Tad came over. His rifle, that had not been out of his sight since he'd owned it, hung in the crook of his arm and concern was written on his face. "What's wrong, Pa?" "I don't know." As gently as possible he unhitched the team, and stripped their harnesses off. The horse mule he picketed, but the mare was left unhampered. She walked a few uncertain steps and halted. The horse followed anxiously, and stood very close to her. He moved aside when Joe came in for a closer examination. Soothing the sick beast with his voice, he lifted her flabby lips and looked inside her mouth. Her tongue was hot, her breath foul. Joe stepped back. He had considered himself familiar with mules and the diseases of mules, but he was not familiar with this. It must be something peculiar to western country; maybe last night or this morning the mule had eaten something that poisoned her. Or perhaps it was the result of some poisonous insect's bite. It was not snake poison; Joe was familiar with snake-struck mules and he knew that, if they were rested, they would recover. He filled a bucket at the water barrel and held it under the mare's muzzle, but she took only a few sips and staggered away. The children watched concernedly and Emma asked, "Is she going to die, Joe?" Suddenly the distances again seemed vast and the Trail forlorn. For the first time Joe realized completely just how dependent they were upon the mules and how lost they would be without them. A broken wagon might be repaired, but one mule couldn't pull it. Joe turned to the medicine he carried in his tool chest and he shook the brown bottle. But even as he did so he felt the hopelessness of it. This was Missouri medicine and the mule had an Oregon ailment. Tad called, "She's down!" Joe turned to see the mule fallen in the grass and making a valiant effort to hold her head up. But even as he looked her head lowered, so that she lay prostrate, and the heavy rasp of her labored breathing was terrible to hear. Breath rattled in her throat and there were a few short gasps. Then silence. The horse mule raised his head and tail and delivered an ear-splitting bray. Very gently, walking slowly, the horse went to his dead mate and touched her with his muzzle. Emma looked to Joe, and she saddened, because more than at any time during the entire trip, Joe now looked distraught and worried. She knew that these were not the rich, flat, well-watered meadows that Snedeker had talked about. They must travel farther, and to be forced to stop now, and thus lose precious plowing and planting days for the first season's crop, was a bitter disappointment. They were more helpless, actually, than they had been at any time before for how, in this vast uninhabited wilderness, did a person go about buying a mule? Joe squared his shoulders and tried to conceal his own worry. They could not stay here but, obviously, neither could they go on. "Ellis will be back soon," he said. "We'll hitch his horse with the other mule."