When with a shout Jed Wingate turned his horse and set off at top speed down the shore some followed him.  The horses and oxen, left alone, fell into confusion, the wagons tangled.  One or two teams made off at a run into the desert.  But these things were nothing.

Those behind hoped Jed would not try any rescue in that flood.  Molly stood wringing her hands.  The boy’s mother began praying audibly.  The voice of Jim Bridger rose in an Indian chant.  It was for the dead!

They saw the gallant mare plunge up, back and shoulders and body rising as her feet found bottom a few yards out from shore.  She stood free of the water, safe on the bar; stood still, looking back of her and down.  But no man rose to his height beside her.  There was only one figure on the bar.

They saw Jed fling off; saw him run and stoop, lifting something long and heavy from the water.  Then the mare stumbled away.  At length she lay down quietly.  She never rose.

“She was standing right here,” said Jed as the others came, “He had hold of the reins so tight I couldn’t hardly open his hand.  He must have been dead before the mare hit bottom.  He was laying all under water, hanging to the reins, and that was all that kept him from washing on down.”

They made some rude and unskilled attempt at resuscitation, but had neither knowledge nor confidence.  Perhaps somewhere out yonder the strain had been too great; perhaps the sheer terror had broken the heart of both man and horse.  The mare suddenly began to tremble as she lay, her nostrils shivering as though in fright.  And she died, after bringing in the dead man whose hand still gripped her rein.

They buried Kelsey of Kentucky—­few knew him otherwise—­on a hillock by the road at the first fording place of the Snake.  They broke out the top board of another tail gate, and with a hot iron burned in one more record of the road: 

“Rob’t.  Kelsey, Ky.  Drowned Sept. 7, 1848.  A Brave Man.”

The sand long ago cut out the lettering, and long ago the ford passed to a ferry.  But there lay, for a long time known, Kelsey of Kentucky, a brave man, who kept his promise and did not rue back, but who never saw either California or Oregon.

“Catch up the stock, men,” said Jesse Wingate dully, after a time.  “Let’s leave this place.”

Loads were repacked, broken gear adjusted.  Inside the hour the silent gray wagon train held on, leaving the waters to give shriving.  The voice of the river rose and fell mournfully behind them in the changing airs.

“I knowed hit!” said old Jim Bridger, now falling back from the lead and breaking oft’ his Indian dirge.  “I knowed all along the Snake’d take somebody—­she does every time.  This mornin’ I seed two ravens that flew acrost the trail ahead.  Yesterday I seed a rabbit settin’ squar’ in the trail.  I thought hit was me the river wanted, but she’s done took a younger an’ a better man.”