He wheeled and went away at a trot.  All he had given them was the one thing they lacked.

The Wingate wagons came in groups and halted at the river bank, where the work of rafting and wagon boating went methodically forward.  Scores of individual craft, tipsy and risky, two or three logs lashed together, angled across and landed far below.  Horsemen swam across with lines and larger rafts were steadied fore and aft with ropes snubbed around tree trunks on either bank.  Once started, the resourceful pioneer found a dozen ways to skin his cat, as one man phrased it, and presently the falling waters permitted swimming and fording the stock.  It all seemed ridiculously simple and ridiculously cheerful.

Toward evening a great jangling of bells and shouting of young captains announced the coming of a great band of the stampeded livestock—­cattle, mules and horses mixed.  Afar came the voice of Jed Wingate singing, “Oh, then Susannah,” and urging Susannah to have no concern.

But Banion, aloof and morose, made his bed that night apart even from his own train.  He had not seen Wingate—­did not see him till the next day, noon, when he rode up and saluted the former leader, who sat on his own wagon seat and not in saddle.

“My people are all across, Mr. Wingate,” he said, and the last of your wagons will be over by dark and straightened out.  I’m parked a mile ahead.”

“You are parked?  I thought you were elected—­by my late friends—­to lead this whole train.”

He spoke bitterly and with a certain contempt that made Banion color.

“No.  We can travel apart, though close.  Do you want to go ahead, or shall I?”

“As you like.  The country’s free.”

“It’s not free for some things, Mr. Wingate,” rejoined the younger man hotly.  “You can lead or not, as you like; but I’ll not train up with a man who thinks of me as you do.  After this think what you like, but don’t speak any more.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You know very well.  You’ve believed another man’s word about my personal character.  It’s gone far enough and too far.”

“The other man is not here.  He can’t face you.”

“No, not now.  But if he’s on earth he’ll face me sometime.”

Unable to control himself further, Banion wheeled and galloped away to his own train.

“You ask if we’re to join in with the Yankees,” he flared out to Jackson.  “No!  We’ll camp apart and train apart.  I won’t go on with them.”

“Well,” said the scout, “I didn’t never think we would, er believe ye could; not till they git in trouble agin—­er till a certain light wagon an’ mules throws in with us, huh?”

“You’ll say no more of that, Jackson!  But one thing:  you and I have got to ride and see if we can get any trace of Woodhull.”

“Like looking for a needle in a haystack, an’ a damn bad needle at that,” was the old man’s comment.