Tad went out to test his hatchet, and after the dishes were washed Barbara and Ellis took a walk in the snow. Emma and Joe watched the young couple as they left. Emma had told her husband of her talk with Ellis. His response had been an uneasy one.
"He's mighty hasty, seems to me."
"Mighty young, too," she had reminded him.
Still enthralled with their presents, the youngsters played busily. Snedeker took a blackened pipe from his pocket, filled it with vile-smelling tobacco, and offered the tobacco pouch to Joe.
"Smoke?"
"No thanks. I never got the habit."
"Lordy, lordy. No smokin'. No drinkin'. What do you do, Joe?"
"I like to hunt and fish."
"Of both you'll find a heap in Oregon," Snedeker assured him. "Though 'tain't an' never will be like 'twas. I remember—"
Joe and Emma listened while he spoke of the west that used to be. He spoke of Blackfeet, Sioux, Pawnees, and of battles with them. He created word pictures of virgin creeks which, until the Mountain Men came, had known no white man's tracks. There were so many buffalo that the plains were black with them and the thunder of their hoofs drowned even a shrieking wind. Snedeker told of vast herds of deer, elk, and antelope. He told of colorful camps and rendezvous.