The usual election before starting had made Jondo captain of the whole company.  His was the controlling type of spirit that could have bent a battalion or swayed a Congress.  For all the commanders and lawmakers of that day were not confined to the army and to Congress.  Some of them escaped to the West and became sovereigns of service there.  And Jondo had need for an intrepid spirit to rule that group of men, as that journey across the plains proved.

On the day before we left Council Grove he was sitting with the heads of the other wagon-trains under a big oak-tree, perfecting final plans for the journey.

“Gail, I want you to sign some papers here,” he said.  “It is the agreement for the trip among the three companies owning the trains.”

I read aloud the contract setting forth how one Jean Deau, representing Esmond Clarenden, of Kansas City, with Smith and Davis, representing two other companies from St. Louis, together agreed to certain conditions regarding the journey.

Smith and Davis had already signed, and as I took the pen, a white-haired old trapper who was sitting near by burst out: 

“Jean Deau!  Jean Deau!  Who the devil is Jean Deau?”

Jondo did not look up, but the lines hardened about his mouth.

“It’s a sound.  Don’t get in the way, old man.  Go ahead, Clarenden,” Smith commanded.

Few questions were asked in those days, for most men on the plains had a history, and it was what a man could do here, not what he had done somewhere else, that counted.

So I, representing Esmond Clarenden, signed the paper and the two managers hurried away.  But the old trapper sat staring at Jondo.

“Say, I’m gittin’ close to the end of the trail, and the divide ain’t fur off for me.  D’ye mind if I say somethin’?” he asked at last.

Jondo looked up with that smile that could warm any man’s heart.

“Say on,” he commanded, kindly.

“You aint never signin’ your own name nowhere, it sorter seems.”

Jondo shook his head.

“Didn’t you and this Clarenden outfit go through here ’bout ten years ago one night?  Some Mexican greasers was raisin’ hell and proppin’ it up with a whisky-bottle that night, layin’ fur you vicious.”

Jondo smiled and nodded assent.

“Well, them fellers comin’ in had a bargain with a passel of Kioways to git you plenty if they missed you themselves; to clinch their bargain they give ’em a pore little Hopi Injun girl they’d brung along with a lot of other Mexicans and squaws.”

“I had that figured out pretty well at the time,” Jondo said, with a smile.

“But, Jean Deau—­” the old man began.

“No, Jondo.  Go on.  I’m busy,” Jondo interrupted.

The old man’s watery eyes gleamed.

“I just want to say friendly-like, that them Kioways never forgot the trick you worked on ’em, an’ the tornydo that busted ’em at Pawnee Rock they laid to your bad medicine.  They went clare back to Bent’s Fort to fix you.  Them and that rovin’ bunch of Mexicans that scattered along the trail with ’em in time of the Mexican War.  They’d ‘a’ lost you but fur a little Apache cuss they struck out there who showed ’em to you.”