Even so, the Missouri column held back, an hour or two later on the trail.  Banion, silent and morose, still rode ahead, but all the flavor of his adventure out to Oregon had left him—­indeed, the very savor of life itself.  He looked at his arms, empty; touched his lips, where once her kiss had been, so infinitely and ineradicably sweet.  Why should he go on to Oregon now?

As they came down through the gap in the Coasts, looking out over the Grand Island and the great encampment, Jackson pulled up his horse.

“Look!  Someone comin’ out!”

Banion sat his horse awaiting the arrival of the rider, who soon cut down the intervening distance until he could well be noted.  A tall, spare man he was, middle-aged, of long lank hair and gray stubbled beard, and eyes overhung by bushy brows.  He rode an Indian pad saddle, without stirrups, and was clad in the old costume of the hunter of the Far West—­fringed shirt and leggings of buckskin.  Moccasins made his foot-covering, though he wore a low, wide hat.  As he came on at speed, guiding his wiry mount with a braided rope looped around the lower jaw, he easily might have been mistaken for a savage himself had he not come alone and from such company as that ahead.  He jerked up his horse close at hand and sat looking at the newcomers, with no salutation beyond a short “How!”

Banion met him.

“We’re the Westport train.  Do you come from the Bluffs?  Are you for Oregon?”

“Yes.  I seen ye comin’.  Thought I’d projeck some.  Who’s that back of ye?” He extended an imperative skinny finger toward Jackson.  “If it hain’t Bill Jackson hit’s his ghost!”

“The same to you, Jim.  How!”

The two shook hands without dismounting.  Jackson turned grinning to Banion.

“Major,” said he, “this is Jim Bridger, the oldest scout in the Rockies, an’ that knows more West than ary man this side the Missoury.  I never thought to see him agin, sartain not this far east.”

“Ner me,” retorted the other, shaking hands with one man after another.

“Jim Bridger?  That’s a name we know,” said Banion.  “I’ve heard of you back in Kentucky.”

“Whar I come from, gentlemen—­whar I come from more’n forty year ago, near’s I can figger.  Leastways I was borned in Virginny an’ must of crossed Kentucky sometime.  I kain’t tell right how old I am, but I rek’lect perfect when they turned the water inter the Missoury River.”  He looked at them solemnly.

“I come back East to the new place, Kansas City.  It didn’t cut no mustard, an’ I drifted to the Bluffs.  This train was pullin’ west, an’ I hired on for guide.  I’ve got a few wagons o’ my own—­iron, flour an’ bacon for my post beyant the Rockies—­ef we don’t all git our ha’r lifted afore then!