Joe vaulted astride the mare and set himself for the lunge that he knew was coming now. He tried to make her keep her head up, but she got it down and bucked. Joe gripped her sides with his knees, and for a moment she pitched and twisted. Then she reared, trying to make him slide back over her tail, and when she did Joe shortened the rein so she couldn't get her head down again. She panted angrily, then obeyed the tug of the rein and started down the path toward Tenney's. Joe knew another moment of tormenting uncertainty. He was a realist, and experience had taught him that nothing worth having came easily. Though he knew nothing about the west, he did know what wagon travel involved. At the best, it was not easy. Though he never doubted Emma's moral fiber, though he knew that once having decided to go she would spare herself nothing to make the trip possible and successful, was her physical strength equal to the hardships that they would almost certainly endure before they reached the land they wanted? Suppose baby Emma became desperately ill along the way and had only a wagon for shelter? Alfred, Carlyle and Joe were very young. Was Barbara equal to such a trip? Joe half turned the mule around, then turned her back and went on. He had taken upon himself the duty of digging out all possible information in advance. He had promised Emma to take care of her--and that meant he must prepare for every situation in which they were likely to find themselves. The sources of reliable information were few, but Seeley was one, and he meant to get to Seeley as early in the day as he humanly could. The morning was lighter. But it was still too early for most people to be up and, save for Lard Head, who lay sleeping in front of the store, there was nobody around Tenney's Crossing. From the last house a little white dog ran out, yapped ineffectively at the mule, and scuttled back into the shadows when she lunged at him. The mule broke into a fast canter and Joe let her run. Then, of her own accord, she slowed to an easy trot and walked on the upgrades. This was a wagon road, and sometimes wagons made the trip between Tenney's Crossing and Hammerstown when they were heavily loaded and in wet weather. The ruts on either side of the road were deep and uneven, and here and there they had been filled in with rocks. The bleached bones of an ox that had died on this road and been dragged aside were scattered about a grassy little dell. The sky brightened, and Joe forgot his doubts. He felt light-hearted, almost gay, as he rode through forest broken by an occasional clearing. Little Emma, he assured himself, would be all right because she was always all right when her mother took care of her. And about the lost crops there need be no worry. If a man couldn't do one thing he could always do another, and the only really unfortunate men were those who wept, but did nothing else, when trouble came.