The west-bound paused at the Missouri, as once they had paused at the
Don.

A voice arose, of some young man back among the wagons busy at his work,
paraphrasing an ante-bellum air:

_Oh, then, Susannah,
Don't you cry fer me!
I'm goin' out to Oregon,
With my banjo on my knee!_




CHAPTER II

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD


More than two thousand men, women and children waited on the Missouri
for the green fully to tinge the grasses of the prairies farther west.
The waning town of Independence had quadrupled its population in thirty
days. Boats discharged their customary western cargo at the newer
landing on the river, not far above that town; but it all was not
enough. Men of upper Missouri and lower Iowa had driven in herds of
oxen, horses, mules; but there were not enough of these. Rumors came
that a hundred wagons would take the Platte this year via the Council
Bluffs, higher up the Missouri; others would join on from St. Jo and
Leavenworth.