The Lost Wagon Part 11

"How are you traveling?"

"What's the best way?"

"Mules," Grandpa said decisively. "Next to them, oxen. Oxen will get along on skimpier gra.s.s, but they're slow. Horses are all right for riding but they don't stand up under a long haul."

"Is one team of mules enough?"

"That's taking a chance. You should have two, or anyhow one spare animal. Then, if you lose one, you can always get some place where they'll sell you another."

"How far can I get this season?"

"To Laramie, anyhow. With luck, and if storms hold off, you might get to Fort Bridger. But you can count on Laramie with time to spare."

"Can a man figure on finding something to do through the winter?"

"Any man who wants to work can find it. Tell you what, a little short of one day west of Laramie there's a friend of mine with a trading post.

Name's Jim Snedeker. Tell him I sent you, and he'll give you and your mules a job. That is, always supposing you want to work for him."

"How about Indian trouble?"

"That's up to you. Ninety-eight out of a hundred Indian sc.r.a.pes are not brought about by Indians, but by some mullethead of an emigrant who started a ruckus with them. If you don't bother the Indians, and don't let them bother you, you should have no trouble."

"What else will I need?"

"How many are going with you?"

"My wife and six young ones."

"Load your wagon heavy with eatables," Grandpa advised. "Carry plenty of flour. Take eggs; pack them in a barrel of corn meal and use up the meal as you use up the eggs. You should have coffee and whatever else you fancy in the way of eating. Take tools, the ones you'll need are the ones you need here. Go light on dishes and furniture. There's enough household goods been pitched out of wagons between Independence and the Wil'mette Valley to stock a city the size of St. Louis ten times over.

You got a milk cow?"

"Two."

"Take both. You'll get some milk all the time. Hang the morning's milking in a pail behind the wagon. By night it'll be b.u.t.ter. Drink the evening's milking. Can you shoot?"

"Tolerable good."

Grandpa said, "There's still buffalo and I think there always will be, though they'll never be again like they were in '30 when we went into Santa Fe. But you can count on enough for meat. You got any money?"

"Very little," Joe confessed.

"Keep what you have. Take all of it with you and get as much more as you can. You'll need it."

Joe asked in some astonishment, "On the Oregon Trail?"

"On the Oregon Trail," Grandpa a.s.sured him. "Suppose a mule dies and you have to buy another? What if you have to stock up on flour?" For a moment Grandpa lost himself in the dreamy introspectiveness of the very old. "It's not like it was in the old days. A man didn't need anything but his horse and rifle then, and if he didn't have the horse he could always get one if he had a rifle. The west has grown up. She's shed her three-cornered pants and put on her long britches. Don't try it unless you have some money."

"Is there anything else?"

"Watch the company you'll find. You'll run into soldiers, but no constables or marshals, and you will find cutthroats. Take it easy.

Don't go too fast or too slow. Use the sense G.o.d gave you, and you'll do all right."

"That's it, huh?"

"I've told you everything that's to be told," Grandpa a.s.sured him. "If you can think of anything else, I'll try to answer your questions."

"Can't figure another question," Joe admitted. "I should outfit right, go to Independence, get on the Oregon Trail, and use common sense."

"That's the way."

"Thank you for your time. Thank you kindly."

Grandpa muttered, "That's all my time's good for now."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing important," the old man told him. He said, more to himself than to Joe, "I'd like to do it over again, the way I did it the first time."

Joe felt a sudden, warming kinship with this man whom he had seen for the first time less than an hour ago. Grandpa Seeley was going nowhere, not ever again in his entire life. But he had flung his gauntlet in the face of a great challenge and he yearned to do it again. Joe gripped the old man's hand again, and looked into his sightless eyes. He said,

"You've given me a lot," and to the woman, "Thank you, Mrs. Seeley, for everything."

She said, "Oh, I do hope nothing happens!"

"Nothing will. That is, nothing bad."

Joe fought his mule to a standstill, bridled her, mounted, and let her choose her own pace home. The sun was high when he rode into his yard.

Her face tear streaked and her eyes red, Barbara came to meet him.

Joe's heart leaped in sudden panic; little Emma had been sick when he left. He said,

"What's wrong?"

"The cow!" Barbara choked back a sob. "Clover! She broke her leg while you were away and Pete Domley shot her!"

Barbara threw herself into his arms, and for the first time in years she sobbed like the little girl he had once known. Joe hugged her very tightly and stroked her slim back with his rough hand. The day had been a good one, and he had learned much that he needed to know. But he had not learned, he now realized with a poignant uneasiness, how to prepare a sensitive young girl for the hardships and dangers she must face in the long journey ahead of them.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Start

The Mule pulled hard on the reins as she sought to reach a lush growth of gra.s.s near by. With a rough jerk Joe brought her back, and she stood meekly behind him. The mules could gauge his moods as exactly as he could theirs; they always know just how far they might go and when they'd better behave. The mule did not pull even hard enough to tighten the reins as she waited.

Barbara buried her tear-stained face in his shirt front and Joe held her fiercely close to him. Her body shook convulsively, and it seemed to Joe that every racking sob tore out of his throat too. He knew a moment of blank dismay because, though there were words that applied to the situation, he could not think of them. He did think of a doe whose hip had been shattered by a rifle ball, and he had a wild notion that there was some comparison between the stricken doe and his stricken child.

n.o.body had been able to do anything for the deer, either. Joe said,