Shame I done missed him!" But he said nothing to Banion or anyone else.

It was the twentieth time Bill Jackson, one of Sublette's men and a nephew of one of his partners, had crossed the Plains, and the lone hand pleased him best.

He instituted his own government for the most part, and had thrown in with this train because that best suited his book, since the old pack trains of the fur trade were now no more.

For himself, he planned settlement in Eastern Oregon, a country he once had glimpsed in long-gone beaver days, a dozen years ago.

The Eastern settlements had held him long enough, the Army life had been too dull, even with Doniphan.
"I must be gittin' old," he muttered to himself as he turned to a breakfast fire.