But all that morning and all that day the mounted Arapahoes harassed them.  At many bends of the Sweetwater they paused and made sorties; but the savages fell back, later to close in, sometimes under cover so near that their tauntings could be heard.

Wingate, Woodhull, Price, Hall, Kelsey stationed themselves along the line of flankers, and as the country became flatter and more open they had better control of the pursuers, so that by nightfall the latter began to fall back.

The end of the second day of forced marching found them at the Three Crossings of the Sweetwater, deep in a cheerless alkaline desert, and on one of the most depressing reaches of the entire journey.  That night such gloom fell on their council as had not yet been known.

“The Watkins boy died to-day,” said Hall, joining his colleagues at the guarded fire.  “His leg was black where it was broke.  They’re going to bury him just ahead, in the trail.  It’s not best to leave headboards here.”

Wingate had fallen into a sort of apathy.  For a time Woodhull did not speak to him after he also came in.

“How is she, Mr. Wingate?” he asked at last.  “She’ll live?”

“I don’t know,” replied the other.  “Fever.  No one can tell.  We found a doctor in one of the Iowa wagons.  He don’t know.”

Woodhull sat silent for a time, exclaimed at last, “But she will—­she must!  This shames me!  We’ll be married yet.”

“Better wait to see if she lives or dies,” said Jesse Wingate succinctly.

“I know what I wish,” said Caleb Price at last as he stared moodily at the coals, “and I know it mighty well—­I wish the other wagons were up.  Yes, and—­”

He did not finish.  A nod or so was all the answer he got.  A general apprehension held them all.

“If Bridger hadn’t gone on ahead, damn him!” exclaimed Kelsey at last.

“Or if Carson hadn’t refused to come along, instead of going on east,” assented Hall.  “What made him so keen?”

Kelsey spoke morosely.

“Said he had papers to get through.  Maybe Kit Carson’ll sometime carry news of our being wiped out somewhere.”

“Or if we had Bill Jackson to trail for us,” ventured the first speaker again.  “If we could send back word—­”

“We can’t, so what’s the use?” interrupted Price.  “We were all together, and had our chance—­once.”

But buried as they were in their gloomy doubts, regrets, fears, they got through that night and the next in safety.  They dared not hunt, though the buffalo and antelope were in swarms, and though they knew they now were near the western limit of the buffalo range.  They urged on, mile after mile.  The sick and the wounded must endure as they might.

Finally they topped the gentle incline which marked the heights of land between the Sweetwater and the tributaries of the Green, and knew they had reached the South Pass, called halfway to Oregon.  There was no timber here.  The pass itself was no winding canon, but only a flat, broad valley.  Bolder views they had seen, but none of greater interest.