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 grass 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 bass."
He sat down to fillet his catch and Joe raked up the partially dried
grass. He arranged a bed, turning all the stems downward so that only
wispy grass 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 grass 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.
"When we're settled and have a roof over our head, Joe--"
He waited.