CHAPTER VII.
THE JUMP-OFF With the first thin line of pink the coyotes hanging on the flanks of the great encampment raised their immemorial salutation to the dawn.
Their clamorings were stilled by a new and sterner voice--the notes of the bugle summoning sleepers of the last night to the duties of the first day.

Down the line from watch to watch passed the Plains command, "Catch up! Catch up!" It was morning of the jump-off.
Little fires began at the wagon messes or family bivouacs.

Men, boys, barefooted girls went out into the dew-wet grass to round up the transport stock.

A vast confusion, a medley of unskilled endeavor marked the hour.

But after an hour's wait, adjusted to the situation, the next order passed down the line: "Roll out! Roll out!" And now the march to Oregon was at last begun! The first dust cut by an ox hoof was set in motion by the whip crack of a barefooted boy in jeans who had no dream that he one day would rank high in the councils of his state, at the edge of an ocean which no prairie boy ever had envisioned.
The compass finger of the trail, leading out from the timber groves, pointed into a sea of green along the valley of the Kaw.