Wingate brought up all these matters at the train meeting of some three score men which assembled under the trees of his own encampment at eleven of the last morning.  Most of the men he knew.  Banion unobtrusively took a seat well to the rear of those who squatted on their heels or lolled full length on the grass.

After the fashion of the immemorial American town meeting, the beginning of all our government, Wingate called the meeting to order and stated its purposes.  He then set forth his own ideas of the best manner for handling the trail work.

His plan, as he explained, was one long earlier perfected in the convoys of the old Santa Fe Trail.  The wagons were to travel in close order.  Four parallel columns, separated by not too great spaces, were to be maintained as much as possible, more especially toward nightfall.  Of these, the outer two were to draw in together when camp was made, the other two to angle out, wagon lapping wagon, front and rear, thus making an oblong corral of the wagons, into which, through a gap, the work oxen were to be driven every night after they had fed.  The tents and fires were to be outside of the corral unless in case of an Indian alarm, when the corral would represent a fortress.

The transport animals were to be hobbled each night.  A guard, posted entirely around the corral and camp, was to be put out each night.  Each man and each boy above fourteen was to be subject to guard duty under the ancient common law of the Plains, and from this duty no man might hope excuse unless actually too ill to walk; nor could any man offer to procure any substitute for himself.  The watches were to be set as eight, each to stand guard one-fourth part of alternate nights, so that each man would get every other night undisturbed.

There were to be lieutenants, one for each of the four parallel divisions of the train; also eight sergeants of the guard, each of whom was to select and handle the men of the watch under him.  No wagon might change its own place in the train after the start, dust or no dust.

When Wingate ended his exposition and looked around for approval it was obvious that many of these regulations met with disfavor at the start.  The democracy of the train was one in which each man wanted his own way.  Leaning head to head, speaking low, men grumbled at all this fuss and feathers and Army stuff.  Some of these were friends and backers in the late election.  Nettled by their silence, or by their murmured comments, Wingate arose again.

“Well, you have heard my plan, men,” said he.  “The Santa Fe men worked it up, and used it for years, as you all know.  They always got through.  If there’s anyone here knows a better way, and one that’s got more experience back of it, I’d like to have him get up and say so.”

Silence for a time greeted this also.  The Northern men, Wingate’s partisans, looked uncomfortably one to the other.  It was young Woodhull, of the Liberty contingent, who rose at length.