"Good," Snedeker pronounced, "on account that's all you'd get anyhow. Your folks with you?" "They're in the wagon." "Bring 'em in, man! Bring 'em in! Anybody with the sense of a jack rabbit wouldn't leave his folks set in the wagon on a day like this!" Joe brought his family in and introduced them to Snedeker and Ellis Garner. The children went to the fireplace, and stood gratefully in its warmth. Barbara smoothed her tumbled hair with her hand. Snedeker nudged Joe and he looked at Ellis Garner. A smile of purest joy glowed on the young man's face. "He's a woman chaser," Snedeker said in a whisper that carried clear across the room. "Chased one here all the way from Maryland. But, lordy, lordy! She sure didn't have the shine of _that_ filly!" CHAPTER ELEVEN Winter In the time he'd spent at Snedeker's, Joe had learned a great deal. Snedeker was a Mountain Man, one of that rare breed who had waded every stream in the west in their search for beaver. They fought every tribe of Indians that showed fight, went without hesitation where they wished to go, and spent incredibly long and dangerous months with only their rifles and their resourcefulness as protection. Then they took their furs to some wild fort, or some wilderness rendezvous, and in a few days spent all the money they had earned in a whole season of perilous living. The heyday of the Mountain Men spanned only a brief sixteen years when no gentleman was really dressed unless he wore a beaver hat. Silk replaced beaver, and broke the fur market. But though their livelihood was gone, the Mountain Men weren't. Some returned to the east. Some guided wagon trains across country that they knew as well as the emigrants knew their own back yards. Some simply disappeared, gone in search of what they considered wild and free country. And some, like Snedeker, merely transferred their way of living to other pursuits and lived much as they always had. At their first meeting, Snedeker had enraged Joe. Now Joe understood him, and with understanding had come both liking and respect. Throughout his adult life Snedeker had bowed to no will except his own, and he saw no reason for changing his ways. But, though his outward air was that of a grizzly bear with a sore paw, inwardly he was soft as a marshmallow. A shrewd bargainer, he seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of how much money emigrants carried and how much they were willing to spend. But no penniless emigrant had ever been turned away, though Snedeker would not outfit them clear to Oregon. Whether they were east- or westbound, he gave them a couple of days' supplies and sent them to Laramie where, as Snedeker knew, they became the government's responsibility.