Now and again the dark shadow of a moving cloud passed over the flat valley, softening its high lights for the time.

At times, as the sun shone full and strong, the faint loom of the mirage added the last touch of mysticism, the figures of the wagons rising high, multiplied many-fold, with giant creatures passing between, so that the whole seemed, indeed, some wild phantasmagoria of the desert.
"Look!" exclaimed Wingate, pulling up his horse.

"Look, Caleb, the Northern train is in and waiting for us! A hundred wagons! They're camped over the whole bend." The sight of this vast re-enforcement brought heart to every man, woman and child in all the advancing train.

Now, indeed, Oregon was sure.
There would be, all told, four hundred--five hundred--above six hundred wagons.

Nothing could withstand them.