He turned back toward the building site and as he did Ellis went to bring the mules in. Joe felt a little sorry for him. Remembering his own courting days, he knew that nothing was as fascinating or as important to Ellis as Barbara, but Ellis was aware of the necessity for getting things done. He was young in years but he had a sense of responsibility. Joe caught up his pick and shovel and went to work. They had planned a combined kitchen-living room and three bedrooms; one for Ellis and Barbara, one for Tad and his brothers, and one for Joe and Emma. Baby Emma would share with her parents until Barbara and Ellis moved into their own house. Then she would have their room. The main room would be in front, facing the creek, and the only door would also be there. The rear would be divided into bed rooms. Until there was time to lay puncheons, the floor would necessarily be dirt and Joe had taken a cue from Snedeker's post. Though they would not have Snedeker's advantage in looking through small windows from a raised floor, the windows would be small and so placed that everything around the cabin could be seen from them. Thus, in the event of an attack, they would be able to shoot in any direction. They had dug into the slope at the rear and leveled it out to the front, but it was not exactly level. Joe drove stakes at either end, stretched a cord between them and laid his level on the cord. He loosened dirt with the pick, scooped it up in the shovel and threw it down the slope. Ellis came with a drag of logs, left them beside the excavation and went back for more. Joe got down on his hands and knees, leveled a small hump and was satisfied. He leaned his pick and shovel against the wagon, took his ax out of the tool box and began notching logs. Once the building started, it went swiftly. Still working from dawn to dark, Joe and Ellis built up the walls, laid the roof poles, and covered the roof with shakes. Joe made a stone boat, a flat sledge and hauled clay from a bed that was about a mile up the creek. While Joe and Ellis worked on the inside partitions, Emma and the children started chinking. The youngsters worked so enthusiastically on the lower cracks that in places there was more clay than log. Summer was well under way when they had their first visitor. He came riding up from the Oregon Trail, a thin sliver of a man on an enormous white horse. But though he was thin, he was a strong man. Muscles rippled smoothly beneath his homespun shirt, and his smile was pleasant. He slid from his big horse and spoke with a pronounced New England twang. "Howdy, folks." "Hello!" Joe said warmly. The thin man extended his hand. "My name's Winterson, Henry Winterson. I live--" with a gesture of his thumb he indicated the entire west "--about four miles out there." "We're the Tower family," Joe introduced the individual members, "and this is Ellis Garner."