The Lost Wagon Part 56

"Regulations," said Ellis politely.

The major threw him a sharp look. Then he added some hasty advice.

"It is my duty to advise you that the Indians in this section are restless. If you go on, you risk meeting hostiles."

"We'll still go on," said Ellis.

Major Dismuke halted and when they had drawn away from him Ellis said softly, "Sorry, Joe, but we have to get out of here."

"Yes, we have to get out."

"It wasn't really a lie."

"Ellis, let's face it. It was a lie. But we had to tell it. As soon as we get set, we're sending that mule back."

"All right with me. But let's get set."

The youngsters scrambled back into the wagon. Joe untied the team and climbed up on the wagon seat. He was not happy, for the baby was still feverish, but he was relieved. Emma wouldn't care to stay anywhere near this fort as long as the baby was ill. It was too rough, and the wagon was better. Somehow and somewhere Joe would get another mule and send this one back. He shook his head. Ellis's quick wit in raising the smallpox scare had averted what would have been an intolerable situation.

They stopped for lunch, and drove on. Ellis rode ahead to scout and Joe's sick heart throbbed when the baby babbled in delirium. A few minutes later, Emma spoke softly,

"Joe, we must stop. She's very bad."

He was about to swing the mules to one side of the Trail when Ellis rode back. Ellis swung his horse in beside the wagon and looked up at Joe.

"How is the youngster?"

"Emma says bad. We have to stop."

"There's a good creek about a quarter mile ahead and a meadow only a little ways up the creek. It's a better place than this if we're going to camp."

"Hear that, Emma?" Joe called. "Want to go there?"

She said, "I think it will be better. There'll be no interruptions if we're off the Trail."

The mules plodded down the Trail to the creek. Sparkling, clear and cold, it trickled out of a shallow little gully and flowed across the Trail to lose itself in trees on the other side. The west bank was tree-lined, but tall gra.s.s grew on the east bank and laid a soft carpet back to the line of trees. Joe saw trout lingering in a pool.

Ellis swung his horse from the Trail up a gra.s.sy embankment. "Follow me," he called. "The wagon can get up here."

The mules walked unhesitatingly after him, and Joe held them to a slow walk in order that the wagon might take gently any hidden obstructions.

Tall wild gra.s.s brushed the bellies of the mules and of Ellis's horse. A cool and gentle breeze breathed down the creek, and ruffled the slender tops of trees on the west side. The wagon listed a little, and there came the rattle of a falling bucket.

As they proceeded upstream, the meadow widened and the trees on the west bank gave way to gra.s.s. Save for one towering pine that grew halfway between the creek and the forest on top of the gently sloping hill, as far as Joe could see there was only meadow land. Three nervous cow elk, probably with calves hidden somewhere back in the forest, edged cautiously out of sight. Joe guided his team to the big pine's shade and stopped. He turned to Emma.

He unhitched and picketed the mules while Tad tied a picket rope to the cow and staked her in tall gra.s.s. Used to traveling, and accustomed to grazing different grounds every night, all three animals fell to cropping gra.s.s. Though the Oregon Trail was only a few hundred yards to the south, for centuries these meadows had been the haunt of wild things. Probably an occasional horseman had ventured here, but as far as Joe knew theirs was the first wagon that had ever come up the creek. He took a moment to look around, and breathed deeply of the pine-scented air. Jim Snedeker had known what he was talking about when he spoke of nice country.

Ellis swung Emma's crate of poultry to the ground and opened the gate.

The rooster jumped to the top of the crate, flapped his wings, and crowed l.u.s.tily. Four of the hens scurried here and there in the gra.s.s, catching bugs and picking up fallen seed. The other two, wings spread, clucked fussily and avoided the rest. Those two were broody and had been for more than a week. Even confinement in the crate and traveling all day was not enough to make them forget age-old instincts. One of them stalked secretively into the gra.s.s, searching for a place to nest.

Joe took his snath from the place where it had lain since they left Missouri and fitted a scythe to it. He tested the blade with his thumb, and through the coating of grease that covered it and prevented its rusting he felt its keenness. With a hand full of gra.s.s he wiped the scythe clean and went to work.

Strength flowed into his arms, and in spite of the pall that overhung all of them he felt a little song spring into his heart as he mowed the first swath of gra.s.s. There had been times when he wondered seriously if the long Trail would not make him forget all he had known about farming, but he fell automatically into the rhythm of what he was doing. The scythe ceased to be a mere tool and became a part of him as gra.s.s toppled beneath his attack. He mowed to the big pine, and all around it, then kicked together armfuls of soft gra.s.s and arranged it in a pile.

Joe covered the bed with a buffalo robe and went to the wagon.

"Bring her out now," he said gently.

Baby Emma lay weak and listless in her mother's arms, lacking either the strength or the will to hold her head erect. But hope sprang anew in Joe's mind and his heart was not quite so leaden. The child smiled at him, and she had not done that earlier. Joe took his wife and daughter to the couch he had made them and watched Emma lay the baby down. He looked again at her flushed cheeks and dull eyes, and wished mightily that he knew as much about sick babies as he did about driving mules.

Emma said, "May we have some fresh water, Joe?"

Barbara called, "I'll get it."

She had lifted the other three youngsters from the wagon and they were tumbling around in the gra.s.s. Joe watched them closely; he had never been here before and he did not know what to expect in such a place.

Then the children found the place he had mowed and played there. Joe relaxed. He had just covered that ground himself, and knew there was nothing harmful on it. The youngsters showed no inclination to go elsewhere. The tall gra.s.s was as high as their heads and they became entangled in it. This was more to their liking.

Tad exclaimed, "Look yonder!"

Joe followed his pointing hand. On the far side of the creek a buck deer, his head heavy with grotesque clubs of velvet-covered antlers, was gazing at them. The buck stretched its neck toward them, then stamped its forefeet and flicked a short tail. Tad looked hopefully at Joe.

"We need meat, don't we?"

Joe shook his head. "Not that much meat. We'll be going on in a couple of days and we can't waste time curing what we don't use."

"Shucks!" Tad said dejectedly.

"But I'll tell you what you can do," Joe said. "I saw trout in the creek. Suppose you take a hook and line, cut yourself a pole, and see what you can do about bringing in a mess for supper."

"You betcha!"

Mike at his heels, rifle in his hands, Tad went whooping toward the creek and Joe watched him go. Joe turned back to the tasks at hand, for there was much to be done. But even as he worked he had a curious feeling that this was no routine halt.

They had had many different camps under many different conditions, and some were so ordinary that Joe could not remember them at all. Others, such as the one where they'd eaten their first buffalo and the camp where they had forded the creek after he replaced the broken wagon wheel, he remembered clearly. But this one had something that was all its own. Joe tried to pin down the elusive quality it possessed and could not. Perhaps, he thought, it was partly his determination to make it the best and most comfortable stopping place they had yet known. He had a hazy idea that, if he could do everything right and work everything right, baby Emma's fever would depart.

He worked furiously with the scythe, cutting more gra.s.s and letting it wither in what remained of the afternoon sun. He carried stones from the creek and arranged a fireplace while Ellis cut wood in the fireplace.

Tad came in with four big trout dangling at the end of a willow stringer.

"Threw back all the little ones!" he boasted. "Caught 'em on worms that I found under rocks! Do we need any more, Pa?"

"These will do," Joe declared. "Let me have them and I'll take the bones out."

"I can do it myself. I watched you with the ba.s.s."

He sat down to fillet his catch and Joe raked up the partially dried gra.s.s. He arranged a bed, turning all the stems downward so that only wispy gra.s.s lay on top. This he covered with buffalo robes, and built a small fireplace near it. Joe and Ellis made beds for the other youngsters, but Ellis declared that he could sleep on the ground and Joe threw down only a couple of armfuls of gra.s.s for himself. He built a cooking fire and a small fire near where Emma and her sick daughter were to spend the night.

They feasted on broiled trout and fresh bread, and Joe watched with hope in his heart while baby Emma sipped at a bowl of warm milk. Her fever seemed to have lessened, but Joe worried because it was not following its usual pattern. Always before it had struck suddenly, burned its course, and left just as suddenly. This time the child was very ill, with a fluctuating temperature.

The darkness deepened. Joe lay on his bed near Emma and the youngster, watching stars so near that it almost seemed he could touch them. Out in the forest wolves yelled, and there were soft shufflings and gruntings as the things that ordinarily used these meadows by day--but no longer dared do so because there were humans near--moved about at night. Mike growled a warning whenever anything came nearer than he thought it should, and three times during the night Joe rose to visit the couch of his wife and daughter. On one of these visits he saw that his wife's eyes were open, and he heard her whisper. He bent close to hear her message.