The Lost Wagon Part 31

Though he slept little, he remained alert to the things about him. No man should travel in this country without a rifle, and he had left the rifle with Tad. Should any personal emergency arise, he would have to meet it as best he could. He didn't expect any; they'd come all this way and needed the rifle only for food. Joe smiled wryly. It always seemed that, when one lacked something, the need for it arose. He cantered the mules around a knoll, and both came to a sliding halt while they p.r.i.c.ked their ears forward and blew their nostrils.

No more than sixty yards away, staring intently at them, was an enormous bear. Joe swallowed hard. He was familiar with the little black bears of Missouri, but this was no black bear. Joe remembered vaguely that he had heard of white bears, or western grizzlies, and the bear was of a pale color. They were savage things and enormously strong. Certainly this one looked as though it could kill one or both of the mules without exerting itself unduly.

Joe swung the mules, who needed no urging, and galloped them to the right. Glancing behind, he saw the bear running and for a moment he thought it was racing to cut him off. Then he grinned weakly and relaxed. All bears, he remembered, have rather poor hearing and sight.

They have a keen sense of smell, but the wind had been blowing from the bear to Joe. Probably the grizzly hadn't even been aware of his presence until the mules started to run, and then he was as frightened as the mules. Or, Joe thought, as frightened as one Joe Tower.

Reaching the abandoned wagon, he first gathered two piles of flat stones. One he arranged beneath the wagon's axle; the other he piled a few feet in front. He had remembered to cut a prying pole when he pa.s.sed the grove of trees in which they had camped. Using one pile of stones as a fulcrum, he inserted the pole beneath the axle and lifted. Raising the front end of the wagon, Joe drove a forged stick over the prying pole to hold it. Then he built higher the stones beneath the axle.

When the wheel no longer touched the earth, he took it off. Lifting the wagon's other side, he took that wheel too, and packed both on the horse mule. Should they break another wheel, he would not be caught without a spare.

On the return trip he rode hard, pressing the mules and stopping only twice. From a distance he heard Mike's bark, and he advanced cautiously.

Tad did have the rifle, and Joe had no wish to resemble, however remotely, a prowling Indian. Then he heard,

"It's Pa! Pa's come back!"

Joe threw caution to the winds and rode openly, and now his weariness seemed in some magic fas.h.i.+on to evaporate. He had been very worried about Emma and the youngsters; in his mind they had been the victims of raiding Indians, one or all of the younger children had fallen into the river and drowned, one of the great white bears had raided them, they hadn't known how to start a fire and thus were cold; these and a dozen other disasters had overtaken them. To know that none of his fears was realized drove worry from his mind and furnished complete relief.

He wondered at Tad as he put the mules to a trot. Back in Missouri, given a rifle and told to stand guard, Tad might have shot at anything, including noises, that startled him. Obviously the Oregon Trail, and perhaps the spanking Joe had given him, had taught the youngster much that he needed to know. Joe saw the wagon and his wife and son, and he called,

"Hi!"

"h.e.l.lo, Joe!"

Emma's greeting was a glad one, and her voice revealed none of the terror she had endured.

Lithe as a fawn, lovely even though she was dressed in c.u.mbersome garments, Barbara leaped from the wagon and waved excitedly,

"h.e.l.lo, Daddy!"

"Hi, Bobby!"

Joe rode up to the wagon and halted his mules. He looked down at Tad.

"Everything was all right, huh?"

"Yeah. Nothin' came."

Joe laughed. "You never have luck, do you?"

He looked at Emma, and saw in her eyes everything that she had not put into words. Traces of terror and loneliness lingered there, and he knew that she had prayed for him. But happiness because he had finally come back was driving the rest away as surely as the rising sun dispels morning mist.

"Have you had breakfast?" Emma inquired.

"Yup. Had a snack down the trail a ways."

"But you're in here almost before daylight. I'll fix something for you."

Emma built up her fire and put water over to boil for coffee. She made her spider--a skillet with legs--ready and laid three eggs beside it.

Joe looked concernedly at them.

"Better save those for the kids, hadn't you?"

"The children aren't lacking anything and I have eight more eggs. Every hen but one has laid every day."

"They must like wagon life." He winked solemnly at her.

"I'm sure they do," she replied, dimpling. "It's a good life--for chickens."

The children looked up at the sound of their parents' hearty, soul-easing laughter.

Joe unlashed the wagon wheels, lifted them from the mule, leaned them against the wagon, unharnessed the mules, and tied them where they could graze. He was in high spirits and the world was good again. He sat before the blazing fire and partook hungrily of the breakfast Emma prepared for him. The younger children tumbled out of the wagon and ran to their father. Carlyle and baby Emma snuggled contentedly in his lap while they ate their breakfast, and young Joe and Alfred braced themselves one on either side.

Almost at once Joe was restless again and he felt an inner urge to be moving. He had lingered in Independence far too long, gentling a six-mule team for Jake Favors, and a wet trail and a broken wheel had set them farther behind. Now the north wind blew steadily, and the clouds were black and angry. But the mules had been working hard and it was hazardous to go on unless they grazed and rested. There was a long trail still ahead, and the team must be in condition for it. However, he could replace the wagon wheel.

There were no flat rocks here, but the river bank was piled high with driftwood, ranging all the way from slender branches to huge trees that had come down on the swollen current. Joe found a prying pole, used a chunk of wood for a fulcrum, and lifted the wagon. While Barbara and Tad sat on the end of the pole, holding the wagon in place, Joe blocked the front end with more wood. He replaced the broken wheel and busied himself with his ax.

Comparatively little of the driftwood was green; few growing trees had been uprooted by the high water. Of the dead trees, some were water-logged and these he pa.s.sed by. He wanted only dry and buoyant wood that would help keep the wagon afloat when they crossed the river, and when he found such a piece he chopped it into the lengths he desired.

Leaving each piece where he chopped it, he prowled up the river bank looking for still more suitable wood and a place where they might ford.

He found where the bank sloped easily into the water, with no sharp drops and no undercutting. Joe threw a chunk of wood in, watched it drift gently downstream, and knew the current was not a swift one. He tried to gauge the depth with his eye, but the river was too muddy to let him do it and there might be hidden obstacles on the bottom. Joe glanced back toward the wagon, decided that he could not be seen from it, and removed his clothing.

He s.h.i.+vered in the raw north wind, but walked slowly into the water. The bank and the river bottom both seemed solid, and Joe could feel no hidden obstruction that might get a mule in trouble. Much warmer than the air, the water rose to his chest and then to his neck. He swam, but the deep part of the river was only about twenty feet wide and he could wade again. Joe climbed up onto the far bank. He inspected it carefully, and when he was finished he knew that he could take the wagon across here.

Joe dressed and trotted back to the wagon. The cold wind and the water had left him numb, so that he had to move fast in order to restore circulation. But before he came in sight of the wagon he walked again.

Emma had emphatic ideas about proper deportment in cold weather, and none of her notions included stripping naked and swimming a river. Joe whistled as he strode up to the wagon. He'd had little sleep for two nights, but was not unduly tired.

"Everything's smooth as a tub of lard," he called cheerfully. "I found a new ford. Can you catch your chickens?"

"Oh yes. They're tame."

"Give me an hour or so, then catch them and load everything on the wagon. The Towers are about to move again."

He took the whiffletree from the wagon, let a chain drag behind it, and harnessed the mules. Joe drove them up the river bank, gathering the wood he had cut as he came to each piece, binding as big a load as the chain would surround and dragging it to the ford he had selected. When all the wood was piled there, he returned for the wagon.

The youngest children remained inside, peering curiously out the front or back, while Joe, Emma, Barbara and Tad lashed wood beneath the wagon box, on both sides of it, and even to the tongue. Joe stepped back to grin at their handiwork. There was so much wood tied to the wagon that only the wheels and cover were visible. It was not absolutely essential; the wagon itself would have floated. But Joe wanted to keep water out of the box and away from the load.

"Never thought we'd have to build our own s.h.i.+p out in the middle of this--wish I knew just what it is and where it is. But we're on our way to Laramie. Let's launch."

The mules walked gingerly down to the river, taking their time and testing what lay ahead before they put their full weight on it. With only the lightest pressure on the reins, Joe let them have their own way. n.o.body could make a mule go where it didn't want to go and n.o.body could hurry a mule that wanted to be cautious. They entered the water, waded out until it lapped their bellies, and continued to move carefully. Then they were swimming, holding their heads high so no water could trickle into their ears. They waded again.

Safe on the opposite bank, Joe and Tad untied the ropes that held the wood on, and they threw as much as they could reasonably carry into the wagon box. Not forgotten was that long and dismal stretch where buffalo chips were the only fuel. Should they again strike treeless trail, they would have firewood.

That night they camped just across the river, within a stone's throw of the ford where the wheel had broken.

With dawn, the first snow lay on the ground. It was light and powdery, little more than a white dust that did not hide completely the gra.s.s on the near-by knolls but seemed to cover entirely those farther away.

Little snow devils, picked up by wind, whirled across the trail and filled ruts while leaving the crown between them brown and naked. Joe hurried the mules, and wished mightily that he had saved some grain for them. Mules worked better when they were on grain, but all they'd been able to carry from Independence had been used up two weeks ago. The rest of the trip to Laramie would necessarily be forced, with no time to linger on the way and since there wasn't any grain, the mules would have to work without it.

Tad trotted beside the wagon and fell behind. Joe waited for him.