“What differ does hit make, Bill?” remarked Bridger indifferently.  “Let bygones be bygones, huh?  That’s the pleasantest way, sence he’s dead.

“Now here we air, with all the gold there ever was molded, an’ a hull two bottles o’ coggnac left, which takes holt e’enamost better’n Hundson’s Bay rum.  Ain’t it a perty leetle ol’ world to play with, all with nice pink stripes erroun’ hit?”

He filled his tin and broke into a roaring song: 

  There was a ol’ widder which had three sons—­
    Joshuway, James an’ John. 
  An’ one got shot, an’ one got drowned,
  An’ th’ last un got losted an’ never was found—­

“Ain’t hit funny, son,” said he, turning to Banion with cup uplifted, “how stiff likker allus makes me remember what I done fergot?  Now Kit told me, that at Laramie—­”

“Fer I’m goin’ out to Oregon, with my wash pan on my knee!” chanted Bill Jackson, now solemnly oblivious of most of his surroundings and hence not consciously discourteous to his friends; “Susannah, don’t ye cry!”

They sat, the central figures of a scene wild enough, in a world still primitive and young.  Only one of the three remained sober and silent, wondering, if one thing lacked, why the world was made.

CHAPTER XLV

THE LIGHT OF THE WHOLE WORLD

At the new farm of Jesse Wingate on the Yamhill the wheat was in stack and ready for the flail, his deer-skin sacks made ready to carry it to market after the threshing.  His grim and weather-beaten wagon stood, now unused, at the barnyard fence of rails.

It was evening.  Wingate and his wife again sat on their little stoop, gazing down the path that led to the valley road.  A mounted man was opening the gate, someone they did not recognize.

“Maybe from below,” said Molly Wingate.  “Jed’s maybe sent up another letter.  Leave it to him, he’s going to marry the most wonderful girl!  Well, I’ll call it true, she’s a wonderful walker.  All the Prices was.”

“Or maybe it’s for Molly,” she added.  “Ef she’s ever heard a word from either Sam Woodhull or—­”

“Hush!  I do not want to hear that name!” broke in her husband.  “Trouble enough he has made for us!”

His wife made no comment for a moment, still watching the stranger, who was now riding up the long approach, little noted by Wingate as he sat, moody and distrait.

“Jess,” said she, “let’s be fair and shame the devil.  Maybe we don’t know all the truth about Will Banion.  You go in the house.  I’ll tend to this man, whoever he may be.”

But she did not.  With one more look at the advancing figure, she herself rose and followed her husband.  As she passed she cast a swift glance at her daughter, who had not joined them for the twilight hour.  Hers was the look of the mother—­maternal, solicitious, yet wise and resolved withal; woman understanding woman.  And now was the hour for her ewe lamb to be alone.