"
"Well there are other trains where the men aren't all fools, and the
women----"
He stopped. The doctor's eye held him with a warning gleam.
"I don't know what's the matter with that boy," he said afterwards in the
evening conference. "I can't get at him."
"Sun mad," Daddy John insisted.
Courant gave a grunt that conveyed disdain of a question of such small
import.
David couldn't account for it at all.
Susan said nothing.
At Green River the Oregon Trail broke from the parent road and slanted
off to the northwest. Here the Oregon companies mended their wagons and
braced their yokes for the long pull across the broken teeth of mountains
to Fort Hall, and from there onward to the new country of great rivers
and virgin forests. A large train was starting as the doctor's wagons
came down the slope. There was some talk, and a little bartering between
the two companies, but time was precious, and the head of the Oregon
caravan had begun to roll out when the California party were raising
their tents on the river bank.
It was a sere and sterile prospect. Drab hills rolled in lazy waves
toward the river where they reared themselves into bolder forms, a line
of ramparts guarding the precious thread of water.
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