"That's up to you. Ninety-eight out of a hundred Indian scrapes are not brought about by Indians, but by some mullethead of an emigrant who started a ruckus with them. If you don't bother the Indians, and don't let them bother you, you should have no trouble." "What else will I need?" "How many are going with you?" "My wife and six young ones." "Load your wagon heavy with eatables," Grandpa advised. "Carry plenty of flour. Take eggs; pack them in a barrel of corn meal and use up the meal as you use up the eggs. You should have coffee and whatever else you fancy in the way of eating. Take tools, the ones you'll need are the ones you need here. Go light on dishes and furniture. There's enough household goods been pitched out of wagons between Independence and the Wil'mette Valley to stock a city the size of St. Louis ten times over. You got a milk cow?" "Two." "Take both. You'll get some milk all the time. Hang the morning's milking in a pail behind the wagon. By night it'll be butter. Drink the evening's milking. Can you shoot?" "Tolerable good." Grandpa said, "There's still buffalo and I think there always will be, though they'll never be again like they were in '30 when we went into Santa Fe. But you can count on enough for meat. You got any money?" "Very little," Joe confessed. "Keep what you have. Take all of it with you and get as much more as you can. You'll need it." Joe asked in some astonishment, "On the Oregon Trail?" "On the Oregon Trail," Grandpa assured him. "Suppose a mule dies and you have to buy another? What if you have to stock up on flour?" For a moment Grandpa lost himself in the dreamy introspectiveness of the very old. "It's not like it was in the old days. A man didn't need anything but his horse and rifle then, and if he didn't have the horse he could always get one if he had a rifle. The west has grown up. She's shed her three-cornered pants and put on her long britches. Don't try it unless you have some money." "Is there anything else?" "Watch the company you'll find. You'll run into soldiers, but no constables or marshals, and you will find cutthroats. Take it easy. Don't go too fast or too slow. Use the sense God gave you, and you'll do all right." "That's it, huh?" "I've told you everything that's to be told," Grandpa assured him. "If you can think of anything else, I'll try to answer your questions." "Can't figure another question," Joe admitted. "I should outfit right, go to Independence, get on the Oregon Trail, and use common sense." "That's the way." "Thank you for your time. Thank you kindly." Grandpa muttered, "That's all my time's good for now." "What did you say?" "Nothing important," the old man told him. He said, more to himself than to Joe, "I'd like to do it over again, the way I did it the first time."