Joe had stopped only to let the mules rest and graze, and wherever that
was he nibbled a cold snack from the food Emma had prepared for him.
Then he slept, but he had purposely brought no blankets and he built no
fire, because he did not want to oversleep. Though he was tired enough
to doze wherever he lay down, the cold always awakened him.
Never for an instant did he forget the fact that he had left his family
camped, undefended, along the river. He must return to them at the
earliest possible moment, for they were his to protect. Therefore, he
let the mules have only the barest minimum of grazing and rest, and he
drove himself as hard as he drove them.
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 pricked
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 passed
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 fashion 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!"
"Hello, 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 cumbersome
garments, Barbara leaped from the wagon and waved excitedly,
"Hello, 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."