CHAPTER III
The next day broke still and clear. The dawn was yet a pale promise in
the East when from Independence, out through the dripping woods and
clearings, rose the tumult of breaking camps. The rattle of the yoke
chains and the raucous cry of "Catch up! Catch up!" sounded under the
trees and out and away over valley and upland as the lumbering wagons,
freighted deep for the long trail, swung into the road.
David's camp was astir long before the sun was up. The great hour had
come. They were going! They sung and shouted as they harnessed Bess
and Ben, a pair of sturdy roans bought from an emigrant discouraged
before the start, while the saddle horses nosed about the tree roots
for a last cropping of the sweet, thick grass. Inside the wagon the
provisions were packed in sacks and the rifles hung on hooks on the
canvas walls. At the back, on a supporting step, the mess chest was
strapped. It was a businesslike wagon. Its contents included only one
deviation from the practical and necessary--three books of David's.
Joe had laughed at him about them. What did a man want with Byron's
poems and Milton and Bacon's "Essays" crossing the plains? Neither Joe
nor Leff could understand such devotion to the printed page.
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