"Everything's smooth as a tub of lard," he called cheerfully. "I found a new ford. Can you catch your chickens?"
"Oh yes. They're tame."
"Give me an hour or so, then catch them and load everything on the wagon. The Towers are about to move again."
He took the whiffletree from the wagon, let a chain drag behind it, and harnessed the mules. Joe drove them up the river bank, gathering the wood he had cut as he came to each piece, binding as big a load as the chain would surround and dragging it to the ford he had selected. When all the wood was piled there, he returned for the wagon.
The youngest children remained inside, peering curiously out the front or back, while Joe, Emma, Barbara and Tad lashed wood beneath the wagon box, on both sides of it, and even to the tongue. Joe stepped back to grin at their handiwork. There was so much wood tied to the wagon that only the wheels and cover were visible. It was not absolutely essential; the wagon itself would have floated. But Joe wanted to keep water out of the box and away from the load.
"Never thought we'd have to build our own ship out in the middle of this—wish I knew just what it is and where it is. But we're on our way to Laramie. Let's launch."
The mules walked gingerly down to the river, taking their time and testing what lay ahead before they put their full weight on it. With only the lightest pressure on the reins, Joe let them have their own way. Nobody could make a mule go where it didn't want to go and nobody could hurry a mule that wanted to be cautious. They entered the water, waded out until it lapped their bellies, and continued to move carefully. Then they were swimming, holding their heads high so no water could trickle into their ears. They waded again.
Safe on the opposite bank, Joe and Tad untied the ropes that held the wood on, and they threw as much as they could reasonably carry into the wagon box. Not forgotten was that long and dismal stretch where buffalo chips were the only fuel. Should they again strike treeless trail, they would have firewood.
That night they camped just across the river, within a stone's throw of the ford where the wheel had broken.
With dawn, the first snow lay on the ground. It was light and powdery, little more than a white dust that did not hide completely the grass on the near-by knolls but seemed to cover entirely those farther away. Little snow devils, picked up by wind, whirled across the trail and filled ruts while leaving the crown between them brown and naked. Joe hurried the mules, and wished mightily that he had saved some grain for them. Mules worked better when they were on grain, but all they'd been able to carry from Independence had been used up two weeks ago. The rest of the trip to Laramie would necessarily be forced, with no time to linger on the way and since there wasn't any grain, the mules would have to work without it.