"Oh!" Tad was walking on clouds. "Can I have it, Pa?"
"Mr. Snedeker says so."
"I'll pelt the wolf right away, just as soon as I've looked at the rifle!"
Tad dragged the wolf toward the store. Joe watched him go, then turned to Snedeker.
"No pelt's worth a rifle."
"Not usually it ain't. But any sprout that size who can aim at a trottin' wolf's ear an' hit thar can swap the pelt for a rifle with me any time. It's wuth it."
Joe shook a puzzled head; he'd thought he understood Snedeker thoroughly and found that he did not. However, the old man had conceived a great liking for Tad.
The gentle wind blew all day, turning everything in a sea of slush. The younger children had played outside until nearly evening because their playing ground was reasonably dry, and Emma had been relieved of watching them. She met Joe smilingly, and was gay, when he went in for the evening meal. But not all her high spirits were induced because the children hadn't harried her. Much as she feared the open plains, they seemed less worrisome now, in the bland spring weather, than the everlasting walls of their cabin. All winter long she had been confined in or near the cabin, and now release was in sight. That promise was borne on the warm wind, and in the melting snow. They had come this far and Oregon no longer seemed a great distance away.
"It won't be long before grass grows," Joe assured her.
"I know. I can feel it."