MAN AGAINST MAN
There were more than two thousand souls in the great caravan which
reached over miles of springy turf and fat creek lands. There were more
than a thousand children, more than a hundred babes in arm, more than
fifty marriageable maids pursued by avid swains. There were bold souls
and weak, strong teams and weak, heavy loads and light loads, neighbor
groups and coteries of kindred blood or kindred spirits.
The rank and file had reasons enough for shifting. There were a score of
Helens driving wagons--reasons in plenty for the futility of all
attempts to enforce an arbitrary rule of march. Human equations, human
elements would shake themselves down into place, willy-nilly. The great
caravan therefore was scantily less than a rabble for the first three or
four days out. The four columns were abandoned the first half day. The
loosely knit organization rolled on in a broken-crested wave, ten,
fifteen, twenty miles a day, the horse-and-mule men now at the front.
Far to the rear, heading only the cow column, came the lank men of
Liberty, trudging alongside their swaying ox teams, with many a
monotonous "Gee-whoa-haw! Git along thar, ye Buck an' Star!" So soon
they passed the fork where the road to Oregon left the trail to Santa
Fé; topped the divide that held them back from the greater valley of the
Kaw.
[Illustration: _A Paramount Picture._
_The Covered Wagon._
MOLLY COAXES SAM WOODHULL TO LET HER RIDE BANION'S HORSE.]
Noon of the fifth day brought them to the swollen flood of the latter
stream, at the crossing known as Papin's Ferry. Here the semicivilized
Indians and traders had a single rude ferryboat, a scow operated in part
by setting poles, in part by the power of the stream against a cable.
The noncommittal Indians would give no counsel as to fording. They had
ferry hire to gain. Word passed that there were other fords a few miles
higher up. A general indecision existed, and now the train began to pile
up on the south bank of the river.
Late in the afternoon the scout, Jackson, came riding back to the herd
where Banion was at work, jerking up his horse in no pleased frame of
mind.
"Will," said he, "leave the boys ride now an' come on up ahead. We need
ye."
"What's up?" demanded Banion. "Anything worse?"
"Yes. The old fool's had a row over the ferryboat. Hit'd take two weeks
to git us all over that way, anyhow. He's declared fer fordin' the hull
outfit, lock, stock an' barrel. To save a few dollars, he's a goin' to
lose a lot o' loads an' drownd a lot o' womern an' babies--that's what
he's goin' to do. Some o' us called a halt an' stood out fer a council.
We want you to come on up.
"Woodhull's there," he added. "He sides with the old man, o' course. He
rid on the same seat with that gal all day till now. Lord knows what he
done or said. Ain't hit nigh about time now, Major?"
"It's nigh about time," said Will Banion quietly.
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 inshore. 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," asserted 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 damned 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
classify 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?"
"I do answer you, and I do call it to you then!" flared Woodhull.
"I tell you, you're a liar, and you know it, Sam Woodhull! And if it
pleases your friends and mine, I'd like to have the order now made on
unfinished business."
Not all present knew what this meant, for only a few knew of the affair
at the rendezvous, the Missourians having held their counsel in the
broken and extended train, where men might travel for days and not meet.
But Woodhull knew, and sprang to his feet, hand on revolver. Banion's
hand was likewise employed at his wet saddle holster, to which he
sprang, and perhaps then one man would have been killed but for Bill
Jackson, who spurred between.
"Make one move an' I drop ye!" he called to Woodhull. "Ye've give yer
promise."
"All right then, I'll keep it," growled Woodhull.
"Ye'd better! Now listen! Do ye see that tall cottingwood tree a half
mile down--the one with the flat umbreller top, like a cypress? Ye kin?
Well, in half a hour be thar with three o' yore friends, no more. I'll
be thar with my man an' three o' his, no more, an' I'll be one o' them
three. I allow our meanin' is to see hit fa'r. An' I allow that what
has been unfinished business ain't goin' to be unfinished come sundown.
"Does this suit ye, Will?"
"It's our promise. Officers didn't usually fight that way, but you said
it must be so, and we both agreed. I agree now."
"You other folks all stay back," said Bill Jackson grimly. "This here is
a little matter that us Missourians is goin' to settle in our own way
an' in our own camp. Hit ain't none o' you-uns' business. Hit's plenty
o' ourn."
Men started to their feet over all the river front. The Indians rose,
walked down the bank covertly.
"Fight!"
The word passed quickly. It was a day of personal encounters. This was
an assemblage in large part of fighting men. But some sense of decency
led the partisans to hurry away, out of sight and hearing of the
womenfolk.
The bell-top cottonwood stood in a little space which had been a dueling
ground for thirty years. The grass was firm and even for a distance of
fifty yards in any direction, and the light at that hour favored neither
man.
For Banion, who was prompt, Jackson brought with him two men. One of
them was a planter by name of Dillon, the other none less than stout
Caleb Price, one of Wingate's chosen captains.
"I'll not see this made a thing of politics," said he. "I'm Northern,
but I like the way that young man has acted. He hasn't had a fair deal
from the officers of this train. He's going to have a fair deal now."
"We allow he will," said Dillon grimly.
He was fully armed, and so were all the seconds. For Woodhull showed the
Kentuckian, Kelsey, young Jed Wingate--the latter by Woodhull's own
urgent request--and the other train captain, Hall. So in its way the
personal quarrel of these two hotheads did in a way involve the entire
train.
"Strip yore man," commanded the tall mountaineer. "We're ready. It's go
till one hollers enough; fa'r stand up, heel an' toe, no buttin' er
gougin'. Fust man ter break them rules gits shot. Is that yore
understandin', gentlemen.
"How we get it, yes," assented Kelsey.
"See you enforce it then, fer we're a-goin' to," concluded Jackson.
He stepped back. From the opposite sides the two antagonists stepped
forward. There was no ring, there was no timekeeper, no single umpire.
There were no rounds, no duration set. It was man to man, for cause the
most ancient and most bitter of all causes--sex.