"God rest ye merry, gentlemen,Let nothing ye dismay—"
"God rest ye merry, gentlemen,Let nothing ye dismay—"
Joe joined in the centuries-old hymn, then Barbara and Ellis, and the children. Jim Snedeker retreated to the background. He took his hat off and stood silently, and in that moment he revealed completely the man within his hard outer shell. Emma led the next carol,
"The first Noel the angels did say,Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;"
"The first Noel the angels did say,Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;"
Outside, the wind howled louder, and the coyote yelled again. But they seemed strange and far-off noises that had no relation whatever with the cabin or with those inside it. The spirit of the season was theirs, and they were one with Him who had died for them. The last notes of the last carol still trembled in the cabin when Emma smiled graciously,
"Jim, you and Ellis are to have dinner with us tomorrow. There'll be pumpkin pie and roast antelope."
"Wait a bit, ma'am," Snedeker protested. "Did you say antelope?"
"Yes, Jim."
"Reckon not," Snedeker decided. "You just wait a bit. Don't leave your hosses gallop away an' I'll be back."
He put his new hat tenderly on his head and left the cabin. Presently he was back, with a huge smoked ham dangling from his right hand. It was one Snedeker had been hoarding for his own use, and the last ham at the post, but he gave it freely.
"Better Christmas dinner than antelope," he affirmed.
Emma's eyes shone with her pleasure at the prospect of a traditional Christmas feast. "Oh! Thank you, Jim!"
"Welcome, ma'am! Plain welcome! I ain't had a Christmas like this sinst I was eight years old. Well, I'll be shaggin' along. Comin', Ellis?"
"Soon."
Ellis lingered until the children were in bed, then bade a reluctant good night and prepared to leave. Emma got her coat.
"Would you mind walking me to the store, Ellis? I do need a bit of sugar."
"I'll be happy to, Mrs. Tower."
"Let me—" Joe began.
Emma said quickly, "No, you stay here, Joe. I'll get it."
Ellis held the door for her and they stepped into the brisk night. Emma waited for him to join her.
"Brr! Isn't it cold?"
"It certainly is."
She sensed his uncertainty, his embarrassment, and did her best to put him at ease.
"Come. Walk beside me."
She slipped her hand through his arm and drew him a bit closer.
"You're a tall young man, Ellis. Your mother must be very proud of you."
There was wistfulness in this voice, "I haven't any mother. She died when I was eight."
"Oh." Emma's sympathy was immediate and sincere. "I'm sorry! Do you remember very much about her."
He said simply, "I'll never forget her. We lived in Baltimore."
"Was it nice there?"
His voice was dreamy. "While my mother was alive, we had a big house and there was always fun. But she went, and then my father died when I was twelve and—"
He paused suddenly and turned to look shrewdly at her. "Any more questions, Mrs. Tower?"
In the darkness, Emma blushed. But she carried on determinedly. "You've expressed a desire to marry Barbara," she said frankly, "and you want to take her on an overnight trip to Laramie. Naturally, I intend to find out a great deal more about you, Ellis."
"Very well!" he said, angry now. "Here are some facts." He began speaking rapidly and distinctly, shooting out the facts as though he were making a legal report. "When my father died my Uncle George was the executor. There was always enough money, but Uncle George and I didn't get along. He wanted me to go into his bank. I didn't care for that. For a year I went to Columbian College—that's in Washington, Mrs. Tower, and then...."
He broke off sharply, and there was a long moment of silence. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and ashamed. "Forgive me, Mrs. Tower. You've a right to know everything about me that you want to know. You've already found out one bad thing about me—I have a quick temper and an unpleasant one. I want to apologize."
"That's all right, Ellis," Emma said serenely. "Let's go on from here. You were at college in Washington, you say?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said humbly. "I met a girl in Washington, Mary Harkness. I was in love with her. When Mary's folks decided to come west, there seemed to be nothing left for me in the east. I came along. It seemed the right thing to do. I had enough money to buy a horse and everything else I needed."
"What happened, Ellis?" Emma whispered.
"When we got to Laramie, Mary married a man named Jeremy Blake. They went on together."
Emma's voice was very gentle. "Did it hurt?"
"I wished I could die."
Emma said, "You must understand that not all women are good, Ellis, any more than all men are. After enticing you to come along, and then marrying someone else—"
"I haven't made myself clear, Mrs. Tower. She did not entice me to come along; I came of my own free will and entirely because I wanted to. Nor was Mary in any sense of the word bad or deceitful. She is fine, loyal, and good. She simply didn't want me."
Emma's heart beat happily. Ellis had chased a woman all the way from Maryland, Jim Snedeker had said. Now Emma knew the story. She asked,
"What did you do then, Ellis?"
There was a faint trace of remembered bitterness in his voice. "I went to work for Jim. I knew there would be nothing for me at his post, but the way I felt then there seemed to be nothing for me anywhere. I just worked along, without much hope or any plan at all. Then you brought Barbara."
"And she means much to you?"
He said firmly, "I'm grateful Mary made the choice she did."
She took his arm. "Come along, I must get my sugar." She stopped at the entrance to the store. "Oh, Ellis. One more thing. About that New Year's dance at Fort Laramie. I want you to know that I think it's a splendid idea."
"You do!"
"Certainly. Young people should enjoy themselves, and Barbara will be perfectly all right with Ynez Driscoll." She was rewarded with a smile of the purest gratitude and delight.
Emma bought a pound of sugar, which she really had not needed, and went back to the cabin. Contentedly she slept beside Joe, and was still drowsy when he awakened. She knew when Joe got out of bed to start both fires, then crawled back in to wait until the cabin warmed. She heard the children giggling in their beds.
They breakfasted, and Emma and Barbara began to prepare the Christmas dinner. Except that they would have had turkey instead of ham, everything would have been exactly this way back in Missouri. But so long had they been out, living from what they had in the wagon and building fires under every possible condition, and so much longer had they been at Snedeker's, eating wild meat and stretching other foods as far as possible in order to save money, that this seemed to be scaling the utmost heights of luxury. They baked the ham and pies, and Emma opened three jars of string beans that had also been saved for this occasion. There were no potatoes. But there was feathery-light bread and butter.
It was a memorable Christmas dinner, one that was never forgotten by any of the older people who partook of it. Emma had brought spices for the ham, and Joe carved and served pink slices of the steaming delicacy. When everybody had eaten as much as they could, there was still a full third of the ham left. But Emma's three pumpkin pies had been eaten to the last crumb.
Tad went out to test his hatchet, and after the dishes were washed Barbara and Ellis took a walk in the snow. Emma and Joe watched the young couple as they left. Emma had told her husband of her talk with Ellis. His response had been an uneasy one.
"He's mighty hasty, seems to me."
"Mighty young, too," she had reminded him.
Still enthralled with their presents, the youngsters played busily. Snedeker took a blackened pipe from his pocket, filled it with vile-smelling tobacco, and offered the tobacco pouch to Joe.
"Smoke?"
"No thanks. I never got the habit."
"Lordy, lordy. No smokin'. No drinkin'. What do you do, Joe?"
"I like to hunt and fish."
"Of both you'll find a heap in Oregon," Snedeker assured him. "Though 'tain't an' never will be like 'twas. I remember—"
Joe and Emma listened while he spoke of the west that used to be. He spoke of Blackfeet, Sioux, Pawnees, and of battles with them. He created word pictures of virgin creeks which, until the Mountain Men came, had known no white man's tracks. There were so many buffalo that the plains were black with them and the thunder of their hoofs drowned even a shrieking wind. Snedeker told of vast herds of deer, elk, and antelope. He told of colorful camps and rendezvous.
"I seen it all," he continued, "and 'tain't so many years it took to see it. The like will never be again. The west is growin' up. Buffalo hides have took the place of beaver. Emmy-grants, crazy for land, are pourin' in like a falls off a mountain. Mebbe, when you come to think of it, that's right too. The west was made for people, not buffalo. Do you know they's even crazy talk of a railroad an' wire line clean across the kentry? Yep. Five minutes after somebody in New York says it, somebody in San Francisco will know what he said. I misbelieve that'll ever be; don't see how it can be. But when the buffalo go, an' they's sure to go, they'll be lots of things. All the gold they found in Californy won't be a acorn's wuth to what will be found. I don't mean gold, nuther. They's ore beds in the west for the whole kentry ten times over. They's farm land thick with wild grass, an' that'll grow crops jest as good. They's a galore of timber, enough to make all the cities an' towns what'll ever need be made. The emmy-grants who've gone ain't made a dent in the west. Some day Oregon alone will have twicet as many emmy-grants as have been over the Trail in the past ten years, an' they'll be room for 'em. They'll be cities on the west coast to shade anything what's on the east." He became wistful. "The west will be tamed, but I'm right glad I ain't goin' to live to see it all tamed. I wouldn't like that a'tall."
That night Joe went happily to bed, for Snedeker's discourse had been a great comfort to him. He had left Missouri because he needed room and opportunity for his children, and he was getting into the west while there was still plenty of both. When the millions came, providing they came at all in his time, he would be too old to care and the children would be young enough to adjust.
Rising in a cloudless sky, next morning's sun brought little warmth. Overnight the weather had turned very cold, so that a thick glazing of frost lay on the windows. Since there was a great pile of logs at the building site, and no special hurry about getting any more, today Joe and Ellis were to see if they could find some buffalo. By all means they were to bring in something, for meat stocks at the post were low. If they couldn't find buffalo, they were to try for elk or deer. Should they discover a herd of buffalo, they were to shoot as many as possible. Though there was a limit to the meat that could be used, Snedeker could hire squaws to cure the hides. There was a steady market for buffalo robes in the east, but it was not necessary to send them east in order to realize a good profit. Oregon-bound emigrants would pay four dollars each for buffalo robes right at the post.
Ellis rode his horse, Joe mounted the mare mule, and each man carried a rifle. Without speaking they mounted the ridge behind the post and went into pine forest. A deer flitted among the trees and Joe raised his rifle. But the deer was gone before he could get a shot.
"Let's try for buffalo first," Ellis suggested. "We can always pick up something else if we don't find any."
"All right with me. Have you hunted buffalo?"
"Yes. There are meadows back here where we'll find them if there are any around. They stay there because of good grass and it's out of the wind. If we find a herd, take those on the outside first."
A little while later Ellis held up his hand because it would be unwise to speak, dismounted, and tied his horse to a tree. Joe slid off the mule and tied her. He followed Ellis through the pines and looked down on an open meadow.
Sixteen buffaloes moved sluggishly about while they scraped for grass with ponderous hoofs. Ellis Garner's rifle came up as easily as though it were an extension of his own arm. He sighed, shot, and a buffalo dropped heavily. Ellis indicated another cow that stood on the fringe of the herd and reloaded.
They shot six before the rest scented blood and pounded clumsily away in a cloud of flying snow. Ellis watched the fleeing herd until it was out of sight. Joe warmed to him. Whatever Ellis might be, he was no deliberate killer. He had shot buffalo because it was part of his job, not because he loved to shoot. Joe suspected that a flying buck or lurking elk would have been game much more to his liking.
Ellis asked, "Want to bring a sled up while I skin these? If we both leave, they'll be nothing but wolf bait."
"I'll help you."
"It's no job. You just slit them up the belly and around the legs, cut a slot for a rope, and let your horse pull the skin off. I'll be done by the time you're back."
Joe said, "Tad shot a buffalo on the way to Laramie and it took us a long while to skin it. Where'd you learn this trick?"
"Jim taught me."
Joe rode the mare mule back to the post, harnessed the team and hitched them to one of Snedeker's bobsleds. He followed the tracks they'd made going in and saw the six buffalo carcasses, rawly naked already freezing. Ellis was walking about, beating his hands together to warm them.
"Better take some of the humps," he said. "It's one of the best parts."
Joe scratched his head. "I heard that too, but I couldn't even cut it out."
"I'll show you."
There was a ridge of bone over the hump, but it did not go clear through. Ellis inserted his knife, cut deftly, and lifted out a three-pound chunk of meat. Under Ellis's direction, Joe did the next one. They took the humps, the livers, half a dozen hind quarters, the loins and the tongues, and laid them on the fresh hides.
While they loaded the meat on the bobsleds, Joe was silent, preoccupied by his confused feelings about Ellis. The young man was undoubtedly a hard worker when he wanted to be, and he was friendly and respectful—when he wanted to be. But always Ellis gave you the feeling he was going to do exactly what he wanted, and if that thing happened to be unfriendly, why that was the time for a person to watch out. He had an impulsive way of speaking and acting. Ten to one he'd tell you just what he thought about something, even if the telling might cause some folks real embarrassment. That was honesty, of a kind, but it could be cruelty, too, and Joe wasn't exactly sure which it was in the case of Ellis. As for Barbara, Ellis seemed smitten, sure enough, but would he be respectful and take good care of her on the jaunt to Laramie? Emma seemed confident, but Joe was deeply uncertain, and the uncertainty made him grim and silent as they loaded the last of the meat.
The next day they cut wood, and Joe glanced questioningly at the sky. The sun still shone, but there was something in the air that Joe could not analyze. It was a faint but startling thing, like the sudden rustle of a leaf when there is no wind, and it seemed to grow stronger as day followed day. But there was only an uneasy feeling and nothing tangible to furnish evidence that something grim and terrible did lurk behind the sun.
On the last day of the year, the rest of the Towers watched Ellis, riding his horse, and Barbara, mounted on one of Snedeker's with her dancing dress carried in a pack behind the saddle, start down the Trail for the New Year's dance at Laramie.
When Barbara Tower mounted Snedeker's blaze-faced brown horse, she was a little afraid. All her life she had been accustomed to farm animals of various kinds, and she had an inborn understanding of them as well as deep sympathy for them. But her riding had been confined to the placid farm horses of Missouri, and now she felt this high-strung creature quivering beneath her and eager to go. Holding the horse in, she bent down as though to examine the length of her stirrup.
She was not afraid of the horse, but she trembled lest she do something wrong while Ellis was watching. Expertly, he wheeled his horse and came to her side.
"Shall I shorten the stirrups?"
"No, I was just looking. I think they're about right."
She warmed to this young man who thought it his place to offer her small courtesies. Except for Hugo Gearey, all the other young men she'd ever known would have waited while she herself did whatever was necessary. Experimentally, she reined the horse about and he responded at once. That restored her confidence. The horse was spirited but he was thoroughly broken and without being forced he would heed the wishes of his rider. She fell in behind Ellis and they walked their horses out to the Trail. They turned to wave good-by to Barbara's watching family, and the Towers waved back.
The weather was crisp and cold, with a steady north wind that crimsoned both young people's cheeks. But they were not cold because they were dressed for the weather—Barbara wore her heavy brown coat, cut down trousers, and had a wool scarf over her head—they were young, and the prospect of an exciting dance provided its own spiritual warmth.
At least once a week and sometimes oftener, cavalry patrols had been down the Trail. The patrols always stopped at Snedeker's, but they were always commanded by some non-commissioned officer with a strong sense of duty and a stronger realization of what would happen if he was in any way derelict in that duty. Therefore, much to the chagrin of the young privates who made up the body of the patrol, and who wanted to stay near Barbara, they never stopped for very long. However, because of them the Trail was packed, and Ellis dropped back to ride beside Barbara.
He wore a buffalo-skin coat, heavy trousers, and loose moccasins over two pairs of wool socks. Behind his saddle was a parcel with necessary toilet articles and a change of clothing, and Barbara had noted that too. The men of Missouri went to dances and parties in their work clothing, and civilians who attended dances at Fort Laramie seldom bothered to change greasy buckskins or whatever else they were wearing. But Ellis was going to make himself presentable and she knew he was doing it for her.
Many things about Ellis appealed to her, yet when she asked herself how she felt about marrying him, no answer came to mind. Actually, although they had been together a great deal, they had not talked very much and she knew relatively little about him. He seemed outspoken enough with her mother and her father, but when he was alone with Barbara he tended to become tongue-tied. And since she herself had trouble with words in his presence, their conversations were usually halting and uninformative.
She could not help thinking, from time to time, of Hugo Gearey's witty and fascinating talk, of the hours when he had regaled her with countless stories and anecdotes. She remembered, too, although she brushed the thought angrily aside, the feeling of his arms about her, of his lips on her lips. He was a horrid person, but she could not deny that he had remained in her mind, and his poise and charm, deceptive though they were, made Ellis's long awkward silences more disturbing than they otherwise would be. On the other hand, when Ellis looked at her with his whole heart in his eyes she tingled. She was woman enough to be thrilled by his devotion, even though she wasn't at all sure of her own feelings toward him.
Ellis's Kentucky thoroughbred, a sleek and powerful animal, kept its head high and ears forward as it looked interestedly at everything on both sides of the Trail. Though he was not boastful, Ellis could not conceal the pride he took in his horse and occasionally Barbara wondered whether he would ever take that much pride in anything else. The wool cap she had knitted for him was pulled down over the left side of his face to shield his cheek from the wind, and he turned toward her.
"How do you like it?" he asked.
It was meant to be a gay and informal question, but somehow it was stilted and formal. Barbara tried to respond gaily and for the moment could not.
"This is fine!"
She smiled, and when he smiled back she could not help thinking that he had a warm and nice smile. Yet she felt restrained, and could not understand her feeling. When Ellis asked her to go to the dance, it had seemed a wonderful adventure and she had gone to bed each night hoping that he would get her father's and mother's permission. Now that they were actually on the Trail and started toward Laramie, she had misgivings. She had gone out with young men before, but never for overnight, and she wondered suddenly what her friends back in Missouri would say if they could know. The thought should not disturb her but it did. For the moment the young man beside her was almost a stranger, and she thought that she had been ill-advised to go with him at all.
She shifted her hands, and when she did so the rein brushed her mount's neck and he turned half around. Barbara knew a sudden rush of embarrassment. She had been holding the reins too loosely, and not paying enough attention to what she was doing. As a consequence she had blundered, and in Ellis's eyes she must be less than perfect. But when she turned to explain her error, he was looking the other way. Barbara began to relax.
A coyote flashed out of a copse of brush and raced down the Trail. With a spontaneous whoop that startled her momentarily, Ellis was after it. Barbara reined her horse to a slow walk and watched, her eyes shining. Ellis rode his big horse as though he were a part of it, with every move of horse and rider perfectly coordinated. She watched the coyote outdistance him. Laughing, he came back. Barbara laughed, too, and suddenly it seemed that all the ice between them had melted.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you that a horse can't outrun a coyote?"
"King could. I was holding him back. Didn't want to frighten the poor little coyote to death."
They laughed wildly, as though at some huge joke, and the horses bobbed happy heads as they went down the Trail at a fast walk. Ellis turned to watch six elk disappearing into a pine thicket. Barbara stole a covert glance at his profile.
She'd given Ellis a great deal of thought. Certainly she wanted to get married. But there should be more to marriage than the simple act of a man and woman exchanging vows and living together. Her own parents' marriage was far different, she reflected, than other marriages she had seen among their neighbors in Missouri. Her parents had a special kind of feeling for each other that was much more than physical, more even than their satisfaction in sharing their home and their children. They laughed together and they worried together, and one could be happy for no reason except the other had enjoyed himself, the way Emma was happy when Joe would come back refreshed from an evening at Tenney's store. It was a kind of blending and merging, with each one willing and eager to give up his own private world in order to build a sort of combination world. She couldn't quite get it into words, but it did seem like a real melting and fusing of two destinies into one destiny. Barbara herself had never met any man who made her feel like blending and merging her life that way, and she wondered whether something might be lacking in her.
Barbara remembered vividly the night Ellis proposed to her. When they'd first arrived at Snedeker's, she had heard Jim Snedeker refer to Ellis as a woman chaser and she had thought little about that or about Ellis. Most of the boys she knew chased girls. But as day followed day, unaccountably she had found herself watching for Ellis. Working in the cabin, she would glance out the window to see if he was around. When he asked her to go walking with him, she was happy to go.
They were strolling on a dark, moonless night when—and she still did not know how it happened—she was in his arms and his lips were on hers. Ellis's embrace was not like Hugo Gearey's and his lips had a different meaning in them. She could yield to this kiss and still feel safe, and somehow deeply stirred in a new way, a mysterious way. Barbara felt her knees tingle, and her body went strangely limp. A thousand times since, in memory, she had heard his whispered,
"I love you, Bobby! Will you marry me?"
And her reply. "I—I don't know, Ellis."
For a few days after that she had avoided him and secretly had been a little afraid of him. But she had always gone back because there was something about him that drew her back.
Now, as she studied his profile, she knew that her answer was the only one she could have given. She hadn't known and she still didn't know. Ellis turned suddenly and Barbara glanced quickly away.
"Race you!" he said.
"Oh, Ellis—"
"Come on!"
He touched his knees to his horse and Barbara accepted the challenge. Side by side they thundered down the Trail, and Barbara let the reins slacken while, with an almost fierce will, she urged her horse on. She wanted to win. But she could not win. Her mount was good, but Ellis's was better. He drew ahead, widened the gap between them, and as soon as he was ten yards in the lead he stopped and turned to grin.
"I win!"
"You should, with that horse."
Ellis said, and Barbara had an easy feeling that her father would have said it in almost the same way, "He's as good as there is. It's the sort of horse a man should have. Want to ride him?"
"I'd love to!"
They changed mounts, Ellis holding hers even while he shortened the stirrups for her. Barbara felt the huge horse beneath her and knew a sudden wild thrill. She had heard of the delights of horsemanship, but until now she had never really tasted them. The horse stood still but, standing, he communicated his surging, latent power to his rider. Barbara had a giddy feeling that, if she let him run and did not restrain him, he could run clear to the end of the world. The horse turned its head to look at her with gentle eyes, but he responded at once when she wanted him to. His gait was so soft and easy that Barbara had a strange sense of floating, and she had not ridden a hundred yards before she knew that this horse was hers completely, and that he would do whatever she wanted him to do. She turned a teasing face to Ellis.
"Let's race now!"
They were off again, Barbara little more than a feather's weight in the saddle while the horse seemed to develop an eagle's wings. It was purest joy, unmarred delight, but when Barbara thought she had left Ellis far in the rear and looked around, he was almost at her heels. She had the better horse, but he was the better rider. Barbara reined her horse to a walk.
"I win!"
"You'll win anything with King. How do you like him?"
"He's wonderful!"
"He certainly is."
Again they rode side by side, all softness gone and easy intimacy reigning.
Ellis passed her a slip of paper. "Your dance card."
She unfolded the paper and read, "First dance, Ellis. Second dance, Ellis. Third dance, Ellis. Fourth dance—" There were twenty dances, with Ellis as her partner for every one. She looked at him in mock indignation.
"I'm supposed to fill my dance card!"
He grinned. "No harm in hinting, is there?"
"You're impossible!"
"I've always been."
They laughed again, and the horses pricked their ears forward. Following their intent gaze, the pair saw a cavalry patrol come around a hill and, when they drew nearer, Sergeant Dunbar greeted them. Barbara warmed at the sight of her old friend.
"Hello!"
"Hello!" they called in unison.
The patrol reined in, the six privates who accompanied Dunbar gloomy and sullen because they would miss the New Year's festivities at Laramie. For the moment, Barbara recognized no familiar face among them.
Dunbar's eyes twinkled as he glanced from Barbara to Ellis.
"Going to Laramie?" he asked.
"Um-hum," Barbara said happily. "We're going to the dance there."
Dunbar barked, "Jankoski and Gearey, stay in line!"
Barbara found herself face to face with Hugo Gearey. At sight of him her heart lurched.
He removed his hat and bowed. Then, turning to Dunbar he said, with strict military formality, "Sergeant Dunbar, may I have five minutes alone with Miss Tower? I have an important message for her."
Dunbar scowled. "Barbara, is it your wish to talk with Private Gearey for five minutes?"
Barbara was torn. She knew that Gearey was not to be trusted, yet with all these men around to protect her—and if he did have a message—
She replied primly, "Five minutes should be ample."
Gearey behind her, Barbara rode on down the path until they were out of earshot but still in full view of the others.
Then she turned to him. "Well?"
He chewed his lip. "Can't we get out of sight of those blasted—"
"Your message?" she interrupted.
He saw that she would not be swayed. He drew a deep breath. "Barbara—I never got to see you again, to apologize for the ugly way I behaved that night. I want you to know that I have the deepest regard, the deepest respect for you. I hope you'll give me an opportunity to prove this. May I see you—soon?"
His voice was deep and warm. He seemed so terribly in earnest. Could it be that she had misjudged him? She wavered, and he saw that he had gained ground.
"I won't urge you now," he said humbly. "But I'll come down to Snedeker's when this patrol is over, and—" He dropped his voice until it was little more than a vibrant whisper, "You will see me, Barbara? Just for an hour?"
Again she hesitated, some inner devil prompting, "You are not promised to Ellis. Why not see him—just for an hour?" She tossed her head and said, with an effort at indifference, "Possibly. I don't promise." Then she reined her horse around and galloped back to the others.
Ellis watched her coming with burning eyes, and he glared murderously at Gearey. Hugo's face was noncommittal and entirely friendly as he took his place in line. The meeting had been, for Hugo, a great piece of luck.
Barbara saw that Ellis was on the verge of an outburst, but she felt he had no right to one, and she would not placate him. She averted her gaze to look at Dunbar. He asked, "Your family is at Snedeker's, eh?"
"That's right," Barbara smiled, "and they'll love to see you."
"Can't stop on the way down," he said regretfully, "but we'll surely do it on the way back. How are the youngsters?"
"They've missed you."
A happy smile lighted Dunbar's face and he said to Ellis, "Take good care of this young lady."
"I will," Ellis assured him. His eyes swept Gearey once more, and again Barbara saw that there was something explosive in Ellis, something a girl ought to worry about.
They went on, walking their horses most of the time but trotting them occasionally. Clouds spanned the sky and the sun disappeared, and when it did the cold seemed more intense. Barbara thought of the lunch that her mother had packed.
"I'm hungry," she said.
Morosely he replied, "It isn't noon yet."
"Let's eat anyway."
"Your wish is my command, Your Highness." There was resentment still in his voice.
Ellis dismounted, helped Barbara dismount, and rein-tied the horses. He made his way to a stand of pine a few feet off the Trail, broke an armful of the brittle lower branches from them, and started a fire beside the packed snow. Barbara moved into its circle of warmth and unpacked the sandwiches. She thought they were roast buffalo, but when she opened them she saw that they contained the last of the Christmas ham. She knew a flush of gratitude toward her mother who, when sending young people out for a royal time, would also provide them with a royal feast.
"This is good!" she called to him, but Ellis was eating silently, scarcely aware of the food at all.
Barbara laughed, took a generous bite, and ate hungrily. Ellis finished his sandwich and took another. He was about to eat it when he straightened and looked down the Trail. When he turned to her, his face was serious.
"I don't like it."
She said airily, "What don't you like?"
He moved away from her studying the sky and the movements of the branches. "The wind's shifted from north to east."
"Can't the wind change its mind?"
"Bobby," he was very earnest, "we're in for a storm. We'd better ride."
She was uncertain. "Are you sure?"
"I'm dead sure!"
He helped her repack the sandwiches and returned them to her saddlebag. She felt a rising concern and a little fear. But after he helped her mount his horse and she looked down at him, she steadied. There was going to be a storm because he had said so. But he seemed calm, and somehow she felt that he would know what to do about it.
"We're going to make time," he told her. "I've put you on King because he'll follow me and I know he'll keep up. If you need anything, say so."
A cold chill brushed Barbara's spine when they were again moving. The wind, that had fanned their left cheeks since they'd started, was now full in their faces and Barbara bent her head against it. She had an overwhelming sense of something terrible about to be. It was as though a great, grim beast lurked in the overcast sky and was preparing to pounce on them.
Ellis set off at a canter, and Barbara's mount kept close at his heels. She sensed a difference in the horse. He too knew that a storm was on the way and he feared it. But he had an animal's blind faith in Ellis. The wind's whine became a savage snarl, and Barbara bent her head further. She looked up when Ellis shouted, and it was terrifying because he had to shout.
"Are you all right?"
She shouted back, "I'm all right."
"Don't worry."
She voiced her fear. "Don't—don't you think we'd better go back?"
"We'll never make it!"
The first snow came, a barrage of wind-driven pellets that stung her face and left her gasping. The day turned to twilight, and when she raised her head she could see only a few feet on either side. Just ahead of her, Ellis was a snow-shrouded figure. Time became meaningless, measureless. They moved on and on for how many minutes or hours she could not tell. The fury of the wind increased and breathing became more difficult. Barbara wanted to cry out and knew that she must not. The cold touched her body and seemed to penetrate her very bones. She was aware of Ellis shouting, and it seemed that he shouted from a very long way off.
"Give me your reins!"
Without question she put the reins in his outstretched hand and clung to the saddle horn. The horses were walking now, fighting the storm. Barbara knew a stabbing panic. Was this the end? Would this be the end of her life, before she had fully lived? The cold numbed her, so that there was no longer much feeling in her hands and face. She almost slipped from the saddle. Then she was aware of Ellis shouting again, and she saw him standing beside her.
"Get off!" he repeated.
She slipped into his arms and felt them close about her. He carried her. She still heard the wind but it did not blast her nor was snow falling on her, and she knew they had found shelter. Dimly she saw the doorway through which they had entered, and felt herself being very gently set down. Ellis's shout rang very loudly because he had not remembered that there was no longer need to shout.
"Can you stand up?"
"Yes!"
She stood on shaky knees while Ellis brought both horses in and closed the door. It was very black now, but when Ellis struck a match she saw that they were in some kind of cabin with a big pile of buffalo robes in the center. The match flickered out. She heard him fumbling in the darkness. Then his arms were around her again and his voice was very gentle:
"We're all right now."
"Wh—where are we?"
"In one of Jim's storage shacks. Come on."
She let him guide her, and tried with her numb fingers to help him when he begun removing her snow-crusted outer clothing. He struck another match so he could see her shoes, unlaced them, took them off, and eased her down on a pile of buffalo robes he had arranged. He covered her with more robes, but she lay shivering and it seemed that she would never be warm again. The cabin lighted as he struck still another match, led the horses to the opposite wall and tied them to a pile of buffalo robes. She shivered and said fretfully, between stiff lips,
"I'm cold."
Then he was beside her under the robes, giving to her chilled body the warmth of his own. Gratefully she snuggled very close, while the horses stamped inside and the wind screamed outside. Ellis put both arms around her. Sleep claimed Barbara.
When she awakened, it was still black night inside the cabin and the wind still screamed outside. Barbara felt warm, snug, comfortable. She put out an exploring hand to touch Ellis, and he responded instantly, taking her whole hand and wrist into his warm, sensitive fingers.
"Are you awake, Barbara?"
"Ellis," she whispered. "You saved our lives."
He pressed her hand gently and held it undemandingly in his own. "I've been lying here thinking," he said. "When we were out in the storm, I wasn't sure we could reach this cabin. Suppose we hadn't come through? I was lying here trying to figure out what was the thing I would most regret. Know what I decided?"
"What?" Sleepily content, she awaited his answer. How strange—or perhaps it wasn't so strange—that in this barren cabin, in utter darkness and isolation, when they had narrowly escaped death, that Ellis should be able to talk to her so openly, so easily, more easily than at any time since she had met him. "What would you most regret, Ellis?"
"I would regret that I had not known you longer, had more time with you. I would regret that I hadn't told you more about myself, even the bad things. I want to tell you everything about myself, Barbara. Whether you say yes or no to me later on, I want it to be on the basis of all the truth. May I tell you about—about before I came to Snedeker's?"
"Please," she whispered.
He told her, then, about his gentle laughing mother, and his loving but unreliable father who had made too much money gambling and had lived too fast and died too young. And he told her about his Uncle George who had not only stolen most of the family property but had tried to rule Ellis with an iron rod, had disrupted all his plans and made a fool of him before his friends, and who had ended up by receiving a punch in the jaw from his outraged nephew. He told her of his one good year at college, of his falling in love with Mary Harkness and his following her across the country. He told her of his moodiness (which she already knew) and of his quick temper (which she already knew) and he told her that he was ashamed of his temper and that he recognized that it was a remnant of his childhood, and that most of the time it was unjustified, and that he couldn't promise to get rid of it immediately but that he would keep on trying until he did. He spared himself nothing, and only by reading between the lines was she able to see a young man buffeted and lonely, but eager for friendship and love, with a wealth of devotion to offer, a true humility and a burning desire for truth and honesty above all things.
How different was this blurted, forthright account from the smooth, polished presentation of a Hugo Gearey!
He had stopped talking and now they lay quietly, looking up into the darkness. He had confided all of himself, placed all of his faith in her understanding. And even now he asked nothing, made no demands. Ellis Garner was an amazing young man. She felt that there was much, much more to know about him, but everything that she already knew she could respect. She turned to him.
In the darkness, their arms found each other and their lips met. This, Barbara thought, was a dream come true. This was what she thought of when she thought of marriage.
Thus, out of the storm, was born their love.
After Barbara and Ellis left, Joe went back to his woodcutting. He worked steadily, almost savagely, but for the first time in days there was no joy in labor. Joe felled and trimmed another tree and immediately attacked the next one. He shook his head doggedly, knowing that he missed Barbara and Ellis but not wanting to admit it to himself. He looked anxiously up when the wind shifted from north to east but he did not recognize the meaning behind its shift. He was uneasy about the clouds. He decided that Barbara and Ellis must be in Laramie. At the same time, he knew that he was merely trying to reassure himself about some peril that he sensed but could not see. They couldn't be in Laramie by this time even if they'd galloped all the way.
Shortly before noon, the wind began to scream and Joe knew. Mounting the mare mule, he held his ax very tightly and drove both mules at a dead run all the way back to the cabin. But before he got there, the snow started.
It fell in grotesque, distorted curtains that were bent and twisted by the howling wind. Joe stabled the mules and fought his way out of the stable toward the store. Flying snow plastered his clothing, and he was a white wraith when he reached the door. Joe entered.
"Jim?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we get down the Trail?"
"No, man! We'd be lost in the snow afore we went twicet and arrer shot."
"But those kids—"
"Don't bust a button," Snedeker advised. "That Ellis Garner, he's nobody's fool. He'll know what to do."
"I'm going anyhow!"
Snedeker walked to the rifle rack, took a rifle from it and grasped its muzzle with both hands. "Try it an' I'll lay you out with this."
"We can't get through?"
"We can't, an' you got the rest of your family to think about."
"I—"
"Stop fussin'. Even the sojers that went down a while back haven't showed up. They had to den in the snow. No sense throwin' your life away. When the snow stops, I'll go with you. Now git to your cabin an' act like you had some sense."
Joe stumbled through the wind-driven snow and only dimly could he even see the cabin. He opened the door and needed all his strength to close it against the wind. Though it lacked hours until nightfall, Emma had lighted a lantern and her face was white in its flow.
"Joe, the youngsters—"
"They had horses. They'll be in Laramie by this time."
He spoke what he hoped was the truth and knew was not. Emma knew it too but she said nothing. Joe removed his snow-plastered hat and coat and walked to a window. He couldn't even see trees that grew no more than sixty feet away. Joe clenched his fists so hard that nails bit into palms, and his throat was very dry. No human being could fight such a storm, and if Ellis and Barbara were not in Laramie....
Tad sat on the floor, busily carving wooden knives for Alfred and Carlyle. Little Joe watched soberly, but when he reached for Tad's knife, Tad drew it away.
Tad said with unaccustomed gentleness, "No, you might cut yourself." He said casually, "Ma, the storm seems to be lettin' up. Bobby an' Ellis will be all right."
Holding baby Emma on her lap, knowing that Tad wanted to reassure her, Emma said wanly, "Yes, dear."
The afternoon was endless, but the night was worse. Joe forced food into his month and swallowed. But it was tasteless fare; he had ears only for the wind that blasted the cabin and thoughts for nothing except Barbara and Ellis. That night he lay beside Emma, listening while the storm raged. He could not sleep and he knew that Emma was wakeful too. The night was a week long, and Joe started at an alien sound. He sat up in the darkness. Then,
"Joe?" It was Snedeker.
"Yes?"
"Come on. We kin go now."
Joe slipped out of bed and dressed, and Emma stood beside him. She brought his hat and coat, and her eyes held the prayer that she had whispered all night. Joe pressed her hand, and when he opened the door he saw that the snow had stopped. A gray ghost in the darkness, Snedeker stood on snowshoes. There were two more pairs strapped to his back and another leaning against the cabin.
He knelt to lace Joe's snowshoes, and swung down the Trail. Joe followed awkwardly; he had never worn snowshoes and he found them hard to wear. Snedeker dropped back beside him.
"Don't fight 'em," he advised. "Walk on 'em. You'll get the hang of it."
Joe said grimly, "I'll keep up."
He began to sweat as he strove to keep pace. Snedeker was older than he but Snedeker had worn snowshoes for years. Joe took his hat off and brushed his sweaty face with a gloved hand. He would keep going if it killed him, and judging by the way his legs were beginning to ache it might do just that. Snedeker dropped back to offer him a chunk of meat.
"Pemmican," he said. "It'll stay by a man."
Joe ate and, from the food, he took a new store of strength. He fought his way to within six feet of Snedeker while the sun rose on a heaped and drifted world.
"Did you know the storm was coming?" he called.
"Don't be an idjit, man. Think I'd of let those kids go if I had?"
They went on, and it seemed to Joe that he had walked forever and must continue to walk. It was his curse for letting two youngsters, two who were scarcely more than children, risk their lives in this terrible white hell. But when he looked at his watch he discovered that he had been walking for only four hours. Then they mounted a knoll and Snedeker stopped to point.
At the foot of the knoll, two riderless horses were churning through a drift. Behind them came two people, the leader dressed in a buffalo skin coat and a silver-tasseled hat while the other wore Barbara's heavy brown coat. Forgetting that he did not know how to snowshoe, Joe ran, and he was neck and neck with Snedeker when they reached the pair. The winded, tired horses stopped to rest. Joe leaped into the trench they had broken to fling both arms about his daughter.
"Bobby!"
"Hello, Daddy! Was Mother worried?"
"A mite," Joe admitted. He looked at her weary face and hugged her again. "How did you ride out the storm?"
Ellis said, "We never reached Laramie. The snow caught us close to that cabin under the knoll." Joe remembered the cabin; they'd seen buffalo near it. Ellis finished, "We had to spend the night there."
An iron band tightened around Joe's heart. He gulped and wondered how he would tell this to Emma.
"No fireplace thar." Snedeker asserted. "No wood nuther. How'd you keep warm?"
Ellis said, "We spread buffalo robes on the floor, covered ourselves with others and lay together to keep each other warm." He looked squarely at Joe. "It was the only way."
Their faces were weary. But somehow they were shining and happy and there was only innocence written upon them. Joe's heart sank again. Barbara edged very close to Ellis, took his arm, and laughed.
"We ate the rest of mother's lunch for breakfast. Daddy! Ham sandwiches for breakfast are wonderful if you're hungry enough!"
Joe said sympathetically, "It must have been a terrible night."
"Best night of my life." Ellis smiled with his whole face. "I asked Barbara again and this time she said yes."
"Lordy, lordy," breathed Jim Snedeker.
Spring was heralded by a soft and gentle south wind. It ruffled the pines and stooped to caress the snowbanks. Crusted snow softened and water gathered in every little ditch and depression. Ice melted from Joe's log slide, leaving last year's dead grass brown and forlorn between snowbanks. Walked on all winter, and getting the sun's full force for half a day, the snow in the cabin yard melted and the younger children could play there.
Inside the cabin, the door of which swung open so they could watch the children, Emma and Barbara were mending clothes. A pair of Joe's trousers in her lap, Emma's needle flew as she stitched a patch over a torn knee. She had had some forebodings concerning worn-out clothing and the availability of new cloth, but she needn't have worried. There had been bolts of cloth at Laramie. Even Snedeker had some in stock and he had assured her that most trading posts carried it.
Across the table, Barbara was mending one of Tad's shirts. Emma looked at her daughter and smiled.
"It's almost the last one, isn't it?"
"It is the last."
"Good." Emma breathed her fill of the balmy air that came in a gentle stream through the door. "Isn't this weather wonderful?"
"It's heavenly!" Barbara sighed.
Emma hid a smile. Barbara had walked light-footed and light hearted for most of the winter, and nothing had worn a plain face since the night of the storm. She saw beauty in everything, even the cabin's rough-hewn rafters, and Emma had done nothing to mar her joy. Hurt would come to Barbara as it came to everyone, but hurt, work and struggling were some of the catalysts that fused a marriage. Emma worked busily on.
She was happy for Barbara and Ellis, but she knew that Ellis retained a streak of wildness. That was not extraordinary; no young man worth his salt is contented to plod along like an ox or a cow. Emma had been pretty much satisfied with her son-in-law-to-be since Christmas Eve when she'd talked to him and she felt reasonably sure he'd outgrow his wildness, but she did not discount the possibility that Ellis's temper and impulsiveness might lead him astray, or cause the engagement to be broken before he'd had time to outgrow it. She laid the mended trousers on the table and thrust her threaded needle into her apron front. Barbara finished Tad's shirt and hung it on a peg.
"That's all, Mother."
"We do seem to be caught up." Emma glanced critically at Barbara's mending and found it good. "But let me show you something."
She went to her trunk and from it took three partial bolts of gingham, one blue, one brown and one tan, and unfolded a strip of each one as she laid them on the table.
"What do you think of it?"
Barbara's eyes sparkled. She touched the cloth with gentle fingers and stroked it.
"It's lovely! What are you going to do with it?"
"Housewives need house dresses, darling."
"But, Mother you've several now."
Emma laughed. "It's you I'm thinking of. You didn't suppose I was going to let you come all the way to Oregon to languish in a cabin, did you? I bought this from Lester Tenney two days before we left."
"Mother!" To Barbara every evidence that she would some day actually be married to Ellis had a kind of magic in it, and she touched the cloth again, a benediction. Life was full of the most beautiful promise. Even the small threat that Hugo Gearey might come again to plague her had been dispelled by news of his transfer. The future held no blemish.
Knife on one side of his belt, hatchet on the other, Tad came into the cabin. He looked at Barbara with a smile that was half a leer, and Emma knitted vexed brows. Tad seemed to derive a vast amusement from Barbara's and Ellis's engagement, but what Emma did not know was that, one evening when they thought they were alone, Tad had happened on Ellis kissing his sister. He hadn't made his presence known, he had slipped away as quietly as he came, and he had never told anyone. Why any man should kiss a girl at all was beyond his comprehension. Why Ellis, to whom Tad had looked up but who had since fallen several notches in Tad's estimation, should bother kissing Barbara, was a complete mystery. But it was a hilarious mystery and one that had furnished Tad no end of private amusement.
"Hi," he said.
Emma said, "Tad! How many times must I tell you to wipe the mud from your shoes before you come in?"
"Oh, yeah." Tad looked down at his muddy boots. "Well, I was goin' right out again anyhow."
He scooted out the door and Emma sighed, "That boy can't sit still a minute!"
She went to the door to see where he had gone but he was already out of sight. The younger children, supervised by little Joe, were building a house from stray pieces of wood that they picked up in the yard. Emma looked down to where Joe worked, and for a moment her eyes dwelt warmly on him.
She went back inside to cut the patterns for Barbara's house dresses.
Joe, Ellis and Jim Snedeker, were notching the logs that Joe and Ellis had cut and brought in. An old man, Snedeker was by no means feeble. Though not as active as either Joe or Ellis, he had used an ax for more years than Joe was old and he made up in skill what he lacked in agility. Though Joe was the best ax man of the trio, Snedeker notched almost as many logs as Ellis.
Joe worked willingly, happily, for this was work he liked. But within him was again a mighty restlessness and he kept his face turned to the south wind. Every tiny variation in it became almost a personal issue, for they had set out from Missouri to build a new life in Oregon and nothing must interfere. When the snow melted grass would grow, and the snow would melt if the south wind blew. As soon as there was enough grass they could be on their way.
Near where they were working, a group of quaking aspens, their trunks and branches already colored with spring's green hue, trembled in the wind. A hare hopped among them, crouched at the base of a tree and sat perfectly still. A happy canine grin on his face, ears pricked up, Mike ran through the soggy snow to give chase and the two disappeared. Snedeker rested his ax on a log.
"Wish I'd kep' count of the piddlin' little critters that dog of your'n has took after, Joe. He has done naught else sinst you fetched him here."
"He's been chasing them all the way from Missouri," Joe said. "The darn dog's probably run far enough to get him to Oregon and back six times over. But he hasn't caught anything yet."
"That don't stop his tryin'," Snedeker grunted. "Puts me in mind of a trapper I knowed. He ketched more beaver'n anybody elst, an' when nobody in the hul show could find buffalo, he could. But what he wanted was a white b'ar. The place was thick with 'em, but his medicine wasn't right for white b'ar. Ever'body elst run on 'em, but not Piegan Kelley. Got so he'd rush through his traps, skin out his pelts, an' rush off to find a white b'ar. Finally he found one. B'ar found him the same time. When I come up the b'ar was layin' dead as a stone an' Piegan was almost so. But he was grinnin' like a coyote that just ketched an antelope kid. 'Got my b'ar,' says he to me, I can die happy now.' He did, too. That's the way 'twill be with your dog."
The aspen branches rattled more violently. Joe looked toward them. Quaking aspen quivered even when all other trees were still, and Joe had never known why.
"Why do aspens shake, Jim?" he asked.
"They're soft. I figger their branches ain't tight's other trees."
"That isn't the reason at all," Ellis dissented. "The Cross on which Christ was crucified was made of aspen, and since then all aspens have trembled."
"Whar'd you l'arn that?" Snedeker demanded.
"I'm just naturally smart. Besides, I saw it in a book."
"Book l'arnin'," Snedeker pronounced gravely, "don't do nobody no good. Gives 'em fancy ideas in a plain kentry. You ought to tell the missus that, Joe."
Joe grinned. Emma had been teaching Tad and baby Emma the fundamentals of English, arithmetic, and spelling. It had helped her pass the time and, in spite of Snedeker's ideas on the subject, it would help the youngsters too.
"Your freckle-faced young 'un's comin'," Snedeker said.
Mike came racing back to leap on Tad. The dog frolicked around him, wagging his tail furiously. Tad pushed him away and Mike fell in at his master's side. Joe smiled. Mike hadn't earned his keep in Missouri or on the Trail either, but it was a comfort to know that he was there and he was a companion for Tad.
"Can I take the rifle an' go huntin', Pa?" Tad asked.
"It's pretty slushy."
"I'll mind my step."
"Well, go ahead. But don't go too far."
Mike padding beside him, Tad trotted back to get the rifle. Snedeker looked after him.
"Ain't you scair't to let him tote a rifle?" he asked Joe.
"I would have been back in Missouri, but not here. He's learned a lot."
"Likely little sprout," Snedeker asserted. "I mind the time—"
Snedeker was off on a long, rambling story about a young Mexican they'd found in Santa Fe and Joe listened with half an ear. Missouri, somehow, seemed very far off and unreal, as though they'd never lived there except in a dream. Oregon was the only reality, and they had already covered a good part of the Trail. If they started from Snedeker's as soon as travel conditions permitted, they would reach Oregon long before those who started this spring from Independence. There would be plenty of time to find land they liked, build a cabin, and probably to plant some crops.
"—the kid went to Texas," Snedeker finished. "The last I hear about him he's doin' right well for hisself stealin' hosses an' cattle in Mexico an' runnin' 'em over the border. Joe, you ain't payin' me no mind!"
"Oh—Oh yes, I heard you. Jim, when can we expect grass?"
"Emmy-grants," Snedeker grumbled. "They light out for Oregon an' their tail's afire 'til they get thar. Then they spend the rest of their days milkin' fool cows an' steerin' a plow. I don't know why any of you bother to leave Mizoury."
"The ground's softer in Oregon," Joe grinned. "It makes for easier plowing."
"Pah! If the Lord meant men to plow, they'd of been born with a plow in their hands."
"And if He meant them to shoot, I suppose they'd be born with a rifle in their hands?"
"'Tain't the same thing. 'Tain't the same thing at all. Sounds like your young-un's shot at somethin'."
Up on the ridge, the rifle cracked, and its echoes died in the distance. Joe listened for a second shot but heard none. Twenty minutes later Tad appeared, dragging a timber wolf by a rope around its neck while Mike trotted proudly beside him. Tad panted to a halt.
"There was three of 'em!" he gloated. "They was goin' to jump old Mike an' they didn't even see me! The other two cootered off like scared rabbits when I shot this one! Plunked him right in the ear!"
"Was he runnin'?" Snedeker inquired.
"Nah!" Tad said scornfully. "He was just trottin'."
"Did you aim at his ear?"
"Sure. Figgered that'd put him down to stay."
Snedeker said dryly, "Well, don't be shootin' at my ear no matter if I'm walkin' or gallopin'. You'll be a right handy man with a rifle after you've growed a mite."
"You should have hunted something we could eat," Joe said.
"Don't be preachin' thataway," Snedeker protested. "Meat's to be had for the takin', but wolf pelts ain't. Pelt that critter, cure the pelt, an' some Oregon-bound emmy-grant will pay fancy for it."
"Do they buy such things?"
"They spend money for what takes their eye. An' what takes their eye is ever'thing. You could sell 'em a full-sized steamboat if you had one to sell. They couldn't haul it along, an' even if they could they wouldn't know what to do with it in Oregon. But they'd buy it. Young'un, you mind that short rifle in my rack?"
"Yes."
"Want to swap your wolf pelt for it?"
"Gee!" Tad gasped.
"Pelt this critter out an' the rifle's your'n, long with the horn an' bullet mold. Bullets you got to mold yourself."
"Oh!" Tad was walking on clouds. "Can I have it, Pa?"
"Mr. Snedeker says so."
"I'll pelt the wolf right away, just as soon as I've looked at the rifle!"
Tad dragged the wolf toward the store. Joe watched him go, then turned to Snedeker.
"No pelt's worth a rifle."
"Not usually it ain't. But any sprout that size who can aim at a trottin' wolf's ear an' hit thar can swap the pelt for a rifle with me any time. It's wuth it."
Joe shook a puzzled head; he'd thought he understood Snedeker thoroughly and found that he did not. However, the old man had conceived a great liking for Tad.
The gentle wind blew all day, turning everything in a sea of slush. The younger children had played outside until nearly evening because their playing ground was reasonably dry, and Emma had been relieved of watching them. She met Joe smilingly, and was gay, when he went in for the evening meal. But not all her high spirits were induced because the children hadn't harried her. Much as she feared the open plains, they seemed less worrisome now, in the bland spring weather, than the everlasting walls of their cabin. All winter long she had been confined in or near the cabin, and now release was in sight. That promise was borne on the warm wind, and in the melting snow. They had come this far and Oregon no longer seemed a great distance away.
"It won't be long before grass grows," Joe assured her.
"I know. I can feel it."
The warm spell continued and every day more snow melted. Here and there, where the sun shone all day long, a patch of bare, wet earth appeared. The aspens sprouted fluffy buds and a flock of northbound geese honked over. Emma's hens, that had been shut in their shed all winter, could go out and scratch in the earth and they began to lay again.
Joe, Ellis and Jim Snedeker, continued to work on Snedeker's new building and Joe knew that the old Mountain Man hoped he would stay until it was completed. He said nothing; Snedeker had always gone where he wished when he wanted to go there and he never asked any man's permission. It went without saying that everybody else had the same freedom of choice and he would not try to hold Joe. But Snedeker was old. He could not erect the building himself and there was no certainty as to when he would find another emigrant willing to trade his labor for money or supplies. Snedeker needed help now.
Because he wanted to help him, and because he found in hard work an anodyne for growing restlessness, Joe drove himself and Ellis furiously. Ellis kept his mouth shut and followed Joe's orders. They laid sills on the site Snedeker had chosen and used skids to roll logs on top of them. When the walls were as high as they must be, the roof was made of poles overlaid and braced with more poles. Joe showed Ellis how to split shakes from a block of cedar. One blow of the ax did it, and though the shakes were not uniform in size they were a better roof than the mixed clay and mud that thatched the other buildings. Snedeker had covered his roofs with the same material he used for chinking.
But, even as he worked, Joe fretted. The fuzzy aspen buds gave way to tiny leaves, and only in places that the sun seldom touched did snow linger in dirty gray patches. A pregnant earth was taut with labor pains and about to give birth to all its fullness.
They worked from daylight to dark, but after they were finished Joe and Emma could not stay in the cabin. The Trail wound past Snedeker's post and disappeared in the west. At the end of the Trail was a dream come true, and every night, hand in hand, they walked down it. In the darkness Joe got to his hands and knees to feel for grass, without which there could be no travel. Only when he had assured himself that there was not yet enough did his soul know any peace.
Joe's impatience mounted and he controlled it only by working furiously on Snedeker's new building. It was to be half again as big as the present store which would become a warehouse for buffalo robes, and Snedeker had made more concessions to comfort. In the post he and Ellis slept on the floor, using buffalo robes as a mattress and more for covering, but here there would be bunks. There was also to be a fireplace in Snedeker's private quarters, and that was a real revolution because never before had he had one. Snedeker and Ellis rose and dressed in their freezing quarters at the post.
A good carpenter himself, Snedeker was working on the roof beside Joe when Joe suddenly threw his hammer to the ground. In the pines a song sparrow was pouring its heart out, and from somewhere an early-arriving sparrow scolded. A covey of small clouds winged across the sky, and Joe sat watching and listening. Snedeker stopped working and looked at him curiously. Joe looked down at the greening grass around the post and followed the Trail with his eyes. He said,
"Just figured something, Jim."
"Yeah?"
"The Trail isn't too soft and my animals are in good shape. They won't need much eating for a while, and in another week the grass will be tall."
"Yep. That's right."
"So we're leaving tomorrow."
"Wait a mite an' there'll be a wagon train through that you can jine up with."
"We came this far alone. We can go the rest of the way."
"Reckon you can. Sort of don't like to see you an' your missus an' all them kids light a shuck from here, though. The place has been right sociable all winter long."
"Since when did you have to have things sociable?"
"Must be gettin' old," Snedeker confessed. "You know Ellis ain't lettin' that girl child of your'n outen his sight? He'll go with you."
Joe looked gravely at the horizon. He had already told Ellis that he was Barbara's father, not her master, and that he had no intention of choosing a husband for her. But he worried greatly about the pair. Young love was a glorious thing, a bright and glittering ride on a rainbow. But all too often young lovers saw only the glitter and the rainbow, and Ellis was still unstable. Joe thought of men he had known, Claude Carson, Thomas Severence, Arnold Pulaski, who had been unable to face the problems marriage brought and had simply walked out on their families. Suppose Ellis married and deserted Barbara? The prairie was an easy place in which to disappear. But all Joe said was,
"I figured he'd go."
Snedeker sighed. "If I liked farmin', which I don't, I'd go too. But I don't guess I'd like it anyhow. Oregon's civilized by this time."