Price nodded, anxiously regarding the laboring advance of the last wagons.

“Too light,” said he.  “I started with a ton and a half on the National Pike across Ohio and Indiana.  I doubt if we average five hundred now.  They ford light.”

“Look!” he cried suddenly, and pointed.

They all ran to the brink.  The horsemen were trying to stay the drift of the line of cattle.  They had worked low and missed footing.  Many were swimming—­the wagons were afloat!

The tired lead cattle had not been able to withstand the pressure of the heavy water a second time.  They were off the ford!

But the riders from the shore, led by Jim Bridger, got to them, caught a rope around a horn, dragged them into line, dragged the whole gaunt team to the edge and saved the day for the lead wagon.  The others caught and held their footing, labored through.

But a shout arose.  Persons ran down the bank, pointing.  A hundred yards below the ford, in the full current of the Snake, the lean head of Kelsey’s mare was flat, swimming hard and steadily, being swept downstream in a current which swung off shore below the ford.

“He’s all right!” called Jed, wet to the neck, sitting his own wet mount, safe ashore at last.  “He’s swimming too.  They’ll make it, sure!  Come on!”

He started off at a gallop downstream along the shore, his eyes fixed on the two black objects, now steadily losing distance out beyond.  But old Jim Bridger put his hands across his eyes and turned away his face.  He knew!

It was now plain to all that yonder a gallant man and a gallant horse were making a fight for life.  The grim river had them in its grip at last.

In a moment the tremendous power of the heavy water had swept Kelsey and his horse far below the ford.  The current there was swifter, noisier, as though exultant in the success of the scheme the river all along had proposed.

As to the victims, the tragic struggle went on in silence.  If the man called, no one could hear him above the rush and roar of the waters.  None long had any hope as they saw the white rollers bury the two heads, of the horse and the man, while the set of the current steadily carried them away from the shore.  It was only a miracle that the two bobbing black dots again and again came into view.

They could see the mare’s muzzle flat, extended toward the shore; back of it, upstream, the head of the man.  Whichever brain had decided, it was evident that the animal was staking life to reach the shore from which it had been swept away.

Far out in midstream some conformation of the bottom turned the current once more in a long slant shoreward.  A murmur, a sob of hundreds of observers packed along the shore broke out as the two dots came closer, far below.  More than a quarter of a mile downstream a sand point made out, offering a sort of beach where for some space a landing might be made.  Could the gallant mare make this point?  Men clenched their hands.  Women began to sob, to moan gently.