From him he had heard that the New York Company on good roads, in fair
weather, made twenty miles a day, and that in the mountains, where the
fodder was scarce and the trail hard, would fall to a slower pace. The
doctor's party, the cow long since sacrificed to the exigencies of
speed, had been making from twenty-five to thirty. Even with a drop
from this in the barer regions ahead of them they could look forward to
reaching California a month or six weeks before the New York Company.
There was nothing to be gained by staying with them, and, so far, the
small two-wagon caravan had moved with a speed and absence of accident,
which gave its members confidence in their luck and generalship. It
was agreed that they should leave the big train the next morning and
move on as rapidly as they could, stopping at Fort Laramie to repair
the wagons which the heat had warped, shoe the horses, and lay in the
supplies they needed.
Susan heard it with regret. The comfort of dropping back into the
feminine atmosphere, where obvious things did not need explanation, and
all sorts of important communications were made by mental telepathy,
was hard to relinquish.
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