"They recollected a wagon-train of Oregon settlers that'd been killed by the Modocs four years before.

Roberts adopted him, and that's why I don't know his real name.

But you can bank on it, he crossed the plains just the same." "So did my father," Saxon said proudly.
"An' my mother, too," Billy added, pride touching his own voice.
"Anyway, she came pretty close to crossin' the plains, because she was born in a wagon on the River Platte on the way out." "My mother, too," said Saxon.

"She was eight years old, an' she walked most of the way after the oxen began to give out." Billy thrust out his hand.
"Put her there, kid," he said.

"We're just like old friends, what with the same kind of folks behind us." With shining eyes, Saxon extended her hand to his, and gravely they shook.
"Isn't it wonderful ?" she murmured.