They were the same as arrived! As the great trains blended before the final emparkment men and women who had never met before shook hands, talked excitedly, embraced, even wept, such was their joy in meeting their own kind.

Soon the vast valley at the foot of the Grand Island of the Platte--ninety miles in length it then was--became one vast bivouac whose parallel had not been seen in all the world.
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.