The Lost Wagon Part 39

"Put that popgun down before I take it away from you and spank you with it!" Joe roared. "You crazy old goat! I wouldn't work for you if you were the last man on this Trail!"

"You got just fifteen seconds," Snedeker warned.

"Why you--!"

Joe was angry as he had been only once or twice in his life. In Missouri, the code was hospitality. Here, where there was so much s.p.a.ce and so few people, that code should have been much more powerful.

Snedeker did not have to give him a job, but by all the rules of humanity he should have offered food and shelter.

"I won't tell you again!" Snedeker breathed.

Joe grasped the rifle's muzzle, twisted it aside, and brought his right hand back to deliver a smashing blow to the other's chin. Suddenly he found the rifle in his hands. Snedeker reeled away from him, roaring with laughter. Joe stood dumfounded, not knowing what to think. When the old mountain man straightened, his eyes were no longer the color of smoke. They were friendly.

"Lordy, lordy!" he chortled. "You win!"

"Win what?"

"The job you asked for, man! Sort of knowed when you spoke of Shoshone Seeley that you was all right; Shoshone wouldn't ask n.o.body to stop here 'thout they was. But they's a lot of half-witted Injuns 'round here, an'

some even more half-witted emmy-grants will be stoppin'. They'll bluff you out of your eye teeth if you let 'em, an' I can't have n.o.body who lets themselfs be bluffed. Will say, though, that you might show a mite more sense. Thutty-five a month for you'n your team, quarters, and found for yourself. All right?"

"It's all right with me."

"Good," Snedeker p.r.o.nounced, "on account that's all you'd get anyhow.

Your folks with you?"

"They're in the wagon."

"Bring 'em in, man! Bring 'em in! Anybody with the sense of a jack rabbit wouldn't leave his folks set in the wagon on a day like this!"

Joe brought his family in and introduced them to Snedeker and Ellis Garner. The children went to the fireplace, and stood gratefully in its warmth. Barbara smoothed her tumbled hair with her hand. Snedeker nudged Joe and he looked at Ellis Garner. A smile of purest joy glowed on the young man's face.

"He's a woman chaser," Snedeker said in a whisper that carried clear across the room. "Chased one here all the way from Maryland. But, lordy, lordy! She sure didn't have the shine of _that_ filly!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Winter

In the time he'd spent at Snedeker's, Joe had learned a great deal.

Snedeker was a Mountain Man, one of that rare breed who had waded every stream in the west in their search for beaver. They fought every tribe of Indians that showed fight, went without hesitation where they wished to go, and spent incredibly long and dangerous months with only their rifles and their resourcefulness as protection. Then they took their furs to some wild fort, or some wilderness rendezvous, and in a few days spent all the money they had earned in a whole season of perilous living.

The heyday of the Mountain Men spanned only a brief sixteen years when no gentleman was really dressed unless he wore a beaver hat. Silk replaced beaver, and broke the fur market. But though their livelihood was gone, the Mountain Men weren't. Some returned to the east. Some guided wagon trains across country that they knew as well as the emigrants knew their own back yards. Some simply disappeared, gone in search of what they considered wild and free country. And some, like Snedeker, merely transferred their way of living to other pursuits and lived much as they always had.

At their first meeting, Snedeker had enraged Joe. Now Joe understood him, and with understanding had come both liking and respect. Throughout his adult life Snedeker had bowed to no will except his own, and he saw no reason for changing his ways. But, though his outward air was that of a grizzly bear with a sore paw, inwardly he was soft as a marshmallow. A shrewd bargainer, he seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of how much money emigrants carried and how much they were willing to spend.

But no penniless emigrant had ever been turned away, though Snedeker would not outfit them clear to Oregon. Whether they were east- or westbound, he gave them a couple of days' supplies and sent them to Laramie where, as Snedeker knew, they became the government's responsibility.

Joe had lost his misgivings about wintering at the post. No war party could take Laramie, but neither could any take Snedeker's. They'd already tried it and succeeded only in running off a few horses. Taking their trail, Snedeker had brought back the stock he'd lost and a number of the Indian ponies as well. Besides, according to Snedeker, there was small danger of an Indian attack in winter. The tribes that came to Laramie wintered on northern hunting grounds, and their ponies had to exist as best they could. Since no western Indian would think of going into battle without a mount, they made war in the spring after there was sufficient gra.s.s to fatten and strengthen their horses. The three the Towers had met must have been strays, or possibly they had to go to Laramie for something they needed.

On a wind-swept hill about a half mile from the post, Joe sank his ax cleanly into a pine. Expertly he measured his next strike, and when the ax sank in, a large chip of wood broke out. Wasting not one blow of his ax or a half ounce of strength, Joe felled the tree cleanly and rested a moment. He glanced over to where Ellis Garner had another pine two-thirds felled. Joe nodded approvingly. There were tricks to handling an ax. When he and Ellis had started felling trees, which Snedeker needed to enlarge his post, Ellis had had a lot to learn. But under Joe's expert guidance he was learning fast, and, given a year or two of experience, he would be a good ax man himself.

Ellis stopped chopping and grinned across the s.p.a.ce that separated them.

"You must pick the softest trees."

"That's an ax you have in your hand," Joe gibed. "Not a feather. Don't use it like one."

"Yes, teacher."

Joe grinned and went back to work. He had grown to like this slim and soft-spoken youngster, but at the same time he worried about him. Where Ellis came from Joe didn't know and he hadn't asked; one didn't inquire too deeply into anyone else's past life. Probably he was from somewhere in the east and he had been to school; that showed in his manner and his choice of words. But there was within him an undercurrent of irritability, and at times he was moody and fretful. Somewhere behind him there seemed to be a memory that hurt. Increasingly, Joe compared him to the suave and polished Percy Pearl, who never farmed, never worked for wages, but who always had everything he needed. Not that there was anything suave or polished about Ellis--on the contrary, he was impulsive, often unpredictable. But he had Percy's quickness and dry humor and, like Percy, he gave you the feeling he might go after anything he wanted, and get it, without being too critical of ways and means. Percy was an outlaw and Ellis might become one. But that was his business unless Ellis's affairs should become too closely entwined with the Tower's.

Joe frowned as he worked. Ellis had taken more than a casual interest in Barbara, which was not unusual because Joe had yet to meet the young man who was not attracted to his daughter. They were together much of the time, and they took long walks. Joe thought of Hugo Gearey, who was at Laramie because of girl trouble in New York. Snedeker had said that Ellis had followed a girl all the way from Maryland, and what sort of trouble was he in? Why was he here at an isolated trading post?

Joe trimmed the branches from his tree, leaving a smooth trunk. He felled and trimmed another pine and looked toward the tethered mules.

They were still in harness, but their bridles were slipped and Joe had tied them out of the bitterest wind. He glanced down the slanting, ice-sheathed furrow that led to the post. The day after their arrival, new snow had added six inches to that already on the ground and there had been light falls since. Joe had driven the mules through it to break a track, and had dragged one log down the broken track. Succeeding loads had widened and packed it, so that now the mules were able to pull as many logs as could be hitched on.

The weather had turned cold enough so that Joe's nostrils pinched when he stood still, and a little rime of frost formed about the muzzles of the tethered mules. That wouldn't hurt them as long as they didn't have to stand on a short tether for any great length of time, and if they did not stand at all when they sweated. There was little danger of that in such weather; the team had only to walk to the place where they were cutting pines and the logs were not hard to pull down the icy slide. Joe sank his ax into the felled pine's stump and walked over to Ellis.

"How are you doing?"

"All right."

Joe stood, feeling the goodness he usually felt after a day of hard and productive labor. At the same time he felt a swelling relief and a rising little happiness. Tomorrow was a very special day.

Joe said, "Don't seem like tonight is Christmas Eve, does it?"

Ellis murmured absently, "No, it doesn't."

"Let's go in."

"Suits me."

Joe bridled the mules. He drove them to the felled trees and laid his long chain across the slide. His ax swinging from his hand, Ellis joined him. They used peavies to roll logs into a compact pile and bound the chain around them. Knowing that their work would be done as soon as they had dragged these last logs down to Snedeker's building site, the mules needed no urging or even driving. Joe looped the reins over the mules'

harness and walked companionably beside Ellis. Glad that the day's work was over, the younger man slashed restlessly at the icy slide with his ax.

Joe said caustically, "Tenderfoot!"

"What's wrong now, teacher?"

"Axes are for cutting wood, not ice. I'll bet you nicked it."

Ellis shrugged. "Live and learn. I won't do it again."

He seemed irritable, depressed, and Joe stole a sidewise glance at him.

"A penny for your thoughts."

"You'd be cheated," Ellis grinned sheepishly.