an' I drifted to the Bluffs. This train was pullin' west, an' I hired on for guide. I've got a few wagons o' my own--iron, flour an' bacon for my post beyant the Rockies--ef we don't all git our ha'r lifted afore then!
"We're in between the Sioux and the Pawnees now," he went on. "They're huntin' the bufflers not ten mile ahead. But when I tell these pilgrims, they laugh at me. The hull Sioux nation is on the spring hunt right now. I'll not have it said Jim Bridger led a wagon train into a massacree. If ye'll let me, I'm for leavin' 'em an' trainin' with you-all, especial since you got anyhow one good man along. I've knowed Bill Jackson many a year at the Rendyvous afore the fur trade petered. Damn the pilgrims! The hull world's broke loose this spring. There's five thousand Mormons on ahead, praisin' God every jump an' eatin' the grass below the roots. Womern an' children--so many of 'em, so many! I kain't talk about hit! Women don't belong out here! An' now here you come bringin' a thousand more!
"There's a woman an' a baby layin' dead in oar camp now," he concluded. "Died last night. The pilgrims is tryin' to make coffins fer 'em out'n cottonwood logs."
"Lucky for all!" Jackson interrupted the garrulity of the other. "We buried men in blankets on the Vermilion a few days back. The Pawnees got a small camp o' our own folks."
"Yes, I know all about that."
"What's that?" cut in Banion. "How do you know?"
"Well, we've got the survivors--three o' them, countin' Woodhull, their captain."
"How did they get here?"
"They came in with a small outfit o' Mormons that was north o' the Vermilion. They'd come out on the St. Jo road. They told me--"
"Is Woodhull here--can you find him?"
"Shore! Ye want to see him?"
"Yes."
"He told me all about hit--"
"We know all about it, perhaps better than you do--after he's told you all about it."
Bridger looked at him, curious.
"Well, anyhow, hit's over," said he. "One of the men had a Pawnee arrer in his laig. Reckon hit hurt. I know, fer I carried a Blackfoot arrerhead under my shoulder blade fer sever'l years.
"But come on down and help me make these pilgrims set guards. Do-ee mind, now, the hull Sioux nation's just in ahead o' us, other side the river! Yet these people didn't want to ford to the south side the Platte; they wanted to stick north o' the river. Ef we had, we'd have our ha'r dryin' by now. I tell ye, the tribes is out to stop the wagon trains this spring. They say too many womern and children is comin', an' that shows we want to take their land away fer keeps.
"From now on to Oregon--look out! The Cayuses cleaned out the Whitman mission last spring in Oregon. Even the Shoshones is dancin'. The Crows is out, the Cheyennes is marchin', the Bannocks is east o' the Pass, an' ye kain't tell when ter expeck the Blackfoots an' Grow Vaws. Never was gladder to see a man than I am to see Bill Jackson."
"Stretch out!"
Banion gave the order. The Missouri wagons came on, filed through the gap in order and with military exactness wheeled into a perfect park at one side the main caravan.
As the outer columns swung in, the inner spread out till the lapped wagons made a great oblong, Bridger watching them. Quickly the animals were outspanned, the picket ropes put down and the loose horses driven off to feed while the cattle were close herded. He nodded his approval.
"Who's yer train boss, Bill?" he demanded. "That's good work."
"Major Banion, of Doniphan's column in the war."
"Will he fight?"
"Try him!"
News travels fast along a wagon train. Word passed now that there was a big Sioux village not far ahead, on the other side of the river, and that the caravan should be ready for a night attack. Men and women from the earlier train came into the Westport camp and the leaders formulated plans. More than four hundred families ate in sight of one another fires that evening.
Again on the still air of the Plains that night rose the bugle summons, by now become familiar. In groups the wagon folk began to assemble at the council fire. They got instructions which left them serious. The camp fell into semi-silence. Each family returned to its own wagon. Out in the dark, flung around in a wide circle, a double watch stood guard. Wingate and his aids, Banion, Jackson, Bridger, the pick of the hardier men, went out for all the night. It was to Banion, Bridger and Jackson that most attention now was paid. Banion could not yet locate Woodhull in the train.
The scouts crept out ahead of the last picket line, for though an attack in mass probably would not come before dawn, if the Sioux really should cross the river, some horse stealing or an attempted stampede might be expected before midnight or soon after.
The night wore on. The fires of willow twigs and
bois des vaches fell into pale coals, into ashes. The chill of the Plains came, so that the sleepers in the great wagon corral drew their blankets closer about them as they lay.
It was approaching midnight when the silence was ripped apart by the keen crack of a rifle--another and yet another.
Then, in a ripple of red detonation, the rifle fire ran along the upper front of the entire encampment.
"Turn out! Turn out, men!" called the high, clear voice of Banion, riding back. "Barricade! Fill in the wheels!" _