Joe helped Emma from the wagon and into an officer's quarters, where the soldier who had ridden ahead had lighted an already-laid fire. There were cots and blankets, and Emma unwrapped the shawl that enfolded her sick baby. She looked around her at the kind anxious face of the soldier standing ready to help, at the good, stout walls of the room they were in, at the warm fire where all the children would soon be gathered, and at Joe, hovering over her now, wanting so much to protect her, to protect them all. A smile of hope lighted her face. "She'll be all right now, Joe. She needed the fire and a real rest. She'll have it, now." "Do you want the doctor?" the sergeant asked. Emma said cheerfully, "We really don't need him right now. Would he come later if she should take a turn for the worse?" "Certainly." Barbara entered with Carlyle, and the sergeant swung to come face to face with her. For a moment, but only for a moment, he lost his brisk military bearing while a delighted grin flickered across his lips. Emma watched, and now that she was no longer under tension she could afford to be mischievous. "Sergeant--?" "Dugan, ma'am." "Thank you, Sergeant Dugan. We're the Tower family and this is our daughter, Barbara." "You sure are welcome, miss!" Sergeant Dugan breathed. Joe brought the rest of his sleepy, fretful family in, and left Emma and Barbara to put them to bed while he went outside with Sergeant Dugan. The soldier examined the mules with the practiced eye of a man who knew animals. "They certainly are done," he agreed. "We'd better take them to the stables where they can have hay and grain. The cow can go in the corral." Thankfully, Joe permitted the soldiers to take care of the mules and the cow. The Towers had come through the first portion of their journey. That much was over now, and his family was safe and out of the storm. He wanted to be with them, to watch them bask in the warmth of the fire, to share with them the well-being of this wonderful, though temporary, shelter. CHAPTER TEN Snedeker's The tower family, Joe thought with a smile, had never been as well off as it was right now. Baby Emma had come through her illness, and was thriving. They hadn't been assigned an orderly, but most of the time among the soldiers who were off duty, they had from four to fifteen. Joe's smile widened and his eyes sparkled. Some of the officers and noncoms had their wives with them and some of the enlisted men had squaws to whom, Joe presumed, they were married. But Laramie was an isolated fort. Most of the soldiers were young, out for a taste of adventure, and they found little enough. Even patrols into Indian country became monotonous after one made a sufficient number of them, and winter duty at the fort was routine.