After Oakhurst initially pleads with the others to continue their travels to Sandy Bar, he “alone remained erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them” (Paragraph 9).
While other outcasts show a certain strength in their open disdain for the committee’s hypocritical tyranny, Oakhurst demonstrates his strength in his emotional restraint.
When the outcasts are dumped outside the town’s limits, Oakhurst is unreactive while the others express grievances: “Mother Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward” (Paragraph 7). Oakhurst’s equanimity emphasizes his strength as a gambling man.
