It was a prayer, not a curse, and he flung the door open to go out and
meet these horsemen who had appeared so providentially.
"Told you I'd come!" Sergeant Dunbar called. "Told you I'd come as soon
as my hitch was up! I brought a wagon train through with me and they
told us at Camp Axton that you were here. We smelled smoke and figured
the rest."
His arm around Martha, Henry Winterson stood just behind Joe and both
their faces wreathed in smiles. Emma came, and the younger children ran
with open arms toward this man who had been their playmate at Fort
Laramie. Joe looked through the cabin's door to see Barbara and Ellis in
a lovers' embrace. He grinned; they thought they could not be seen.
"Get down!" Joe sang out. "Get down and come on in! Where are your
wagons?"
"Left 'em back along the Trail when the Sarge here smelled Indians," a
lanky Kentuckian on a brown horse said. "Say, this looks like good land.
Is it all taken?"
"Not near. There's room for all of you if you want to come and we have
everything here. Everything but our wagon. That's lost, but we'll get
another." He glanced again through the open door and shouted joyously,
"All of you just better stay right here, at least through tomorrow.
There's going to be a wedding!"