Her fears did not disappear, but something bigger and more important than fear flowed into her. Her sobs stopped. She went to Joe and put her arms around his neck.
"I've been going on like a loon, Joe," she said.
He raised his face, and looked at her, bewildered.
"Seems as though sometimes I get an overdose of feeling, and an underdose of sense." She laughed shakily. "We're going to a better life, Joe, and no matter what I say, I know that from the bottom of my heart. No matter what we have to go through on the way--we'll look back at this, my darling, and have a good laugh over it, some day!"
An enormous relief came to his face. His shoulders straightened, and he took her in his arms. "You do trust me, Emma?" he asked, huskily.
For answer, she kissed him on the lips. The kiss told him everything he needed to know.
He took up the plate of food, divided the food exactly in half and, dutifully, he and Emma finished every morsel. They each drank exactly half of the coffee, smiling tremulously at each other over the rim of the cup.
Joe brought a bucket of water and a handful of sand from the Platte, and they scrubbed their dishes clean. Back in the wagon, Joe let the drop curtain fall, removed his mud-stained outer garments, and lay with his sons curled close on one side of the curtain while Emma joined her daughters on the other. It was the best arrangement now; the fire offered little comfort and there was no point in just standing around outside. Joe looked to his rifle, and made sure that it was within easy reach of his hand. They had seen few Indians so far and all of them had been peaceful. But they might run into hostiles.
Underneath the wagon, Mike moaned fretfully in his sleep as he dreamed of some happy hunt in which he and Tad had participated. Joe felt a little easier. The dog ate his share of food and so far he had been unable to get any for himself. But he was courageous, and almost certainly he would give the alarm if anything tried to approach them in the night. Joe pulled the quilts up around his chin and settled into the warm bed.
"There was a little wagon going to Oregon," he began.
On both sides of the curtain little pairs of ears were attentive, and eyes stared expectantly into the darkness of the wagon. Joe continued his story.