"Not so very long."
"Oh, California's hundreds of miles away yet. And then when we get there we've got to find a place to settle, and till the land, and lay out the garden and build a house, quite a nice house; I don't want to live in a cabin. Father and I have just been talking about it. Why it's months and months off yet."
He did not answer. She had spoken this way to him before, wafting the subject away with evasive words. After a pause he said slowly: "Why need we wait so long?"
"We must. I'm not going to begin my married life the way the emigrant women do. I want to live decently and be comfortable."
He broke a sprig off a sage bush and began to pluck it apart. She had receded to her defenses and peeped nervously at him from behind them.
"Fort Bridger," he said, his eyes on the twig, "is a big place, a sort of rendezvous for all kinds of people."
She stared at him, her face alert with apprehension, ready to dart into her citadel and lower the drawbridge.
"Sometimes there are missionaries stopping there."
"Missionaries?" she exclaimed in a high key. "I hate missionaries!"
This was a surprising statement. David knew the doctor to be a supporter and believer in the Indian missions, and had often heard his daughter acquiesce in his opinions.