Over his shoulder he could see Max's loose grin and the Burnsides' glowering faces.
"Honey", he whispered.
"Soon as we send them on their way and make camp, let's you and me go for a walk down by the Snake -- all by ourselves".

"Sally", admonished her mother, "you've got all evening to visit with Dan.
His wounds need dressing now".

Mrs. Jackson's words recalled Dan to his lack of fitness for courting.
What a spectacle he was, caked with dirt and sweat and blood, filthy as a pig and naked as an Indian, kissing the finest, the sweetest, the bravest, and absolutely the prettiest girl in this whole wonderful world.
He released her reluctantly for her enthusiastic reunion with Old Hap.
"Got a lot to tend to, but I'll get back quick as I can", he assured her.

Dan could hear Clayton Burnside and Eben Jackson summing up their final reckoning for rental on the oxen.
Jackson was doing most of the talking.
So long as Sally's pa was coming out best on the haggle, Dan didn't feel the need of putting in his two-bits' worth.

Soon as the Burnsides moved on, he'd lead Rex down by the river;
there he could shave and scrub himself up for the evening.
Damn it, he thought bitterly, picking up his shirt and staring at the fresh bullet hole in the sleeve.
If I hadn't got Nate stopped when I did, my duds'd all be shot plumb to hell!

He stooped, picked up his ruined hat, and pursed his lips thoughtfully.
From the way the wound in his head was itching, Dan knew that it would heal.
But his only hat was something else again.
"Nate!
Nate"!
He shouted.

The Burnsides, now ready to roll, were purposefully deaf to his cry.

"Nate"!
He bellowed to the retreating back directly in front of him.

"I ain't going to fight you no more".
Nate turned his head, attempting to speak in a soothing voice.

"I know you ain't"!
Dan affirmed, feeling ten feet tall.
He moved in close, jerked the handsome, broad-brimmed beaver hat from Nate's head and clamped it on his own.
"Here's a present for you", he said, shoving his bullet-riddled hat down over Nate's purpling forehead.
"Me and you's trading hats so's you'll have something permanent to remember me by"!

Sally left her choring to stand beside Dan.
Slipping her hand in his, they silently watched the Burnsides make the bend in the road and disappear from sight.
Much as they had to look forward to, they didn't begrudge a moment of the time they spent seeing them go.

At first Matilda could not believe her own eyes.
She had spent too many hours looking ahead, hoping and longing to catch even a glimpse of Dan and finding nothing but emptiness.
And now she could see him, looking uncommon handsome, standing there beside Sally Jackson and her folks in front of their trail-worn wagon.

Seeing them waiting there at the foot of Emigrant Rock was so overwhelming that, for a good minute after they rounded the bend and started down the grade leading toward them, Matilda could not speak at all.
Then, with a glory that almost wiped out the deep, downward sags in her careworn face, Matilda leaned over the wheel and shouted to Hez, who was stumbling along in the heat and the dust on the opposite side of the wagon "Pa!
Pa!
I can see Dan.
And he's with the Jacksons"!

"What about Burnsides"?
Hez asked, who still believed they'd have them to lick.

"They ain't even in sight"!
She replied.

By then Hez could see for himself, and so could the others.
Soon they were all shouting greetings, exchanging smiles, and rejoicing to think that they were all back together again.
But even a reunion as joyous as this one did not make a break in the routines of the day.
Nor could they stop and find out about all that had happened until they made circle, tended the cattle, tethered the horses, gathered fuel, carried water, and started their cooking fires.
Then, and only then, with the Jacksons and Dan as their true guests of honor, did the Harrows take time to catch up on the news.
No sooner did they hear of Dan's injury than both Gran and Matilda went into immediate action.
The wound in his scalp was examined, pronounced healing, and well doctored with simples, before they dished up the victuals.
From then on, in keeping with the traditions they had followed since childhood, the whole group settled down to relish their food.
Even Sally, in spite of her gaiety and obvious welcome, followed the old taboo of "quitting the gab when wearing the nosebag".

After their supper, the evening turned into a regular "Hoe-Down".
Only, they carefully substituted old country folk dances for the Virginia Reels and square dances that were so popular among more worldly trains in the great westward migration.
But with Bill O'Connor on the fiddle, and Gran Harrow exuberantly shouting "Glory Be" and "Hallelujah" above their united chant of the lilting old ballads, they played their quaint folk games with all the fervor and abandon of a real celebration.

"Golly", Rod exclaimed to Harmony as he dutifully stood by her side among the ringed spectators, "don't that fiddle make you wish the Bible didn't say us Baptists can't dance"?

"Nor Methodists, neither", she replied.
"Not that it matters to me, being this far along".

Rod gave her a warm pat on the shoulder before he replied.
"Come spring, you'll be kicking up your heels and feeling coltish again too, gal".

At these words of sympathy and understanding, Harmony said generously, "I don't mind setting here along with Gran while you go out and join in the games".

Rod shifted his eager eyes from the milling group out in the circle long enough to reply, "I ain't much of a hand for Dare-Base and Farmer-in-the-Dell, but I'd sure like to get in on the handhold and wrestles".
He looked down at his big hands and slowly flexed his long fingers.
"Don't reckon there's nobody out there, 'cept maybe Dan, who can outgrip me, Harmony".

With Rod on his way and Matilda visiting with Mrs. Jackson while they searched out familiar names on the face of the cliff, Harmony settled on the edge of the grub box, to ease the pressure of her swollen body on her bone-weary legs, and worried about all that might have happened to Sally.
And she was deeply thankful that she could see her now, out there in the midst of a gay, youthful circle, skipping and singing, "Farmer in the dell, Farmer in the dell, Heigh-ho the dairy-oh, the farmer in the dell".

At the sight of Sally's happy face and carefree expression, Harmony's dark, brooding eyes quickly brightened with unshed tears.
She was glad, completely and unselfishly glad, to see that things were working out the right way for both Sally and Dan.
And she really tried to go a step further and say she hoped they'd be just as right as they now were for her and for Rod.
But she couldn't, not yet.
Not with the memory of her folks and the lost Conestoga still holding her close.

Out in the center of the circle the farmer, who was Dan, wasted no time when they came to the line, "The farmer choose his wife".
With a swift swoop of his big arms, he grabbed Sally out of the circle surrounding him, and then kissed her soundly before setting her down so she could stand by his side while they jointly chose the rest of their "outfit".
Soon the child, the dog, the cat and even the cheese, all joined them out there in the circle.

By now Harmony could see that most of the adults in the train were winded and resting, or else siphoned off from the games by the challenging lure of the great cliff towering above them.
No matter how many registry rocks they came to on this journey, each one exerted its own appeal.
Even strange names seemed to make them feel closer to some kind of civilization when stumbled across out here in this wilderness.
Already a few hardy folk from their own train were zealously chipping away at the register rocks, leaving their own records along with those made by the earlier trains.
Soon she saw Rod and Hez moving over to join them.

No sooner were they through and the guards posted, than the whole camp turned in for a night of sound sleep.
For Matilda, it was the first she had known in many a night.
Even the knowledge that she was losing another boy, as a mother always does when a marriage is made, did not prevent her from having the first carefree, dreamless sleep that she had known since they dropped down the canyon and into Bear Valley, way, way back there when they were crossing those other mountains.

Next morning, they moved on again.

"My souls' a-gracious"!
Gran Harrow exclaimed, watching their rippling muscles as Rod and Dan swung her up into the load.
"A body would swear I floated right up here on a cloud"!

Rod and Dan released their holds on the arms of her hickory rocker and exchanged embarrassed grins.
"Shucks, Gran", they said almost in unison.
"That wasn't nothing at all"!

Leaning forward in her chair, Gran nearsightedly scrutinized Dan's face.
"How's Sally like rubbin' agin that thar little ticklebrush ye're a-raising"?

"Quit ragging him, Gran", Rod protested.

"I ain't ragging him"!
Gran peered again at the week-old blond mustache shadowing Dan's upper lip.
"But honest-to-Betsy, I've seed more hair than that on a piece o' bacon".

The two tall brothers waited silently while their mother handed Gran her cold snack and water jug, placed the chamber pot beside her feet, and returned to her place at the front of the wagon with Alice.

"Rheumatics worse, Pa"?
Dan asked Hez, who had limped back from his team to hold the notched-stick chair braces in place while his boys swung up the tailgate and tied it tight at the ends.

"My right leg's stiff as a board this morning", he replied.
"But the sun'll fry it out'n me onct we git to rolling".

The three men stepped out to the side to wait for Captain Clemens' signal.

Hez looked up at the high face of Emigrant Rock, official signboard for the Raft River turnoff, and gloated, "Seems funny that them Burnsides never took time to leave their John-Henry up thar".

"Wonder what made them hurry so", Rod drawled, giving Dan a sly wink.

Dan grinned, and changed the subject.
"From now on, Sally and me and her folks aim to give you our turn when it comes up and fall in behind you and Rod's outfit".

"Ain't no sense you eating our dust", Rod protested.

"Sally and her ma want to trade off on account of Harmony being so far along", Dan explained.
"Jackson recruited his critters, and him and me fixed up his wagon while we was waiting for you to catch up.
He's got the tightest running gear in the train now.
Besides, 'tain't no more'n right for me to follow with my black oxen, so's I can unhook and pull up fast if either of you get in a pinch".

Captain Clemens' signal shot sent the men hurrying to their waiting teams.

"Reckon ye're right, Dan", Hez called back over his shoulder.
"I'll shore be needing ye both on the pull out o' the canyon".

Rod looked apprehensively ahead at the narrowing, precipice-walled gorge.
"We'll double teams zigzagging up the mountain, Harmony", he spoke reassuringly, concerned by the pinched look around her mouth.
"Like enough we'll all be up on top by sundown".

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his father's wheels beginning to turn.

Before Harmony had a chance to reply, Rod cracked his long whip over his thin oxen's backs.