Tad blinked once, and then he said soberly, "Yes, Pa."
Joe took from his box the tools he needed, and strapped them to the horse mule's harness. Emma pressed a parcel into his hands.
"Here's food." Suddenly her eyes misted over, and her mouth trembled, and then stopped. "You—you watch yourself, Joe. Be careful." She managed a smile.
"I'll be all right," he called as he rode away. "I'll be back before you know it."
They watched him ride away, the younger children merely staring. But Barbara and Emma had a sudden sense of weakness, as though their strength were going with him. Tad set his jaw and clutched the rifle.
Joe turned once to wave.
As soon as he was out of sight, the loneliness and desolation, the terrible emptiness of this wild place, struck Emma Tower like a solid blow. She shivered and kept her face averted because she did not want her children to see what was written there. Gazing down the Trail, she thought she saw Joe again and knew she had not. He had gone on a lonely, dangerous ride, and for a moment she entertained the soul-chilling notion that she would never see him again.
Then she banished such thoughts from her mind. She was here, halfway between Missouri and God only knew where, because she had confidence in Joe's ability to take care of his family and himself. She loved Missouri and she would have been perfectly contented to stay there. But she loved Joe more, and she knew all about the desperate longings and wild undercurrents which were within him and which he must constantly battle. She knew about the opportunities he had always sought but never had, and of his hopes for his children. If Oregon was the answer to that, then Oregon it would be.
Now, for another moment, all she knew was that she had been deserted and that it was terrible. Had she been alone, she told herself, she might have wept, for she felt like weeping. Then she knew that that was wrong too. Had there been no children dependent on her, she would have gone with Joe. But the children were here and she rose to the occasion.