Part 7 (1/2)
They rode side by side, past more than a mile of the covered wagons, now almost end to end, the columns continually closing up. At the bank of the river, at the ferry head, they found a group of fifty men. The ranks opened as Banion and Jackson approached, but Banion made no attempt to join a council to which he had not been bidden.
A half dozen civilized Indians of the Kaws, owners or operators of the ferry, sat in a stolid line across the head of the scow at its landing stage, looking neither to the right nor the left and awaiting the white men's pleasure. Banion rode down to them.
”How deep?” he asked.
They understood but would not answer.
”Out of the way!” he cried, and rode straight at them. They scattered.
He spurred his horse, the black Spaniard, over the stage and on the deck of the scow, drove him its full length, snorting; set the spurs hard at the farther end and plunged deliberately off into the swift, muddy stream.
The horse sank out of sight below the roily surface. They saw the rider go down to his armpits; saw him swing off saddle, upstream. The gallant horse headed for the center of the heavy current, but his master soon turned him downstream and insh.o.r.e. A hundred yards down they landed on a bar and scrambled up the bank.
Banion rode to the circle and sat dripping. He had brought not speech but action, not theory but facts, and he had not spoken a word.
His eyes covered the council rapidly, resting on the figure of Sam Woodhull, squatting on his heels. As though to answer the challenge of his gaze, the latter rose.
”Gentlemen,” said he, ”I'm not, myself, governed by any mere spirit of bravado. It's swimming water, yes--any fool knows that, outside of yon one. What I do say is that we can't afford to waste time here fooling with that boat. We've got to swim it. I agree with you, Wingate. This river's been forded by the trains for years, and I don't see as we need be any more chicken-hearted than those others that went through last year and earlier. This is the old fur-trader crossing, the Mormons crossed here, and so can we.”
Silence met his words. The older men looked at the swollen stream, turned to the horseman who had proved it.
”What does Major Banion say?” spoke up a voice.
”Nothing!” was Banion's reply. ”I'm not in your council, am I?”
”You are, as much as any man here,” spoke up Caleb Price, and Hall and Kelsey added yea to that. ”Get down. Come in.”
Banion threw his rein to Jackson and stepped into the ring, bowing to Jesse Wingate, who sat as presiding officer.
”Of course we want to hear what Mr. Banion has to say,” said he. ”He's proved part of the question right now. I've always heard it's fording, part way, at Papin's Ferry. It don't look it now.”
”The river's high, Mr. Wingate,” said Banion. ”If you ask me, I'd rather ferry than ford. I'd send the women and children over by this boat. We can make some more out of the wagon boxes. If they leak we can cover them with hides. The sawmill at the mission has some lumber. Let's knock together another boat or two. I'd rather be safe than sorry, gentlemen; and believe me, she's heavy water yonder.”
”I've never seed the Kaw so full,” a.s.serted Jackson, ”an' I've crossed her twenty times in spring flood. Do what ye like, you-all--ole Missoury's goin' to take her slow an' keerful.”
”Half of you Liberty men are a bunch of d.a.m.ned cowards!” sneered Woodhull.
There was silence. An icy voice broke it.
”I take it, that means me?” said Will Banion.
”It does mean you, if you want to take it that way,” rejoined his enemy.
”I don't believe in one or two timid men holding up a whole train.”
”Never mind about holding up the train--we're not stopping any man from crossing right now. What I have in mind now is to ask you, do you cla.s.sify me as a coward just because I counsel prudence here?”
”You're the one is holding back.”
”Answer me! Do you call that to me?”