“Oh, God keep you, Will!” she said in her heart, and almost audibly.  “Oh, God give you fortune, Will, and bring you back to me!”

But the Oregon wagons closed up once more and held their way, the stop not being beyond one camp, for Bridger urged haste.

The caravan course now lay along the great valley of the Snake.  The giant deeds of the river in its canons they could only guess.  They heard of tremendous falls, of gorges through which no boat could pass, vague rumors of days of earlier exploration; but they kept to the high plateaus, dipping down to the crossings of many sharp streams, which in the first month of their journey they would have called impassable.  It all took time.  They were averaging now not twenty miles daily, but no more than half that, and the season was advancing.  It was fall.  Back home the wheat would be in stack, the edges of the corn would be seared with frost.

The vast abundance of game they had found all along now lacked.  Some rabbits, a few sage grouse, nightly coyotes—­that made all.  The savages who now hung on their flanks lacked the stature and the brave trappings of the buffalo plainsmen.  They lived on horse meat and salmon, so the rumor came.  Now their environment took hold of the Pacific.  They had left the East wholly behind.

On the salmon run they could count on food, not so good as the buffalo, but better than bacon grown soft and rusty.  Changing, accepting, adjusting, prevailing, the wagons went on, day after day, fifty miles, a hundred, two hundred.  But always a vague uneasiness pervaded.  The crossing of the Snake lay on ahead.  The moody river had cast upon them a feeling of awe.  Around the sage fires at night the families talked of little else but the ford of the Snake, two days beyond the Salmon Falls.

It was morning when the wagons, well drawn together now, at last turned down the precipitous decline which took them from the high plateau to the water, level.  Here a halt was called.  Bridger took full charge.  The formidable enterprise confronting them was one of the real dangers of the road.

The strong green waters of the great river were divided at this ancient ford by two midstream islands, which accounted for the selection of the spot for the daring essay of a bridgeless and boatless crossing.  There was something mockingly relentless in the strong rippling current, which cut off more than a guess at the actual depth.  There was no ferry, no boat nor means of making one.  It was not even possible to shore up the wagon beds so they might be dry.  One thing sure was that if ever a wagon was swept below the crossing there could be no hope for it.

But others had crossed here, and even now a certain rough chart existed, handed down from these.  Time now for a leader, and men now were thankful for the presence of a man who had seen this crossing made.

The old scout held back the company leaders and rode into the stream alone, step by step, scanning the bottom.  He found it firm.  He saw wheel marks on the first island.  His horse, ears ahead, saw them also, and staggeringly felt out the way.  Belly-deep and passable—­yes.