THE PLAINS "On to the Platte! The buffalo!" New cheer seemed to come to the hearts of the emigrants now, and they forgot bickering.

The main train ground grimly ahead, getting back, if not all its egotism, at least more and more of its self-reliance.

By courtesy, Wingate still rode ahead, though orders came now from a joint council of his leaders, since Banion would not take charge.
The great road to Oregon was even now not a trail but a road, deep cut into the soil, though no wheeled traffic had marked it until within the past five years.

A score of paralled paths it might be at times, of tentative location along a hillside or a marshy level; but it was for the most part a deep-cut, unmistakable road from which it had been impossible to wander.

At times it lay worn into the sod a half foot, a foot in depth.