The Lost Wagon Part 50

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 gra.s.s grows," Joe a.s.sured 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 c.h.i.n.king.

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 gra.s.s, without which there could be no travel. Only when he had a.s.sured 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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."

"You can finish the building yourself, can't you?"

"Yeah. 'Tain't naught to do but finish the roof, c.h.i.n.k her, an' finish the innards. Ain't no hurry nohow. Injuns won't be down for a spell yet an' emmy-grants will be later. If I lag too far behint I'll get one of 'em to help me. Do you know whar you're goin' in Oregon?"

"No. I'll have to decide after we get there."

"I ain't tellin' you what to do, but if you want real good country whar you can take your pick, thar's some a mite beyond Fort Boise. Preacher named Whitman used to have a mission near thar until he an' ever'body elst in the mission was kilt by Injuns, mebbe a dozen years back. Army post, Camp Axton, not too far away. About half a day west of Axton you'll come to a crick. Clear as a bell she is, an you can't go wrong on account the white stones in the crick. Turn north on the east bank an'

you'll come to some medders whar the gra.s.s grows high's a pony's head.

Emmy-grants haven't liked to stop thar sinst the Whitman ma.s.sacre, but it's a good place if you've a mind to look at it."

"I might just do that," Joe decided. "How are the Indians now?"

Snedeker shrugged. "Like they allus are. You can get along with 'em if you want to. Just let 'em know your rifle's loaded an' you can shoot it, but don't shoot unless you have to. You, Ellis an' that sharp-shootin'

kid of yours won't have too much to trouble your heads about. Besides, thar's goin' to be more emmy-grants findin' them medders an' a settlement will go up thar. If you do like it, an' want to stake out some of them medders, build away from the crick. She can be a real rampagious thing when she gets high."

They climbed down the ladder. Ellis sawing apertures for windows, came out of the building to join them. His eyes sought and found Barbara, who was washing clothes on a bench beside the cabin. A little smile lighted his face, and Joe thought curiously that, when he looked that way, he was not at all like Percy Pearl.

"Tuck your shirt tail in an' hitch up your belt!" Snedeker called.

"You're shovin' off in the mornin', so let's get the wagon loaded!"

They started in the early dawn, while a light drizzle dripped from a cloudy sky and wispy tendrils of mist lingered like the dresses of ghosts in every sheltered nook and gully. Barbara remained in the wagon to look after the little ones, and Ellis rode up ahead on King. The hat Barbara had knitted for him planted firmly on his head, Snedeker stood in the doorway of his post and waved good-by. They waved back, and all were light-hearted and gay. Their stay at Snedeker's had been pleasant, but they were going to Oregon and Snedeker would not be lonely for very long. While the lost wagon hit the trail west, other wagons were starting from various points on the Missouri. Snedeker would have company and he would fit in nowhere except here.

They rounded a bend and Snedeker's post was lost to sight. n.o.body looked back any more, but only ahead. Ahead lay Oregon.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Mule

They had been a month on the Trail. Behind them lay a land of startling contrast and grim beauty. They'd forded or ferried rivers and creeks that wound out of fastnesses so remote and silent that they seemed to have no end. Weird formations of varicolored rocks had formed desolate little wildernesses all by themselves. Cloud-stabbing peaks with snow-whitened summits had loomed in the distance. It was not a gentle country nor was it a place for timid people. But to the hardy of soul and the strong in heart who were able to face the challenges it flung, it was good.

Tad loved it, and Joe responded to it. Emma did not like it. For her it was too vast, too big and too grim, and while she appreciated its beauty she hoped that Oregon would be more soft and gentle. Little Joe frowned while he sought answers to problems which he felt must exist here and the rest of the young children were merely curious. Tired of the day-after-day riding, they wanted little now except to find the end of the journey and to be suitably diverted en route.

Barbara and Ellis, aglow with love for each other, saw the land they were pa.s.sing through in a sort of happy daze. Each day was marvelous because each day they could be together, but the most imposing scenic view or the most majestic mountain meant less to them than a moon or star-lit evening when they could walk beneath soft light and be away on the magic wings that are granted all young lovers. While they were with those in the wagon they were at the same time apart from them. To each, the most important thing in the world was the other. A word, or a gesture, which in ordinary living would be commonplace, acquired a meaning and a significance all its own. Their private world was a wonderful place which no one else could enter.

They had seen no Indians but they were in Indian country. The mules and the cow were always staked close to the wagon and were never left unwatched. Guard duty was a source of special delight to Tad who always took the first watch in the first couple of hours after nightfall. Mike beside him, the rifle Snedeker had given him clutched firmly in both hands, Tad investigated every small sound that occurred and when there weren't any he invented some. To Tad's great disappointment no Indians had appeared yet, but he hadn't lost hope. Each night, at ten o'clock, Tad went grudgingly to the bed while Joe took over until two. The third watch was Ellis's.

Ellis lay p.r.o.ne in the gra.s.s, his head resting on cupped hands and his rifle beside him. Near by, the mules had eaten as much as they wanted and were standing close together. The tethered cow had lain down to chew her cud, and the wagon's stained cover seemed pure white in the night's unreal glow. Ellis's big horse stamped a hoof and switched flies with its tail. Ellis raised his head to look at the horse and settled back to watch the star-studded sky.

It seemed to him that his life had had three phases. The first was his childhood, and he remembered his gay and gentle mother. She had soothed his cut fingers, skinned knees, heartbreaks, all the little tragedies of childhood that are unimportant to almost everyone except a child.

Vividly, Ellis remembered riding with her, she on a spirited horse while he bestrode a pony. It had always seemed to him that they could ride forever.

The second, which Ellis thought of as his sterile phase, came after his mother died. His father was affectionate and kind, and in his own way he had been proud of Ellis. But he had been too preoccupied with gambling and his numerous enterprises to give enough attention to his son. Ellis had been grief-stricken when he died, but it was not the complete desolation he had known when his mother pa.s.sed away.

The years when Uncle George had been in charge of him were the worst of all--Uncle George, the sanctimonious cheat who had come into possession of most of the family fortune, and by methods so legalistic and clever that even Ellis's friends, who wanted to help him, could do nothing. But that was all in the past. Ellis had hated George at the time, but later events had made that hatred seem somehow dim and unimportant.

The third phase, a short one, had centered about Mary Harkness, a vivacious, pretty, intelligent little brunette. Ellis had thrown himself heart and soul at her feet. He knew now that she had never wanted him there and had tried, as politely as possible, to tell him so. But Ellis's whole world had crashed when Mary married another.