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Updated: June 3, 2025
He was lying on the hot earth beside the trail, his hat pulled over his face. Beverly and Bill Banney were staring dejectedly across the landscape, seeing nothing. I sat looking off toward the east, wondering what lay behind those dun bluffs in the distance. "Something is wrong back yonder," Jondo declared, making a half-circle with his hand toward the trail behind us.
"Krane, you are an invalid and a fool. You'd better ride in the wagon with me," Bill Banney urged. "Mebby I am. Don't throw it up to me, but I'm no darned coward, and I'm foot-loose. It's my job to give the address of welcome over t'other side of this Mexican settlement." The tall, thin young man slouched his cap carelessly on his head and strode away toward the river.
And behind him, as defense for the rear and protection for the van, came Esmond Clarenden and Bill Banney, with Jondo nearest the enemy, where danger was greatest. I tell it calmly, but I lived it in a blind whirl. The swift hoof-beat, the wild Indian yells, the whirl of arrows and whiz of bullets, the onrush to outrun the Mexicans who were trying to cut us off from the trail in front. Lived it!
"Bill Banney and Jondo are down in the Clarenden warehouse packing merchandise for the Santa Fé trade. Even big black Aunty Boone, getting supper in there, is still a feature of this circus. If only that slim Yankee, Rex Krane, would appear here now. Uncle Esmond tells me he is to be here soon, and if all goes well he will go with us to Santa Fé again. How about it, Mat?
Bill Banney, the big grown-up boy from Kentucky, who, out of love of adventure, had recently come to the fort, was helping Jondo with the packing of certain goods. Mat and Beverly were perched on the counter, watching all that was being done and hearing all that was said. "What's the matter, little plainsman?" Jondo cried, catching me up and setting me on the counter.
In front of the building three Conestoga wagons with stout mule teams stood ready. A fourth wagon, the Dearborn carriage of that time, filled mostly with bedding, clothing, and the few luxuries a long camping-out journey may indulge in, waited only for a team, and we would be off to the plains. Jondo and Bill Banney were busy with the last things to be done before we started.
To the heart of youth the gasolene-motor or the thrill of the air-craft to-day is no more than the Indian pony and the uncertain chance of the crude old canoe on the clear waters of the Big Blue when Kansas City was a village and the Kansas prairies were in their virgin glory. Bill Banney had come out of the Mexican War, no longer an adventure lover, but a seasoned frontiersman.
Suddenly in the monotony of the way, and the increasing calls of thirst, there came a sense of danger, the plains-old danger of the Comanche on the Cimarron Trail. Bill Banney caught it first just a faint sign of one hostile track. All the next day Jondo scouted far, coming into camp at nightfall with a grave report.
Beverly sat down white and desparingly calm Beverly, whose up-bubbling spirits nobody could repress. The others wrung their hands and cursed and groaned aloud. Only Bill Banney, the unimaginative and stern-hearted, stood motionless with set jaws and black-frowning brows. Bill, whom the plains had made hard and unfeeling. "We won't give up Gail, will we, Bill?"
Rex Krane suggested. "Not very," my uncle replied. "But in case of trouble, the top of it isn't a bad place to shoot from." "What if the other fellow gets there first?" Bill Banney inquired. "We can run from here as easily as any other place," Jondo assured us. "I haven't seen a sign of Indians yet. But we've got to be careful.
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