Woodhull, moody and irascible, feverish and excited by turns, ever since leaving Bridger had held secret conclaves with a few of his adherents, the nature of which he did not disclose.  There was no great surprise and no extreme regret when, within safe reach of Fort Hall, he had announced his intention of going on ahead with a dozen wagons.  He went without obtaining any private interview with Molly Wingate.

[Illustration:  A Paramount Picture.

The Covered Wagon_.

CAMPED FOR THE NIGHT ALONG THE OLD TRAIL.]

These matters none the less had their depressing effect.  Few illusions remained to any of them now, and no romance.  Yet they went on—­ten miles, fifteen sometimes, though rarely twenty miles a day.  Women fell asleep, babes in arms, jostling on the wagon seats; men almost slept as they walked, ox whip in hand; the cattle slept as they stumbled on, tongues dry and lolling.  All the earth seemed strange, unreal.  They advanced as though in a dream through some inferno of a crazed imagination.

About them now often rose the wavering images of the mirage, offering water, trees, wide landscapes; beckoning in such desert deceits as they often now had seen.  One day as the brazen sun mocked them from its zenith they saw that they were not alone on the trail.

“Look, mother!” exclaimed Molly Wingate—­she now rode with her mother on the seat of the family wagon, Jed driving her cart when not on the cow column.  “See!  There’s a caravan!”

Her cry was echoed or anticipated by scores of voices of others who had seen the same thing.  They pointed west and south.

Surely there was a caravan—­a phantom caravan!  Far off, gigantic, looming and lowering again, it paralleled the advance of their own train, which in numbers it seemed to equal.  Slowly, steadily, irresistibly, awesomely, it kept pace with them, sending no sign to them, mockingly indifferent to them—­mockingly so, indeed; for when the leaders of the Wingate wagons paused the riders of the ghostly train paused also, biding their time with no action to indicate their intent.  When the advance was resumed the uncanny pari passu again went on, the rival caravan going forward as fast, no faster than those who regarded it in a fascinated interest that began to become fear.  Yonder caravan could bode no good.  Without doubt it planned an ambush farther on, and this sinister indifference meant only its certainty of success.

Or were there, then, other races of men out here in this unknown world of heat and sand?  Was this a treasure train of old Spanish cargadores?  Did ghosts live and move as men?  If not, what caravan was this, moving alone, far from the beaten trail?  What purpose had it here?

“Look, mother!”

The girl’s voice rose eagerly again, but this time with a laugh in it.  And her assurance passed down the line, others laughing in relief at the solution.