Jake Favors raised both hands in mock horror. "Man! I can't sell mules for fifty dollars a head!"
"Tell you what. I'll lose money on it but I'll give you twenty five dollars a head for breaking in a team of six that will work together."
Joe hesitated. Certainly a hundred and fifty dollars more would be a godsend. It would assure them of enough money no matter what happened, but it took time to break mules properly. However, it would take less time if Joe could choose his own mules. He looked at the corral from which the gray had come.
Joe said doubtfully, "I could wagon break six, but somebody else will have to polish 'em off."
Jake Favors looked narrowly at him. "What do you mean?"
"I'll break six to harness and teach them to pull together, gee, haw, stop, and back. It'll take more practice before they're really a fine team."
Joe looked him straight in the eye. "I haven't got time."
"Do I pay you before you start or after you finish?" There was more than a trace of sarcasm in the question.
Joe said grimly, "After I finish. But I also want a clean place to camp and feed for my stock."
Jake Favors said, "You've made yourself a deal. Drive into the meadow behind the corrals and make camp. There's a good spring rising under the apple trees, and it's far enough from the corrals so you won't get much smell."
Joe swung his team off the road and onto the dusty, dry ground adjoining the corrals. A little way farther on the wagon wheels ground clean grass, and Emma looked nervously back at the city. Independence had its allure, but she had her children to think of and who knew what evil lurked in a place like this? She asked,
"How long do you think it will take you, Joe?"
"I'm going to try to make it in three weeks, but it might take longer."
"Isn't that cutting our time very short?"
"I doubt it. I figure that we can make thirty miles a day. We'll be in Laramie well before the fall storms hit and we certainly need the money."
Emma moved uneasily and murmured, "Yes, we need it."
Because it was secluded and out of the city, she was less nervous when Joe swung the team into the grove of apple trees. There were eight of them that had had no attention, and as a consequence they bore knotty little apples that clung tightly to the branches with a few ripened ones on the ground. But the place was clean, and the spring that rose in the center of the trees and trickled itself into a reed-bordered rill, was cold.