Emma murmured, "We thought we might just walk about and--and not decide for a while." She looked him firmly in the eye and he bowed, and moved away. Reassured by the success of her first encounter, she held her head high. They passed a glass counter that was divided into compartments, and each compartment was filled to the top with candy. Then they went down the other aisle and out on the street again. Emma gave herself wholly to the spirit of the thing. There were stores in which nothing except drugs were sold, others that dispensed only clothing and shoes. They examined a hardware store and when Emma looked at the gleaming new tools she thought wistfully of Joe, and how he would love them. She envisioned Barbara in a dazzling gown that sold for the staggering price of thirteen dollars. Carefully they examined the latest in kitchen ware and utensils. Then their day was done. They had spent an afternoon in Paradise and their souls had been lifted. Their eyes had been filled with visions of beautiful, incredible things. They had had a glimpse of another way of life, and it was exciting, but it was not their own. Emma knew that they would have to stock up on provisions before they left Independence. But as they trudged wearily wagonward, they went again into the first store they had entered and Emma made her only purchase of that day. "Give me," she said, pointing at a mound of horehound candies, "five cents' worth of those." * * * * * Finally Joe's work was done. With the six mules in harness and Jake Favors riding beside him, he took a heavy wagon through Independence. Joe turned the wagon where Jake wanted it turned, halted the mules when that was desired, backed them, made them trot and canter. Back at the corral, without a word of protest, Jake Favors paid him in gold and looked him squarely in the eye. "Want to stay and work for me?" "Can't. I have to get to Oregon." "It's late in the season, and almost 700 miles to Laramie. You'll have to have smooth going all the way to get there ahead of the fall storms. If the storms don't get you, the Indians might. There won't be anybody else heading out this late in the year. You're all alone, a lost wagon." "We'll get there and we're not lost." "I'll make it thirty dollars a mule and promise you work all winter." "Have to get to Oregon." "You emigrants for Oregon," lamented Jake Favors, who had grown wealthy selling them horses and mules, "don't have a lick of common sense among the lot of you!" The Towers broke up camp, and returned to Jake the boards and chairs they had borrowed. Barbara scoured the camp site for toys and scraps of clothing the young ones might have dropped in the grass.