Joe followed his pointing hand. On the far side of the creek a buck deer, his head heavy with grotesque clubs of velvet-covered antlers, was gazing at them. The buck stretched its neck toward them, then stamped its forefeet and flicked a short tail. Tad looked hopefully at Joe.
Joe shook his head. "Not that much meat. We'll be going on in a couple of days and we can't waste time curing what we don't use."
"But I'll tell you what you can do," Joe said. "I saw trout in the creek. Suppose you take a hook and line, cut yourself a pole, and see what you can do about bringing in a mess for supper."
Mike at his heels, rifle in his hands, Tad went whooping toward the creek and Joe watched him go. Joe turned back to the tasks at hand, for there was much to be done. But even as he worked he had a curious feeling that this was no routine halt.
They had had many different camps under many different conditions, and some were so ordinary that Joe could not remember them at all. Others, such as the one where they'd eaten their first buffalo and the camp where they had forded the creek after he replaced the broken wagon wheel, he remembered clearly. But this one had something that was all its own. Joe tried to pin down the elusive quality it possessed and could not. Perhaps, he thought, it was partly his determination to make it the best and most comfortable stopping place they had yet known. He had a hazy idea that, if he could do everything right and work everything right, baby Emma's fever would depart.
He worked furiously with the scythe, cutting more grass and letting it wither in what remained of the afternoon sun. He carried stones from the creek and arranged a fireplace while Ellis cut wood in the fireplace. Tad came in with four big trout dangling at the end of a willow stringer.
"Threw back all the little ones!" he boasted. "Caught 'em on worms that I found under rocks! Do we need any more, Pa?"
"These will do," Joe declared. "Let me have them and I'll take the bones out."
"I can do it myself. I watched you with the bass."
He sat down to fillet his catch and Joe raked up the partially dried grass. He arranged a bed, turning all the stems downward so that only wispy grass lay on top. This he covered with buffalo robes, and built a small fireplace near it. Joe and Ellis made beds for the other youngsters, but Ellis declared that he could sleep on the ground and Joe threw down only a couple of armfuls of grass for himself. He built a cooking fire and a small fire near where Emma and her sick daughter were to spend the night.