The cabin was dark, silent but for soft sounds of slumber, when Ben Cartwright rose and, dressing quietly, slipped out to walk in the cool, brisk air of the November morning.  It was dark outside, too.  Not even the sun was awake to accompany Ben on his solitary survey.  Too early for him to be awake, too, Ben realized, but this was not a day for sleep.  Today was special.  Today was a new beginning.

    Ben turned and looked at the cabin behind him, smiling in remembrance.  A year ago to the day——November 1, 1850——had been a special day, too, though Ben hadn’t known that then.  That was the day he and Clyde Thomas had started felling logs to build this cabin.  They planned it to be only a temporary home, a place to survive the winter until they could continue on to their true destination in California.  Ben laughed softly.  No one could have told him that November morning a year ago that he’d already reached his true destination, that western Utah would become his home.  But Ben had fallen in love with this land, the pine-forested hills to the west even more than the fertile bottomland here along the Carson River.

    When Ben made his decision to settle east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, he assumed he would continue to live in the cabin he and Clyde had built.  But when he offered to buy out Clyde’s share, Ben discovered that the Thomases also wished to remain.  Ben was never sure whether Clyde and Nelly had reached that decision independently or whether they simply hadn’t wanted to leave him behind.  Regardless, Ben was glad they were staying, though he wasn’t about to consider spending another winter under the same roof.  Too much closeness strained the best of friendships, even as warm a one as he shared with these companions of the Overland Trail or the one his older son Adam enjoyed with young Billy Thomas.

    Clyde and Nelly hadn’t argued with Ben’s desire for a place of his own, and there’d been only brief discussion about what to do.  The Thomases would keep this cabin along the Carson River, while Clyde would help Ben build another wherever he chose.  Once their joint trading post had closed for the season, they’d worked on the Cartwrights’ new home.  Now it was ready.  Today Ben and his boys would move, and tonight Ben would sleep under his own roof for the first time in a year and a half.

    Ben laughed again.  It was longer than that!  That roof in St. Joseph hadn’t belonged to him anymore than the myriad of boardinghouse roofs beneath which he and Adam had slept while making their way west.  Ben had, in fact, never slept beneath a roof of his own.  He and Adam’s mother Elizabeth, daughter of a New England sea captain, had rented their cottage in New Bedford.  And, except for the year they had spent in Missouri, Ben and his second wife Inger had slept primarily under a tent beside their covered wagon.

    Ben’s brown eyes clouded as he looked northeast.  He couldn’t, of course, see beyond the piñon-dappled mountains to the lonely grave by the Humboldt River where Inger lay buried, but she still felt close to him, perhaps because she, like Elizabeth, had left a son to carry on her memory.  Hoss didn’t look a great deal like his mother, but her Swedish heritage was evident in his blue eyes and straight, wheat-colored hair.  And, more importantly, his open face showed he had inherited her loving nature.  Even at fifteen months, Hoss was a big-hearted boy.  Big in every other way, too.  Inger had named their son Eric, after her father, but the boy’s size demanded a name as big as the mountains.  The one Inger’s brother Gunnar had suggested (and Adam had insisted on) had eventually been adopted by everyone, even Inger herself.

    Ben’s long legs strolled slowly through the fields he and Clyde had planted last spring.  Barren now, but what a harvest of good food they’d produced!  All the two families could eat and enough to sell to emigrants passing by on their way to California.  Sixty thousand of them had come over the Carson route this year, so the trading post had done booming business throughout the spring and summer, despite the competition from the one at nearby Mormon Station.

    Though Ben had never quite understood how, Mormon Station had passed into the hands of John Reese, a man in his early forties, who, along with eighteen others, had arrived from Salt Lake City in July, bringing ten wagons of flour, butter, eggs and beef.  Although Reese’s Mormon Station was better stocked than Ben and Clyde’s humbler trading post, the two partners priced their goods competitively and had all the business they could comfortably handle.  They’d made a handsome profit on their investment, enough to make improvements in their respective cabins and still have some to lay back for livestock next spring.

    Clyde Thomas, having never forgotten or forgiven the way Mormons gouged him (his opinion) for ferry passage over rivers on their overland journey, grunted whenever their neighbors were mentioned.  Ben, however, liked Reese.  He seemed an honest man, even if his prices were higher than Ben considered justifiable.  Still, his and Clyde’s weren’t that much lower, for the cost of freighting goods over the Sierras had to be taken into consideration.  No, despite Clyde’s opinion, Reese was a good man, a hard-working man, a man who looked to the future.  Unlike Mormon Station’s previous owner, Reese evidently intended to stay.

    Some of the others that came from Salt Lake City with Reese, however, made less pleasant residents with whom to share Carson Valley.  James Finney, for instance, was not only illiterate, but feather-brained in the bargain and, in contrast to most of the Mormons Ben had met, almost perpetually drunk.  Ben wasn’t sure whether Finney was Mormon or had just hired on as a teamster to make his way west.

    Frankly, Ben would have been glad to see the man continue on over the mountains, but Finney showed no inclination for California.  He seemed to prefer chipping around the canyons to the north.  Odd behavior for a miner, Ben thought, or maybe not.  Maybe the hope of a new strike naturally drove a true prospector to the lonely, isolated places of the earth.  Finney, after all, wasn’t the only one searching for gold in the area.  The miners even found a little color now and then, but no one had discovered the big strike of which they all dreamed.

    Sandy Bowers was another who had come as a teamster with Reese’s party and stayed to prospect for gold.  Bowers was as unlearned as Finney, but Ben couldn’t help liking the big eighteen-year-old with the booming laugh.  Everyone, even Clyde Thomas, liked Sandy.  Like Finney, like the other miners, Sandy rarely found more than enough gold to buy his daily ration of beans and bacon, but he was perpetually optimistic about the bonanza he was sure to uncover with the next swing of his pickax.

    Ben hadn’t gotten well acquainted with the other miners in the area, but that didn’t seem to matter now.  Most of them had gone over the mountains the previous month before snow blocked the passes.  By the time Ben returned from his final trip to Sacramento for winter supplies, Carson Valley’s population had dropped to a fraction of its summertime peak.  Ben had hoped to persuade his brother John to winter here with him and his sons, but on reaching Placerville, he learned that John had heard of the discovery of gold in New South Wales and joined the transoceanic rush to the new field.  Ben shook his head, wondering if it was really the lust for gold that drove John or his craving for salt spray in his face.  Unlike Ben, John had never shaken loose the wanderlust of his youth.  Ben couldn’t understand how a man with a wife and boy he hadn’t seen in close to three years could set sail for a distant land, but he and John had always been different.

    “Pa!  Pa!”

    Ben turned and smiled as eight-year-old Adam came running across the field to meet him.  Though Ben, too, had loved the sea, here was the reason he had left it.  This dark-haired, dark-eyed boy and his infant brother.  If he never again viewed distant ports, Ben would count himself blessed above all men on earth, so long as he had those two precious faces in sight.

    Ben scooped Adam up in his muscular arms.  “Well, you’re up early,” he said, giving the boy’s blue suspenders a teasing yank.

    “You, too, Pa,” Adam said.  “I guess we’re both pretty excited about our new place, huh?”

    “I know I am,” Ben replied, setting the boy down again after giving him a good squeeze.  “Are the others awake yet?”

    “Just Miss Nelly,” Adam reported.  “I think she’s fixing some food to take with us.”

    Ben smiled as he raked wind-blown brown hair back into place.  That was probably exactly what Nelly Thomas was doing.  Though she had recognized the need for the two families to live separately, Nelly fretted about how the Cartwrights would manage without a woman to cook for them.  Ben had to admit he didn’t cook as well as Nelly, but he figured he and the boys weren’t likely to starve.  Especially not when they’d still be sharing meals with the Thomases from time to time.

    Reaching the cabin, Ben went inside, followed by Adam.  “Good morning, Nelly,” he said to the sandy-haired woman at the stove.  How Nelly’s brown eyes had widened when Ben and Clyde unloaded the new cast iron stove after that last trip over the mountains!

    “Mornin’, Ben,” Nelly said softly.  “Up early, ain’t you?”

    “You, too,” Ben chuckled.

    “Well, I had reason,” Nelly asserted.  “I aim to see to it you and the boys have a proper breakfast to start the day and a decent meal to reheat for dinner.”

    “Appreciate it,” Ben said, “but I do wish you’d quit worrying, Nelly.”

    Nelly sighed.  How could she help worrying?  Ben could take care of himself and Adam, she supposed.  But a baby?  There’d been no persuading Ben to leave Hoss here with her, though.  “Now, I’ve written out a bunch of my best receipts,” Nelly told Ben, “and I’ve done my best to make them clear enough for even a man to make out.  You follow them, Ben, and you’ll do all right.  I don’t want to hear of you feedin’ these younguns nothin’ but bacon and biscuits like you was on the trail.”

    Ben responded by giving her a smart salute.  “Yes, ma’am!” he promised.  “Turnips and taters at every meal.”

    Nelly wagged a finger beneath his broad nose.  “Hush your sass,” she warned.  “You’ll be teachin’ these boys your ornery ways.”

    Ben laughed.  “Now, Nelly, since when did Billy need lessons in orneriness?”  Nelly laughed, too, acknowledging with a nod the well-earned reputation of her favorite mischief-maker.

    From the bed in the front room came a long, lazy yawn.  “You talkin’ about me?” Billy drawled.

    “They sure are!” Adam informed his friend as he perched at the foot of their shared bed.  “And not a word of it good.”

    Billy sat up and frowned, his freckled cheeks bulging out.  “Why’s everybody always jumpin’ on me?” he demanded.

    “Oh, nobody’s jumpin’ on you,” his mother scolded.  “Get on up and get the cow milked, boy.”

    “You see to ours, Adam,” Ben ordered.

    “Okay,” Adam agreed readily.  He gave Billy a shove that sent the redhead sprawling back onto the mattress.  “Beat you to the barn,” he challenged.

    “No fair!” Billy hollered, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and grabbing for his trousers.  “You’re already dressed.”

    “Early bird gets the worm, Billy,” Ben grinned.  Billy scowled and, scrambling into his red shirt and brown britches, followed Adam out the door.

    Yawning and scratching his tangled auburn hair, Clyde came around the canvas curtain that separated his and Nelly’s sleeping quarters from the rest of the cabin.  “You’re sure noisy critters this mornin’,” he muttered.  Nelly stopped stirring the pumpkin she was stewing long enough to give her husband a good morning kiss.

    Clyde clapped Ben on the back.  “Well, the big day’s finally here, is it?”

    Ben laughed.  “The day you get shed of me, you mean?”

    Clyde frowned, his blue eyes narrowing.  “Ain’t what I meant and you know it.”

    “I know,” Ben said, “and now’s as good a time as any to tell you both how much I’ve appreciated your hospitality this last year.”

    “Now, Ben, this was your cabin, same as ours,” Nelly chided, arms akimbo.

    “Sure,” Ben agreed, “but it wouldn’t have been a home without the touches you added.  I’ll always have good memories of this place.”

    “You sound like you was leavin’ forever,” Clyde snorted.  “Last I heard, you was gonna be back in a couple of days.”

    Ben guffawed.  “That’s right!  I can’t bear being away from Nelly’s cooking longer than that.”  The three friends enjoyed the private joke.  While the Cartwrights were leaving today to establish their own home, everyone knew Ben and Clyde would be working together on a number of projects, so they’d all see each other frequently.  And Nelly had insisted on a standing invitation for Ben and his boys to share Sunday dinner each week.  “Can’t abide not seein’ my Sunshine at least once a week!” Nelly had declared.

    Ben smiled as he recalled that reference to his younger son.  Judging by the bulge beneath Nelly’s skirt, she’d soon have her own infant to fondle.  Maybe, then, she’d be less possessive of Hoss.  Secretly, Ben doubted it.  Even before Inger’s death Nelly had taken comfort in cuddling Hoss’s fat little body, comfort she’d sorely needed after cholera took her younger son, four-year-old Bobby.  Then, when Inger was gone, Nelly’d stepped in to provide the mothering the baby had needed, and her attachment for the child had deepened daily.  Hoss loved her, too.  Separating the two was likely to be the hardest part of the move, Ben realized.

    After a heartier than usual breakfast, Clyde helped Ben load his share of the supplies in the wagon, while Adam and Billy brought the Cartwrights’ personal possessions from the cabin.  There weren’t many, so it was soon time to leave.

    Nelly gave Hoss a parting hug and handed him to his father.  Hoss crowed merrily when Ben bounced him on his arm, but his blue eyes clouded as his father carried him away, and one plump hand stretched over Ben’s shoulder back toward Nelly Thomas.  Hoss wasn’t really old enough to understand what was happening.  Though Adam had tried to explain it for the last two days, Hoss only understood that changes were taking place.  Sensing the sudden quietness of the child, Ben held him more tightly and pressed a kiss against his chubby cheek.  “It’s all right, son,” he whispered.  “We’ll see them again soon.”  The promise seemed to satisfy Hoss, who squirmed around to see where they were going instead of where they’d been.

    The Cartwright cabin was almost four miles northwest of the Thomas home.  For the oxen it was a good two-hour haul, though the man and his sons could have walked it more quickly.  Someday, maybe next summer, Ben hoped to have a riding horse.  Jonathan Payne, another companion of the journey west, had intended to breed horses once he arrived in California.  Ben planned to locate him, though all he knew at present was that the Paynes had settled somewhere in the vicinity of Monterey.  Since that area would be a good place to find beef cattle, too, perhaps Jonathan could tell Ben what local men had the best stock and the fairest prices.

    Ben chuckled.  Here he was planning next year’s work when he had plenty to do right now.  Coming out of his own reverie, Ben noticed that Adam was unusually quiet.  “Something on your mind, son?” he asked.

    Adam frowned up into his father’s face.  “I miss Billy,” he said.

    Ben tousled the boy’s black hair.  “Here, now; none of that,” he teased.  “You’ll have us all turning around if you keep that up.  Besides, you and Billy will be seeing each other again in just a couple of days.”

    “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Adam pointed out.  “Miss Nelly said we could come to dinner every Sunday.”

    “Not tomorrow,” Ben said firmly.  “We need to get settled, and their family deserves a day to themselves, too, son.”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam mumbled.

    “We’ll be there early Monday to help lay the floor,” Ben reminded Adam, “and if I know Miss Nelly, she’ll save some of her special Sunday pie for us.”

    “Pie!” Hoss chirped happily.  It was one of his favorite words.

    “Oh, you and your pie,” Ben teased, tickling the baby’s ribs.  Hoss squealed with delight.

    The cabin, crowded tight against the abrupt rise of the Sierra foothills, came into sight, and Ben gratefully set Hoss on the ground.  Two hours was a long time to carry his armload of a son.  Hoss had started life at a whopping fifteen pounds; and though he had no scale to prove it, Ben felt sure the boy was twice that now, thanks to Miss Nelly’s cooking.  “Watch your brother while I unhitch the team,” Ben instructed Adam.

    “Can we go in the cabin?” Adam asked.  “I want to show Hoss around.”

    Ben suppressed the urge to laugh.  Showing Hoss around the small cabin should take all of five minutes, maybe less.  “Sure, Adam,” he said, lips twitching.  “Give him a good tour.  I’ll be through soon and we’ll unload the wagon.”

    Adam took Hoss’s plump hand in his slender one.  “Come on, Hoss,” he said.  “Wanna see your new bed?”

    Hoss cocked his head, still not understanding what was going on, but content to follow Adam anywhere.  Adam had to shorten his steps to accommodate Hoss’s uneven ones, but he was glad his little brother had finally learned to walk.  There were times Adam thought the baby never would.  Truthfully, Ben had begun to wonder, too.  Of course, considering how much weight Hoss had to lift just to stand upright, maybe it wasn’t surprising that he preferred to crawl.  Adam thought to himself that they’d probably make better progress if Hoss would drop to his hands and knees, but they finally managed to cross the few yards between the wagon and the front door.

    Adam lifted Hoss over the threshold and gave the puncheon floor a solid stomp with his brown shoe.  “See, Hoss, we’ve got a good, strong floor,” he pointed out.  “That’s something the old place didn’t have.” Adam knew he wouldn’t be able to claim that distinction for long, though.  Flooring the Thomases’ cabin was first on the list of projects his father and Mr. Thomas would be working on together.

    Hoss flopped on his rear and began to pat the smooth wood.  Adam frowned and hauled the child to his feet.  “No, Hoss,” he commanded.  “You can’t sit right in the doorway.  Besides, there’s more to see.”

    As Adam led the way into the main room, Hoss toddled contentedly after him.  “There’s the fireplace,” Adam said, pointing to the recess in the west wall, near which sat a rocking chair.  “You remember to stay away from fire, don’t you, Hoss?”

    Hoss’s fat chin bobbed up and down.  He’d learned that lesson well.  Fire was hot; so was Miss Nelly’s new cook stove, though Hoss didn’t know the word for the new piece of furniture that had been installed only a few weeks before.

    “And see, we have our own table now,” Adam bragged.  The benches on each side of it were the old ones from the Thomas cabin, though.  Clyde had made new chairs for everyone at his place, and Adam felt jealous of that.  Pa had promised, though, that he’d make some for them as soon as he could.  Having helped Clyde with the others, Ben was sure he was ready to tackle making one by himself.

    With both palms flat, Hoss patted one of the benches.  “Eat,” he said.

    Adam shook his head.  “Not yet, you bottomless pit.  Come see the bedroom.”  Adam took Hoss’s fat hand again and led him to the east end of the cabin.  They walked through another doorway into the bedroom.  “See, Hoss, a real wall, not just a curtain.  Isn’t that nice?”

    Hoss didn’t respond.  Curtains, walls——it was all the same to him.  He toddled toward the bed with a rush of steps and grinned as he rubbed his face against the patchwork coverlet.

    Adam grabbed the baby under the arms and hefted him onto the bed.  “This is Pa’s bed,” he informed his little brother, “but look where you and me will sleep.”  Reaching down, Adam pulled a trundle out from beneath the larger bed.  It, too, was fitted with a mattress stuffed with pine needles and grass and covered with a colorful quilt.

    Hoss leaned over to look at his new bed and tumbled headfirst onto the mattress.  He gave one sharp cry of surprise, then grinned up at his big brother.

    “You stay put when I put you somewhere!” Adam scolded.  “What if I hadn’t pulled out this mattress?  You’d’ve cracked your noggin!”

    Hoss’s grin faded.  He didn’t understand what Adam meant, but the reproachful tone was unmistakeable.  His lower lip started to tremble.

    “Don’t cry,” Adam soothed, sitting down next to the baby.  “I’m not mad, Hoss.  I just don’t want you to get hurt.  You have to mind brother, remember?”

    Hoss wrapped pudgy arms around Adam’s middle.  “Bubba,” he chortled.  Adam grinned and gave the little lad a tickle.  Hoss responded, as usual, with a giggle.

    “Well, it sounds as though Hoss likes our new home,” Ben said brightly, walking in to see the brothers rolling on the trundle.

    “Yeah, he does, Pa,” Adam reported.

    “And how about my big boy?”

    “Big boy!” Hoss chirped.

    “No, not you,” Ben said, bending over to pinch the toddler’s plump belly.  “I meant Adam.”

    “I like it, too, Pa,” Adam said, “but it’ll be lighter once we get the windows in.  I don’t see why we have to do all that work over at the Thomases first.”

    “Because Miss Nelly is a lady, son,” Ben explained.  “Getting a house just right is important to a lady.  It won’t take long to get them fixed up, though; then Mr. Thomas will help us put in our windows.”

    Hoss pulled on Ben’s pants’ leg.  “Eat!” he demanded.

    Ben chuckled.  “Fix him a slice of bread and butter, would you, Adam?”

    “I wanted to get my things put away,” Adam pouted.

    “It won’t take that long,” Ben scoffed, “and he’ll get less underfoot with food in his hand.”

    Adam laughed.  “That’s for sure!”

    While Adam prepared Hoss’s snack, along with one for himself, Ben started unloading the hundred-pound sacks of flour and cornmeal.  One of each went inside the cabin; the others Ben stacked neatly in a small shed he’d built of sawed lumber brought over from Sacramento earlier in the summer.  Once the temperature dropped to freezing, he’d use it for meat storage, as well.

    Long before the heavier supplies were unloaded, Adam was ready to unpack his belongings.  First things first, though, Adam decided.  He found one of their gray blankets, well worn from its use on the journey west, and spread it near the cabin’s front door.  He steered Hoss, buttered bread in hand, to it and plopped him down on his rear.  “Stay,” Adam ordered, pointing at the blanket.

    For the moment Hoss seemed too absorbed in his food to wander, so Adam felt free to scramble into the wagon in search of his personal treasures.  Most valuable to Adam, of course, were his textbooks, those he’d brought overland and those his teacher in St. Joseph had sent by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco.  His arms full, Adam headed for the cabin, checking on Hoss as he passed the door.  Still on the blanket, Adam noted.  Good.

    Entering the cabin, Adam headed directly for the wall separating the main room from the bedroom.  Pa’d built three shelves along that wall and told Adam the lowest would be his.  Carefully, Adam arranged his schoolbooks according to size, noting that there’d be just enough room to set the treasured music box that had once belonged to his mother beside them.  He went back outside.  Hoss was still sitting on the blanket, but the bread was gone now.  Adam shook his head at his brother’s buttery chin and fingers.  “Sit still,” he commanded, “and I’ll get something to clean you up.”

    From the wagon Adam grabbed a knobby flour sack and hurried back to the blanket.  “Want your toys, Hoss?” he grinned as he emptied the sack onto the blanket.  Wooden blocks rained down, along with a carved squirrel, bird and deer.  Hoss crowed happily and snatched up the bird, his favorite.  He started to put its wing in his mouth, but Adam pushed the fat hand down.  “No, no; don’t eat,” he cautioned.  Then, using one end of the flour sack, he wiped Hoss’s face and hands clean of the butter.  “That’ll have to do until I fetch some water,” Adam said.  “Now, can you play here with your toys while brother unpacks?”

    Hoss didn’t respond verbally; he was too busy making his bird fly through the air.  Satisfied, Adam went back to the wagon, intending this time to move his spare clothing indoors.

    “You’re doing a good job of watching our boy, Adam,” Ben said proudly as he lifted another sack of cornmeal from the wagon.

    Adam squared his shoulders.  “I’m trying, Pa,” he said.  “Hoss minds me pretty good, but I’m not always sure he understands.”

    Ben laughed.  “He’s still a baby, Adam.  Believe me, it’s wiser to assume he doesn’t.  Just keep watching him like you’re doing.  I’m going to need your help more than ever, son, now that we have our own place.”

    “I’ll do my best, Pa,” Adam promised.

    Walking toward the shed, Ben smiled.  He knew Adam’s word could be relied on, and it was one of the qualities he most admired in his young son.  There were grown men who didn’t have half his eight-year-old’s measure of responsibility and integrity.

    By the time the wagon was completely unloaded, the sun stood directly overhead.  Ben sent Adam to a nearby creek for a bucket of water and began building a fire to heat their dinner.  “Is Pa’s boy hungry?” he asked his toddler.

    “Eat,” Hoss replied, his blue eyes gleaming as his father hung the kettle of stewed pumpkin over the fire to heat.

    “Good,” Ben said, interpreting that one word as an affirmative response, “‘cause Miss Nelly fixed us a fine dinner here, Hoss——fried squirrel, stewed pumpkin and plenty of fresh bread on the side.  I’ll fry some potatoes to go along with that.”

    Once he had the potatoes diced and sizzling, Ben lifted the little boy into his arms and sat down in the rocker to keep an eye on the food.  Though Ben had protested taking the rocker, Nelly had insisted.  “It helps Hoss get to sleep,” the kind-hearted woman had declared.  “Besides, Clyde’s promised to make me a new one.”  Ben had submitted to her wishes then, in the knowledge that anything Clyde Thomas made was likely to be of better quality than the rocker Ben had found abandoned outside the Mormon Station trading post last year.

    When Adam returned with the water, Ben saw to it that everyone was washed and ready by the time dinner was hot.  They said grace and dug in, each knowing that supper wasn’t likely to be as tasty or as filling.  Ben was a fair cook, but he had a long way to go before he could feed his boys as well as Nelly Thomas had for the past year.  Ben sighed and resolved to study the recipes Nelly had sent after the boys went to bed.  He wasn’t confident the results would compare favorably with hers, even if he followed her instructions to the letter, but he was determined to keep his boys well nourished.  He owed that to their mothers.

    After dinner Ben laid his drowsy younger boy on the bed and covered him with the down-filled comforter Nelly Thomas had made the boy for Christmas last year.  Coming out of the bedroom, he saw Adam pulling out one of his schoolbooks.  The boy’s hand swiftly dropped to his side.  “Is it okay to read awhile, Pa?” Adam asked.

    Ben nodded.  “Sure, son, but you’ll need to go outdoors.  It’s too dark in here with no windows.”

    “Can’t I light a lamp, Pa?” Adam wheedled.

    Ben shook his head.  “No, son; Pa tried to buy plenty of lantern oil, but it’s not a good idea to squander it this early.  We’ll need it more this winter when we can’t sit outside.”

    A soft whimper drifted through the bedroom door.  “Bubba,” Hoss called.  Adam frowned.  He’d been watching Hoss all morning and felt he deserved some time to himself.

    Reading the boy’s thoughts in his expression, Ben gave Adam’s shoulder a consoling pat.  “He’d probably quiet down quicker if you’d lie down next to him awhile,” he suggested.  “I’d do it myself, but I need to work on getting a supply of firewood laid in.”

    “Okay,” Adam sighed, “but he’d better get to sleep fast or I’ll read him a page out of the New England Primer.”

    Ben laughed softly.  “Not a bad idea, Adam, if it weren’t so dark in that room.  A story might just do the trick.”  No story was needed this time, though.  Once both boys lay side by side on their father’s bed, the younger one quickly fell asleep and his older brother soon followed.  It had been a busy morning and Adam was tired.

    Adam woke before Hoss, though, so he did find time to study a little and to make an entry in his daily journal before supper.  It was a light meal, just some bacon fried to go with what was left from dinner.  After the table was cleared and the dishes washed, Ben took from the second shelf the thick volume of Shakespeare’s works that Josiah Edwards had shipped to him as a Christmas gift last year.  “Ready to start a new play, Adam?” he asked.

    “Yes, sir!” Adam replied enthusiastically.  “More about King Henry, please, Pa.”

    Ben laughed.  “Yeah, well, I guess it makes sense to read Part II after Part I, son.  Henry the Fourth it is, then.”  Ben opened the big book and laid it on the table by the coal-oil lantern.  Adam sat down in the rocker and pulled Hoss into his lap.  As he listened to his father’s cello-toned voice reading the words of the immortal bard, Adam rocked his baby brother.  Hoss didn’t understand a word of the play, of course, but he found his father’s voice soothing and his brother’s lap as good a place as any to snooze.
 

    When the Thomas cabin came in sight Monday morning, Adam raced ahead.  “Hey, Billy!” he yelled.

    Billy ran out the door of his cabin, waving and hollering.  “Hey, Adam!  Come see what we got done already.”

    Adam charged up to his friend and both headed inside.

    “Lands, you folks must have been up before the sun to get here this early!” Nelly exclaimed.  “Have you had breakfast?”

    “Yes ma’am,” Adam replied.  “Pa fixed pancakes and bacon.”

    “Didn’t burn ‘em too bad, did he?” Clyde cackled.

    “I did not,” Ben snorted, entering the cabin.  “As evidence, I offer the fact that both my boys cleaned their plates.”

    “All that proves is that they were hungry,” Nelly teased, reaching for the baby in Ben’s arms.  “Hello, Sunshine.  You gettin’ enough to eat at Pa’s house?”

    “Eat!” Hoss cried, falling into Nelly’s arms.

    Nelly laughed.  “We’ll eat later, Sunshine.  Aunt Nelly’s plannin’ a big dinner come noontime.”

    Ben raised a thick, dark eyebrow.  “Aunt Nelly now, is it?”

    Nelly blushed.  “Well, I guess I was takin’ liberties.  You folks sure seem close as kin, though, so maybe I can be excused.”

    Ben smiled warmly.  “Nelly, I never had a sister of my own, but I’d be proud to call you that——which would, of course, entitle you to be my boys’ aunt.”

    Adam walked over to Mr. Thomas.  “Does that make you Uncle Clyde?” he asked seriously, as Adam tended to take almost everything.

    Clyde chuckled.  “I reckon, but just by marriage, it seems.”

    “Clyde!” Nelly scolded, turning apologetically to Ben.  “Trust my man to take funnin’ one step too far.”

    Ben put an arm around Nelly and gave her a gentle embrace.  “Think nothing of it, sister dear.  There are black sheep in every family,” he said, giving Clyde a wink.

    Nelly’s face flamed redder than her son’s hair.  “High time the both of you quit flappin’ your tongues and went to work,” she chided, “if you plan on finishin’ this floor today.”

    Ben chuckled and nodded his acceptance of the admonishment.  He moved toward Clyde.  “Looks like you’ve made a good start,” he said, his hand sweeping toward the doorway Clyde had cut in the cabin’s north wall, against which Ben’s and the boys’ beds had stood when they all lived together.

    “Come on through and see what I’ve done,” Clyde said.

    Ben followed his friend through the doorway into what had once been the stable and had later served as the trading post.  Gone was the counter behind which Ben had conducted business.  Gone were the shelves along the east wall.  Nothing, in fact, remained in the room.  The ground had been beaten down firmly and a few half-logs laid in place near the north wall, beyond which Clyde’s smithy still stood.  “You have been working,” Ben whistled.

    “Still plenty to do, Ben boy,” Clyde chuckled.  “Or should I say ‘Brother Ben’?”

    Ben grinned.  “I’ll answer to either, and even quicker to the dinner bell.”

    “Ha!” Clyde snorted.  “Missin’ your sister’s cookin’ already, ain’t ya?”

    “Oh, yeah,” Ben said.  “Tell me where you stowed my ax, and I’ll get to work splitting logs.”

    “In the smithy,” Clyde replied.

    With both men working, the area that would become Clyde and Nelly’s new bedroom was completely floored by the time Nelly announced that dinner was ready.  Everyone gathered around the table, Adam and Hoss both eyeing the bounty eagerly.  Ben cut a surprised glance at Nelly.  “You’ve gone all out, Nelly.  This looks more like a Sunday dinner than a weekday’s.”

    “Well, now, I—I got to make sure you and the boys eat proper once a week, don’t I?” Nelly stammered.

    Ben chuckled.  “You won’t hear me complain.  Someday, though, I’m going to have to invite you to my place, so you can see we’re not really dying of malnutrition over there.”

    “Lands, I didn’t mean——” Nelly began, then stopped when she saw Ben smile at her.  He was teasing.  “Would you say the blessing, Ben?” she asked instead of completing her apology.

    Ben bowed his head, the others followed suit, and a brief prayer thanked the Giver of all good things for the abundance He’d provided for their table.

    “Eat!” Hoss demanded as soon as the grownups’ heads came up.  Young as he was, he had learned that nothing would reach his mouth before the prayer ended.  But he was always ready for food the minute it did.

    “All right, greedy belly,” Ben said, chucking the little fellow under his chubby chin.  “Goodness knows, I’ll get no chance at dinner ‘til you’ve had yours!”  Feeling not an iota’s guilt, Hoss just grinned.

    As Ben had said, the table was loaded with enough food to rival Nelly’s best Sunday dinners.  And he could see two pies sitting at one end, a sure sign that today’s dinner was intended to be special.

    “We’re gonna need to move everything out of here before we can go much further,” Clyde said.  “Hope that stove don’t take all day to cool down.”

    “Oh, it won’t,” Nelly said.  “I cooked everything at the fireplace except the pies, and they were done early.”

    “Good thinking, Nelly,” Ben said.

    Nelly laughed.  “You don’t know how I been longin’ for a real floor, Ben.  I’ve had everything planned out in my mind for days.”

    Clyde forked another pickle onto his plate.  “What she means is she’s all set to boss the job.”

    “You planning to sleep outside tonight, Clyde?” Ben asked dryly.  Clyde grinned.  He got the point.

    As soon as dinner ended, Nelly put the boys to work clearing the table.  “Take all the dishes outside,” she ordered, “well away from the cabin.  I’ll wash ‘em up once the men get started.”

    While the boys worked at the table, Ben and Clyde took down the canvas curtain and began unpegging the bed from the east wall of the cabin.  “Might as well take this on in the other room,” Clyde suggested.

    “Might as well,” Ben agreed.

    By the time the men had finished setting up the bed, Nelly and the boys had taken all the chairs and the table outdoors.  Ben and Clyde carried out the heavy cast iron stove and started building the floor, beginning at the west end, where the fireplace stood.

    They’d been working for about an hour when Nelly poked her head through the cabin door.  “Rider comin’,” she announced.  “Looks like John Reese.”

    Clyde stood and limped to the door.  The leg that had taken a poisoned arrow——like the one that had killed Ben’s wife Inger——had never been as strong after that.  Clyde had gotten used to the limp, though, and those around him barely noticed it any more.  Stepping outside, Clyde shaded his blue eyes with a bronzed hand.  “Yup, it’s Reese,” he said.  “Wonder what he wants.”

    Ben followed Clyde out and stood waiting until John Reese reined in a chestnut gelding.  Reese tipped his felt hat to Mrs. Thomas, but didn’t dismount.  “Howdy, ma’am,” he said.

    “Howdy to you, Mr. Reese,” Nelly responded.  “Sorry I can’t offer you a cup of coffee, but I’m not set up to cook just now.”

    Reese nodded.  “I can’t stay anyway, ma’am.  I just wanted a word with your husband.”  He turned toward Clyde.  “Mr. Thomas, a few men from this area will be meeting at my place next Wednesday, and I’d like you to join us.”  He looked at Ben, standing behind Clyde.  “You, too, Cartwright.  I was going to ride over to your place as soon as I talked to Mr. Thomas here.  As two of the oldest settlers in this region, you should have a voice in our discussions.”

    “What’s this here meetin’ about?” Clyde inquired.

    “With so many folks settling in this part of the territory,” Reese explained, “we’re going to need some government established.”

    Clyde spit tobacco juice onto the bare ground.  “Thought we had a government,” he muttered, “over to Salt Lake City.”  The Compromise of 1850 had set the territorial capital at Fillmore City, but everyone knew the real power resided with the head of the Mormon church in Salt Lake.

    Reese shook his head.  “That’s the problem.  Salt Lake’s too far away to give us any real help, and the leaders there seem in no hurry to set up anything local.  Some of us at Mormon Station feel it’s time we undertook the job ourselves.”

    “That might not sit too well with the leadership of your church,” Ben said bluntly.

    Reese chuckled.  “I may be Mormon, Cartwright, but that doesn’t mean I see eye-to-eye with Brigham Young about everything.  I think we need a government more closely tied to our needs here.”

    “I agree,” Ben said.

    “Yup, me, too,” Clyde added.  “We’ll be at your meetin’, Reese.”

    “Ten that morning sound about right?” Reese asked.

    “We could be there earlier,” Ben said, “but ten’s fine.”

    “I’m going to ask a few men from the new settlement at Eagle Station, too,” Reese explained.  “That’s where I’m headed now. They have further to come, so I thought it better to start later.”

    “Sure you wouldn’t rather light down and help lay a floor?” Clyde suggested dryly.

    Clyde hadn’t sounded like he was joking.  Reese saw through the straight face, though, and grinned back at the sweaty builder.  “Believe I’ll pass,” he said.  Tipping his hat once more to Mrs. Thomas, he rode north.

    Ben gave his friend a hard clap on the back.  “Back to work, Clyde.  I plan to get Sister Nelly set up to cook again by suppertime.”

    “Hear that, Nelly?” Clyde cackled as he turned toward the cabin.  “Give the beggar one good meal, and he invites himself back for more!”

    “Lands, he’s earned it!” Nelly cried.  “I planned on him and the boys stayin’ to supper.”

    From his perch in her arms, Hoss crowed with delight.  “Eat!  Pie!” he declared.

    Along with the others, Nelly laughed.  “Yes, Sunshine, there’s pie left, and Aunt Nelly will make sure you get some.”

    Though Ben and Clyde worked hard that afternoon, only half of the cabin’s main room had been floored by the time the sun started to dip behind the mountains.  They moved the stove back inside, so Nelly could prepare supper, but left the table outdoors.  No use cluttering up the room until the job was done, and eating in the open air would feel refreshing after a day of laboring indoors.

    “Nobody’ll be braggin’ on this like it was Sunday dinner,” Nelly said apologetically.  “I’ve really had to throw this meal together.”

    “It tastes real fine, ma’am,” Adam said.

    “Well, thank you, son,” the cook replied with an appeased smile.

    “It’s easy to see my younger boy agrees,” Ben laughed.  Hoss’s face was smeared with his exuberant enjoyment of the meal.

    Only one face at the table wore a frown.  “What’s your chin draggin’ the dust for, boy?” Clyde demanded of his son.

    “I thought you was gonna finish that floor today,” Billy whined.

    “Why, son, your pa and Mr. Cartwright have done their best, I reckon,” Nelly remonstrated.  “They’ll finish up tomorrow.”

    “Yeah, but it’s my bedroom they didn’t get to,” Billy wailed.  “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

    “Oh, lands, what a ruckus over nothin’,” his mother scolded.  “We’ll spread your mattress on what floor we got.”  Billy didn’t look the least bit mollified.

    Suddenly, Adam’s face lit up.  “Hey, why don’t Billy come home with us?” he cried.  “He can sleep in my bed!”

    Billy looked up, a grin starting at the corners of his mouth.  “That’s a good idea!” he said and turned pleading eyes on his mother.

    Ben chuckled.  “It’s all right with me,” he assured Billy’s parents, secretly wondering why Billy thought Adam’s trundle was that much improvement over a mattress on the floor.

    Billy spent that night in the Cartwrights’ cabin, and for the next several days, while the men worked to finish the floor, install the glass-paned windows and make a few other improvements in the cabin, he and Adam traded off as host to the other.  Both families spent a few days apart after that to catch up on regular chores, planning to cut windows in the Cartwright cabin right after the November 12th meeting at Reese’s Mormon Station.

    The trading post was just ahead now, but Clyde’s steps had slowed almost to a crawl.  Looking back, Ben saw the man, who though just two years older than Ben’s thirty years, walked like a man of much greater age.  “Leg bothering you?” Ben asked.

    Clyde shook his head.  “Naw, just ain’t anxious to go amongst a nest of Mormons.”

    Ben shook his head.  “Oh, Clyde, don’t start that today!”

    “I don’t hold with their religion, and no man can make me say I do!” Clyde snapped.

    “Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good neighbors,” Ben reasoned.

    Clyde lifted his hat and raked callused fingers through his coppery hair.  “So far, I reckon, but I don’t cotton to old Brigham Young or his kind takin’ rule over my life and land.  Any man that goes cavortin’ around with twenty or more so-called ‘wives’ ain’t fit to make laws for decent folks.”

    Ben smiled.  “I thought that’s what this meeting was about, Clyde,” he pointed out softly.  “Reese doesn’t like the idea either.”

    Clyde nodded.  “Yeah, but I don’t know if the same holds true for the rest of the men here at Mormon Station.  We’re gonna be outnumbered, Ben.”

    Ben threw an arm around the shorter man’s shoulder.  “Since when aren’t you and I a match for anything thrown at us?”

    Clyde grinned.  “More than a match,” he said with a quick jerk of his chin, “provided they don’t throw their womenfolk agin us, too.”

    “What womenfolk?” Ben demanded as he and Clyde started walking once more toward the designated meeting place.  “There isn’t one besides Nelly this side of Salt Lake City!”

    Clyde gave a loud hoot.  “Ain’t it the truth!  Must make it hard for these Mormons to practice their religion, huh?”

    “Will you stop?” Ben hissed.  “We’re almost there, and so help me, Clyde, if you bring up polygamy—”

    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Clyde replied with a maddening grin.

    Ben rolled his brown eyes heavenward.  He couldn’t figure out whether Clyde was as prejudiced against Mormons as he sounded or if the man just liked to get a rise out of his long-suffering friend.  At times like this, Ben suspected Billy came by his penchant for mischief honestly.

    As soon as the two men walked through the door of Reese’s trading post, the Mormon leader strode briskly across the room to greet them.  “Cartwright; Thomas,” he said.  “Glad you could make it.”  A second man came up behind Reese and nodded at the two new arrivals.  Catching a glimpse of the man out of the corner of his eye, Reese beckoned him forward.  “Have you men met William Byrnes?”

    Ben extended a hand.  “Of course.  How are you, Byrnes?”

    “Doing well, Cartwright,” Byrnes replied.  “Excited about making a real community out of Mormon Station.”

    “And the rest of Carson Valley,” Clyde added testily.

    “Oh, of course,” Byrnes agreed hastily.  “The entire valley.”

    “Bill, I’m not sure our neighbors here know all the others,” Reese said.  “Would you introduce them around?”

    “Glad to,” Byrnes said.

    Ben and Clyde had already met most of the occupants of the room, the exceptions being some of the new settlers in Eagle Valley, so the introductions took but a short time.  And that was fortunate since Reese called the meeting to order only minutes after they had finished greeting acquaintances old and new.

    “All of you know the purpose for our meeting today,” Reese began.  “A year or two ago Carson Valley was just a place to pass through.  No more.  People are beginning to settle here, to make their homes here.  But any government available is a long way from our valley, too far to provide effective leadership.  We need to take steps to provide it ourselves.”

    “Here, here!” Byrnes sang out in agreement.

    “We must face facts, gentlemen,” Reese continued.  “Without legal title to our lands, all of us here are nothing more than squatters.  Yet Salt Lake City seems reluctant to send officials here to deal with that most basic of legal needs.  And while we’ve been fortunate in attracting mainly god-fearing, law-abiding citizens, we can’t afford to assume that such will always be the case.  We need a plan to deal with criminal activity.”

    Ben and Clyde nodded to each other.  Everything Reese had said so far made sense.  Any growing community could expect sooner or later to attract a lawless element, as well as more solid citizens.  Better to nip that element in the bud than let it take root.  The lack of legal title to their lands was an even more immediate concern.

    “Fine words, Reese,” said a man Ben had just met, Frank Hall of Eagle Station.  “But what can we do about it?  You think Utah’s gonna just let us order things like we want?”

    Reese smiled.  “What I propose will take the territory of Utah completely out of the picture.  I suggest we petition Congress to grant us a territorial government independent of Utah and to send a surveyor to define all land claims.”

    Clyde whistled.  “Bold critter, ain’t he?” he whispered to Ben.

    Ben gestured to get Reese’s attention.  “If we expect Washington to honor such a request, we’ll have to show them we’re ready to govern ourselves.”

    “Absolutely right, Cartwright,” Reese said.  With a long finger he swept the room.  “That’s why we’re here, to set in motion a government Washington will have to respect.”

    “There’s others ought to have a say in this,” Frank Hall protested.  “Ain’t more than twenty men here, and the Federal government ain’t gonna smile on no territorial convention that small.”

    Ben smiled.  Though his poor grammar revealed Hall to be a man of little learning, he was talking common sense.

    “There’s more than just Mormons in this valley,” an even rougher-looking man growled.

    Reese flushed.  “Yes, of course, though most of the men you’re speaking of are transients rather than permanent settlers like those in this room.  Our meeting today is just intended to get things started.  I’m sure there’ll be other meetings, and we can involve more men in those.  I suggest we elect a committee today to act as our temporary government and give them the power to appoint officials where needed.”

    “What about a legislature?” Joseph Barnard, another settler from Eagle Station demanded.  “A proper government should have more than just an executive branch.”

    “Kind of gettin’ the cart before the horse, ain’t you?” Clyde snickered.  “We ain’t gonna have no proper government ‘til Congress recognizes us.  And ‘til then we don’t need no fancy legislature.”

    A loud debate ensued with men vociferously voicing opposing viewpoints.  Finally, Ben Cartwright stood, raising both arms to get the men’s attention.  “Perhaps the idea of an official legislature is a bit premature,” he said, “ so why don’t we simply nominate a committee today to begin thinking about the laws we need most and report to the body at large.”

    “Good idea,” Jameson, a resident of Mormon Station, shouted.

    “I’ll settle for that,” Barnard agreed.

    “What we need most,” William Byrnes interrupted, “is a limit on how much land a man can settle.  Fertile land’s scarce in the valley.  No one man should control more than a quarter-section.”

    “That’s a good suggestion, Bill,” Reese said smoothly, “but what we need first, as Cartwright suggests, is a committee to examine such ideas.”

    “All right, then, I nominate you,” Byrnes announced.  Other Mormons vied with one another for the privilege of seconding the nomination.  Though no official vote was taken, Reese obviously would head the new committee on laws for Carson Valley.

    Clyde almost leaped to his feet as soon as nominations were declared open for other members of the committee.  “I nominate Ben Cartwright!”

    Ben grabbed at Clyde plaid flannel sleeve, jerking him back into his seat.  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

    “Got to have something besides consarned Mormons on this committee,” Clyde whispered.

    “Aren’t enough of us gentiles, as they call us, to elect anybody,” Ben muttered under his breath.  To his surprise, however, he was elected to the committee, as was Joseph Barnard of Eagle Station.  Then followed the election of the governing committee.  William Byrnes, John Reese and Jameson were elected to this committee, as well as the one on which Ben would serve, and four others were selected to round out the committee of seven.  The meeting dismissed, and those elected to consider laws and resolutions adjourned to the home of William Byrnes to continue deliberations that afternoon.

    Toward evening Ben walked along the cottonwood-lined banks of the Carson River.  Here and there a few orange-yellow leaves still clung to the bare branches, but soon they would all be gone.  In the hills to the west red and gold aspen stood in vivid contrast to the dark evergreen of the pines.  That view lay behind Ben, though, as he directed his steps toward the Thomas cabin.

    Adam, playing with Billy on the seesaw their fathers had built three months earlier, suddenly jumped off when he saw his father.  Billy’s half of the board slammed to the ground and Billy slid off on his backside.  “Hey!” he yelled.  “Give a feller some warnin’!”

    Adam was too far away to pay much mind to Billy, however.  Ben laughed and tossed the boy high in the air when he came running to meet him.  “You were gone all day, Pa,” Adam scolded.  “That must have been some meeting!”

    Ben laughed.  “Yeah, well, you can thank Uncle Clyde for how long I was gone.  You been a good boy?”

    “Sure,” Adam said readily.

    “And Hoss?”

    “Pretty good,” Adam said, his brow furrowing thoughtfully.  “He sure gets underfoot a lot, Pa.  Me and Billy’s hardly had a moment’s peace.”

    Adam looked so serious Ben couldn’t keep a straight face. He laughed as he set Adam down.  “Seems like I remember another little lad who got underfoot a lot.”

    Adam frowned.  He knew Pa was referring to him when he was younger, but he didn’t think the comparison a fair one.  He couldn’t possibly have been as annoying as Hoss!

    Clyde came around the corner of the cabin with a load of firewood.  “Trust Ben Cartwright to show up when the work’s all done,” he cackled.

    Ben made a growling face at his friend.  “You’ve got some right talking after the job you dumped in my lap.”

    Clyde guffawed even louder.  “Face it, Lieutenant Cartwright,” he said, using the honorary title awarded Ben by the people with whom they’d traveled west, “you were meant for greatness.  How’d the meetin’ go?”

    “Good,” Ben reported.  “We plan on having another one next week, larger this time, maybe as many as a hundred men involved.  We’ll present the laws we came up with today then.”

    “Anything I ought to worry over?”

    Ben grinned.  “I ought to let you stew over that for a week, but, no, nothing you can’t live with.”

    Nelly came to the door, with Hoss toddling after.  “Pa!” the sticky-faced boy cried, raising his arms to be picked up.

    Ben lifted the youngster and gave him a kiss on his sugary cheek.  “Now, what have you been into, Hoss?”

    “Pie!” Hoss chortled, a wide grin splitting his face.

    Nelly shook her head.  “Climbed up in a chair when I wasn’t lookin’ and helped himself.  I’m afraid one of the pies I fixed for supper don’t look real invitin’ any more.”

    Ben laughed.  “Sorry, Nelly.”

    “Like I said, underfoot and into everything,” Adam accused, staring reproachfully at his little brother.

    “Oh, no harm done,” Nelly laughed.  “If it was any other youngun, I’d fear spoilin’ his appetite, but—”

    Ben hooted.  “Nothing spoils your appetite, does it, Hoss?”  He lifted the boy’s wool shirt and blew on his stomach to Hoss’s giggling delight.

    “Well, come on in and set a spell,” Nelly said.

    “No, we can’t,” Ben said.  “I’ll be cooking a late supper as it is.”

    “Ben Cartwright, you are eatin’ supper here!” Nelly declared.

    “Now, Nelly—”

    “It’s all planned,” she said.  “Lands, the food’s cookin’ now, and I made enough for everyone.  You don’t want it goin’ to waste, do you?”

    “No fear of that,” Ben chuckled, patting his younger son’s ample stomach.  “I’ve sired the perfect solution to leftovers.”
 
 

“Adam.”  Ben shook the small shoulder lying next to Hoss in the trundle bed.  “Adam, wake up, son.”

    Adam’s black eyes slowly opened.  “Morning, Pa,” he yawned expansively.

    “Good morning, Adam,” Ben whispered, not wanting to wake Hoss yet.  “I need you to fetch some water from the creek, son.”

    Adam propped himself up on sharp elbows.  “How come so early?”

    “I want to get the stew on, so there’ll be nothing to do but heat it for the Thomases,” Ben explained.  “You know Miss Nelly.  If there’s anything left to do when she gets here, she’ll take right over.  And this is my party.”

    Adam grinned as he swung his bare legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.  “You mean Aunt Nelly,” he reminded his father.

    Ben arched an eyebrow, not sure he’d ever get used to the new appellation.  “Yeah, well, by whatever name, she’s my guest today.  I aim to prove I can take care of my own boys.  You with me?”

    Adam gave a decided nod.  “I’m with you.”  He grabbed his blue pants from a peg on the wall and stepped into them.  “I don’t know why Aunt Nelly’s comin’ today anyway.  You don’t need her to set in the windows.”  He drew a suspender over each shoulder.

    “She’s coming to watch Hoss and to hang the curtains,” Ben replied, walking through the doorway.

    Following his father into the main room, Adam scowled.  “Curtains!  Why we need curtains?  Ain’t nobody around to spy in, anyway.”

    Ben rumpled Adam’s black hair.  “I, for one, appreciate the touches a woman adds to a home.  You know if your mother or Hoss’s were still alive, we’d have curtains, and I don’t plan to raise a couple of heathens.”

    Adam’s face had grown pensive at the mention of his mothers——he always felt he’d had two——but he couldn’t figure what curtains had to do with making him either heathen or god-fearing.  From the look on Pa’s face, though, now wasn’t the time to ask.  Now was the time to fetch water.  Adam trotted outside, grabbed up a pail and headed for the creek.

    By the time he returned, Adam could smell the chunks of deer meat searing in the pot.  Ben had the potatoes and carrots peeled and sliced, ready to add as soon as the meat was browned on all sides.  Adam sniffed the air appreciatively as another familiar fragrance hit his nostrils.  “Fried mush!” he chirped.  “My favorite, Pa.”

    “Is it?” Ben smiled as he turned the slices of cold mush to fry on the other side.  “I thought your taste ran to bacon and eggs.”

    “Well, it would if we had any chickens,” Adam admitted.  “That is one thing I miss from Aunt Nelly’s place.”

    Ben laughed.  “I appreciate honesty, Adam, but today’s not the best time to tell me you preferred living with the Thomases.”

    “I didn’t say that!” Adam protested indignantly.  “I like having our own place.”

    “Good,” Ben said.  Then he gave Adam a wink.  “I miss the eggs, too, son.  Maybe next spring I could bring back a brood of our own, if I had a boy willing to be responsible for them.”

    “Me, Pa,” Adam announced.  “I’d be responsible and Hoss could help.”

    Ben’s laughter rocked the rafters.  “I wouldn’t count on it, son,” he cackled.

    From the next room came a demanding “Pa!”

    “Uh-oh,” Ben said.  “I didn’t mean to wake him up yet.  See to your brother, would you, boy?”

    Adam frowned.  He knew that “seeing to” his brother’s morning care generally involved changing a dirty diaper.  Since Pa was busy with both breakfast and lunch, however, Adam saw no way out of the offensive chore.  With a sigh he walked through the doorway and over to the trundle, the edge of which Hoss was trying vainly to roll across.

    “Okay, up you come,” Adam said, struggling to lift the baby to Pa’s higher bed for changing.  Hoss was already almost beyond the older boy’s strength to lift.  Adam tickled the baby’s chin.  “Hoss, you either gotta quit this growing or you gotta grow big enough to tend yourself.  This in-between stuff is wearing me out.”

    Hoss smiled adoringly at his older brother and kicked his legs, wafting the fetid odor from his diapers toward Adam’s nose.  Adam turned his head away quickly and groaned.  The bad kind.  Why did he always get stuck with cleaning Hoss up after the bad kind?

    Suddenly the smile on the baby’s face seemed taunting to his older brother.  “You don’t have to look so all-fired happy about it,” Adam scolded.  “High time you learned to trot to the outhouse on your own.”  The suggestion made no impression on Hoss, however, so Adam set to work making his brother presentable for company.

    Hoss had on a fresh diaper, but nothing else, when Ben stuck his head through the doorway to call his boys to breakfast.  “Hoss ain’t dressed yet, Pa,” Adam reported.

    “Isn’t,” Ben corrected.  “Don’t bother ‘til he’s eaten.  He’ll be warm enough like he is.”

    “And that way we won’t have to change his shirt afterwards, huh, Pa?” Adam grinned.

    Ben laid an affectionate hand on the boy’s slender neck.  “Adam, my boy, you’re quite a mind-reader,” he smiled.

    The boys were fed, the dishes washed and the cabin shipshape when the guests arrived.  Billy Thomas burst through the door without bothering to knock.  “We’re here,” he announced.

    “So I see,” Ben scowled playfully.  “How far back did you leave the old folks, Billy?”

    “Fur as I could,” Billy tittered.

    Ben walked outside, taking a deep breath of the pine-scented breeze.  Waving at the Thomases, who were only a short distance behind their son, he walked to meet them.  “Why’d you bring the cart?” Ben asked.

    “Easier than totin’ this much on my back, that’s why!” Clyde snorted.

    Ben looked into the ox-drawn cart.  Clyde’s tools were there, of course, as well as a brown-paper-wrapped package Ben took to be the curtains.  In addition, the cart held four pies.  “Good gracious, Nelly,” he ejaculated.  “We don’t plan to work up that huge an appetite.”

    “Speak for yourself,” Clyde hooted, giving Ben’s arm a solid punch.

    “I only planned two for dinner,” Nelly explained.  “The others I’ll leave here since you said you weren’t comin’ for Sunday dinner this week.”

    Ben shook his head.  He wondered if he’d ever convince Nelly Thomas that he and the boys were capable of managing on their own.  Still, he had to admit all three of them relished dessert.  It was in short supply at the Cartwright table, too, for Ben had never understood the mysteries of pie-making.  He smiled his thanks and helped carry the pastries inside.

    “Pie!” Hoss crowed in happy greeting when his father walked in.

    “Yes, and you stay out of them,” Ben ordered, waving an admonishing finger under the nose of his younger son.  Hoss looked disappointed, but bobbed his head soberly.

    Nelly, having followed Ben in with the last two pies, set them down and began what was obviously an inspection tour of the cabin.  “Why, you’ve got it fixed up right nice,” she said, smiling at the table already set for dinner, “and whatever that is cookin’ smells almost edible.”

    “Almost!” Ben sputtered.  “You wait ‘til you taste it before you go criticizing, Nelly Thomas.”

    “I wasn’t criticizin’,” Nelly contradicted.  She approached the mantel over the fireplace and looked at the two daguerreotypes Ben had set there, one on each side.  One face she recognized.  “I never knew you had a picture took of Inger, Ben,” she said softly.

    Ben gazed dreamily at the picture.  “Yeah, we had that made on our first anniversary——first and last,” he said quietly.  His thoughts were particularly nostalgic since November was the month he and Inger had married three years before

    Nelly nodded, sharing the moment of sorrow with Ben, for Inger had been a cherished friend.  She pointed to the other picture.  “That your first wife?” she asked.

    “Yes, that’s Elizabeth, Adam’s mother,” Ben said of the handsome, dark-haired woman in the other gilt frame.

    “Two fine-lookin’ women you found for yourself,” Clyde said from the doorway.

    “Fine-looking and fine-hearted,” Ben said.

    “When you aim to put a third picture up there?” Clyde asked with an impish grin.

    Ben paled.  “Never,” he said tautly.

    Secretly, Nelly didn’t think Clyde should have brought the subject up this soon after Ben’s loss; but since he had, she thought she might as well express her opinion, too.  A year might seem a short time to grieve, but Ben’s boys needed a mother and Ben a wife to share this home he was building.  “There’s other fine-hearted women, Ben,” she said softly.

    “Not of their like,” Ben replied, coloring.  To lighten the sudden sobriety in the room, he laughed.  “Besides, where in all of Utah Territory would I find an unmarried woman of anything but the Mormon persuasion?”

    Clyde chuckled.  “Or even that kind.  With their men takin’ two or three apiece, there can’t be many left over.”

    Nelly clucked her tongue reproachfully.  “You men had best clear out and start to work.  I won’t have such matters spoke of before these innocent boys.”

    “Innocent?  Him?” Ben teased, pointing at Nelly’s red-haired son, then skipping out before Nelly could toss a pie at him for his sass.

    “Still set on three winders?” Clyde asked, pulling his saw from the cart.

    Ben chuckled.  “I know you think it’s an extravagance, but we want lots of light in our front room.  We’re a family of readers, you know.”

    “Hoss, too, I suppose,” Clyde sniggered.

    Ben shrugged.  “Time will tell, but he’s gonna have the right example set before him.”

    “Yeah, all right,” Clyde said, eager to change the subject.  He wasn’t setting his own boy much of an example in the education department, and sometimes that made him uncomfortable around Ben Cartwright, who set such store by learning.  “You’re plannin’ to read in bed, too, I reckon,” he added, referring to Ben’s previously stated intention of putting a window in the bedroom, as well as one on each side of the cabin’s front door.

    “Maybe,” Ben chuckled.  “Mostly, I plan to wake with the sun coming through that east window and be about my work, unlike some of my lazy neighbors.”

    Clyde turned to spit a stream of tobacco juice away from the cabin.  “I don’t need the sun to wake me up.  My own innards act like a regular clock when it’s time to start chorin’.”

    Ben arched a blue-black eyebrow.  “Did I say I meant you?  I have other neighbors, you know.”

    Clyde slapped his knee.  “Okay.  You slickered me that time.  Who’d you have in mind?  Old Virginny, maybe?”

    Ben scowled at the reference to James Finney, who took his nickname from his home state.  “No one in particular, but Finney doesn’t strike me as a beaver for work, now you mention it.”

    “You men better start workin’ like beavers yourselves,” Nelly warned from the doorway, “or I’ll take a lesson from Inger’s book and make you sing the praises of James Finney before you get your dinner.”  Both men smiled, remembering the times on the trail when Inger, who couldn’t tolerate criticism of anyone, had made them earn their dinner in just the fashion Nelly mentioned.

    Ben made her an elegant bow.  “Yes, ma’am!” he said.  “We’ll soon have you a window to dress with those frills you brought.”

    Hoss tugged at Nelly’s skirt.  “Pie, Aun’ Nenee?”

    Nelly scooped the toddler up and carried him outside.  “Not yet, Sunshine.  Let’s take us a walk in the trees ‘til the menfolk get the window holes cut.”

    “Good idee,” Clyde snorted.  “That’ll get the both of you out from underfoot.”

    “Idea, Clyde,” Ben groaned.  He’d tried all last winter to break his friend of his folksy pronunciations and sometimes felt ready to toss it up to a lost cause.

    “Idea,” Clyde corrected himself amiably.  “I remember more than I forget nowadays, Ben.”

    “Glad to see you making some progress,” Ben said, though he looked dubious.

    “Yeah, well, I’d like to see you make some progress,” Clyde sniggered.  “At this rate we won’t have the first winder——uh, window——set ’til long past dinner.”

    Ben accepted the rebuke with a nod.  It was more true than not.  He’d rather jaw with Clyde than do chores any day.  He and Adam both, however, were looking forward to having more light in the house, so Ben grabbed up his saw and began to open a square on one side of the door while Clyde sawed away on the other.

    The glass for both front windows was in place by the time the sun stood overhead.  “Now you folks sit and rest while I heat up the stew,” Ben ordered.  “Dinner won’t be as fancy as the ones I enjoy at your place, but it’ll be tasty.”

    “I’m sure it will, Ben,” Nelly said, seeing how nervous the man was and feeling certain he needed reassurance.  It was obvious Ben felt the need to prove himself, so despite her desire to pitch in and help, she let him stir and bake his own corn pone to go with the stew.  At least, she’d have the satisfaction of topping off the meal with a slice of pie for everyone.

    Ben soon announced that dinner was served, and family and guests alike scooted onto the log benches on both sides of the table.  Hoss stood on the bench and spatted the table with both palms.  “Pie!” he demanded.

    “Dinner, first,” Ben said sternly, tying a napkin around the boy’s neck.

    Hoss’s lower lip shot out, but he didn’t say anything.  Once Ben filled his plate with savory venison stew, thoughts of pie fled his mind.  Hoss may have preferred pie, but almost any food met with his affectionate embrace.  After the first bite the boy banged the tabletop again.  “Good!” he announced.

    “It surely is,” Nelly laughed.  “You followed my receipts right well, Ben.”

    “They’ve been a big help,” Ben admitted.

    While Ben’s stew met with unanimous approval, the real attraction of that meal, or any other they shared, was the dessert.  Nelly’d made both dried apple and peach pies.  They sliced one of each, so everyone could have the kind he favored.

    Nelly had swept the front room clear of the wood splinters before dinner, so as soon as it ended and she’d washed up the dishes, she was ready to hang the curtains.  First, though, she heated the flatiron she’d brought along and pressed the calico ruffles smooth.  Once the curtains were hung, she called to Ben, “Come see what you think.”

    Despite being in the middle of installing the bedroom window, Ben willingly stopped to admire the tie-backs now gracing his front windows.  He smiled as he saw the blue flowers blossoming on vines of green.  “Inger would have liked that print,” he said.

    Nelly smiled back at him.  “She did like it, Ben.  I made the curtains from that yardage of hers you give me.”

    “Blue was her favorite color,” Ben added, fingering a ruffle.  “Almost everything she made for our little home in St. Joseph was blue.  I’m glad you thought to use this for the curtains; we’ll think of her whenever we see it.”

    Nelly looked close to tears.  “You better get back and finish that other window, Ben, so I can get the curtain up in there before we have to leave.”

    Ben nodded and returned to the bedroom.  The work was done by mid-afternoon and, giving his friends his heart-felt thanks, Ben and his boys waved good-bye.

    “See you Wednesday,” Clyde called.

    “What’s Wednesday, Pa?” Adam asked once their company was out of sight.

    “You remember, son,” Ben said.  “That second meeting about forming a new government.”

    “Oh, yeah,” Adam said.  “Me and Hoss is gonna stay with the Thomases while you’re gone.”

    “You and Hoss are going to stay with them, Adam,” Ben corrected with a shake of his head.  Sometimes he wondered if so much exposure to the Thomases, however good-hearted they were, was a good influence on his boy’s education.  Ben rebuked himself immediately for the thought.  There were more important things than grammar, and in those things his uneducated friends excelled.

    Ben looked down at Adam.  “We’ll be spending the night with them, too, since Reese expects the meeting to go a second day.  That’s why I didn’t want to impose for Sunday, too.”

    “We’ll make out, Pa,” Adam declared.  “After all, we got pie.”

    Hoss squirmed in Ben’s arms.  “Pie!”

    Ben frowned at his older son.  “Now look what you started,” he scolded.

    Adam shrugged and gave his father a sheepish grin.

    The hills to the west were splashed with sunset shades when Ben Cartwright finally approached the Thomas cabin on the evening of November 19.  On days like this, Ben really felt the need for a mount.  Though Mormon Station wasn’t far from Clyde and Nelly’s home, Ben was tired and would have much preferred to ride rather than walk.  The meeting had lasted so long, too, that Ben feared he was holding up dinner.  He quickened his pace.  A delayed meal was the one thing most calculated to make his younger son hard to handle.  And Ben figured the normally sunny little lad was probably just about at that point now.

    Nelly, however, had foreseen the problem.  “I fed Hoss early and put him down on Billy’s bed.” she explained when Ben walked in and didn’t see his toddler.  “That’s where we’ll put you tonight, too, Ben; these young ones can handle a pallet for one night.”

    “Better than I could,” Ben chuckled, then laughed louder as he caught a glimpse of Billy’s disgruntled face.  How quickly they spoiled, these privileged boys!  Billy and Adam had both been content to sleep on the ground on the journey west.  Now, after only a year of settled life, they considered themselves put upon to do the same.  Ben said as much, to explain his sudden laughter.

    “Ain’t it the truth?” Clyde snorted.  “Maybe we ought to bed ‘em out in the barn, just as a reminder of where they come from.”

    “No, sir!” Billy yelped.  “Me and Adam’s real content with a pallet by the fire, ain’t we, Adam?”

    Adam’s chin bobbed up and down quickly.  “Real content,” he assured his father.

    “Good,” Ben said firmly.  He hadn’t seen Adam react negatively to Nelly’s edict in the first place but wanted to be certain his boy understood that such behavior was unacceptable.  In their own home Ben permitted Adam to speak his mind, but he was glad to see his son had his company manners on tonight.

    Nelly had been keeping dinner warm until Ben’s arrival, so everyone found a chair.  “Nothin’ fancy,” Nelly declared, belittling her own cooking, as usual.  “Just plain oxtail stew.  I tried that receipt you brought back from Ludmilla last time you went through Placerville, though, Ben.  You be sure and tell me if it’s good as hers.”

    Ben forced himself to keep a straight face.  Nelly had shown definite signs of jealousy ever since Ben and Adam’s first trip over the mountains for supplies last spring.  They’d found their old trail mate, Ludmilla Zuebner, running a cafe in Placerville and had returned singing the praises of the food they’d eaten there.  Then Clyde had made a later trip for the same purpose and come home singing a second verse of the same song.  Nelly had been fit to be tied and had demanded that the next one of them to visit Ludmilla had to bring back recipes for the dishes they were so wild over.  To Ben had fallen that thankless task, but Ludmilla had been warmly generous in her response.

    “You know, Nelly,” Ben said as he ladled stew into his plate, “you ought to make Clyde take you over to Placerville next time he goes.  Ludmilla always asks about you, and I know she’d love a visit.”

    Nelly touched her protruding belly, knowing that what was growing there was likely to prevent paying any long distance calls for some time to come.  “No more than me, Ben,” she sighed.  “Bein’ the only woman this side of the mountains, I do get lonesome for decent conversation.”

    “Since when ain’t my conversation decent?” Clyde demanded.

    Nelly reached over to pat his callused hand.  “Now, you know what I mean.  Women like to talk about babies and sewin’ and the like.  All I ever hear is talk of crops and trade and government meetin’s.”

    Ben choked on the stew in his mouth.  He’d been just about to bring up the subject of the meeting he had attended that day.  “Sorry, Nelly,” he apologized, for he saw in her eyes that she had guessed what caused his sudden discomposure.

    “It’s all right, Ben,” she laughed.  “I want to hear the news, but maybe we could hold it ‘til after the meal.”

    “Yes, ma’am,” Ben replied meekly.  Then mischief sparked in his eyes.  “My, Clyde, that’s a fetching new outfit you’re wearing tonight.”

    Clyde looked down at his red wool shirt and gray pants.  They weren’t new.  All at once, Clyde grinned, seeing what Ben was up to.  “Yeah, pleased you like it.  And, Ben, that hat of yourn would look right smart with a peacock plume stuck in the band.”

    Billy snickered at his mother’s reddening face, while Adam bit his lip to keep from joining in.  He really was on his company manners for the night, even though Pa evidently wasn’t.

    Nelly looked askance at both men, then flapped her hand at them across the table.  “All right, you two nuisances, that’ll be enough.”

    It wasn’t enough for Billy, though.  He bounced up from his chair and began to prance around.  “Now, my duds ain’t new,” he announced, “but ain’t I a purty sight?”

    “Your bottom’ll be a pretty sight if you keep that up,” his mother warned.  “Sit down and finish your dinner.”

    “I am finished,” Billy insisted.  “Can me and Adam go out to play?”

    “There’s pie, sugar,” Nelly offered.

    “Can I save mine for tomorrow?” Billy asked.  “I’m full, Ma, and I want to go outside.  That government talk bores me, too.”

    “It’s dark now,” Nelly said.  “I don’t want you wanderin’ off.”

    “Just to the seesaw?” Billy wheedled.

    Nelly relented.  “Well, I reckon you can go that far.  You finished, Adam, or do you want pie first?”

    “I’d like to save it for tomorrow, please,” Adam replied.  He’d seen the warning frown on Billy’s face and knew that was the safest answer.  Besides, like Billy, he’d rather play than listen to the grownups talk.

    “You’re excused then, Adam,” Ben said.  “Go no further than the seesaw.”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam said, sliding from his chair and following Billy outside.

    “Now, if you two tell me you want your pie saved ‘til tomorrow, I’ll—I’ll give it all to Hoss,” Nelly threatened.  “He, at least, appreciates my cookin’.”

    “As do I, ma’am,” Ben said quickly.  “A nice thick slice, if you please.”

    “That’s better,” Nelly giggled.  “I’ll cut us each a slice and get you some more coffee.  Then I reckon we’ll be ready to hear about the meeting, Ben.”

    Over pie and coffee the friends discussed the laws the squatter government had passed.  William Byrnes’ proposal to limit each settler to a quarter section of arable land had been adopted, as well as one to hold the timbered lands in common.  “Anyone buying a claim will be required to improve it in value by five dollars within six months,” Ben continued.

    “I like that,” Clyde said.  “We ain’t interested in riffraff settlin’ here.  Folks that make improvements is more likely to stay.”

    “I think so, and five dollars is a small enough amount that anyone should be able to handle it,” Ben agreed.  “All of this, of course, is contingent on Congress’s allowing us to separate from Utah Territory.  If they don’t, none of our titles would hold up in court.”

    “We gonna set up courts of our own?” Clyde asked.

    “Yeah,” Ben replied.  “As a matter of fact, that’s on the agenda for tomorrow, as well as elections for justice of the peace, sheriff and a jury.”

    “What office you runnin’ for, Ben?” Clyde inquired with a wicked wink at his wife.

    “Don’t you think committee member is job enough?” Ben demanded.

    “Naw, justice of the peace sounds good to me,” Clyde snickered.

    Ben scowled.  “You want me performing weddings for our Mormon neighbors, do you?”

    Clyde guffawed.  “Sticks in your craw, don’t it?”

    “I wouldn’t do it,” Ben said firmly, “not if I knew there was already another spouse.  I doubt I have anything to worry about, though.  Even with more than 100 men voting, the Mormons are as likely to run this government as the one in Salt Lake, my friend.”  It was Clyde’s turn to scowl.

    Ben’s prediction proved true.  In the elections the next day, as well as those for several years to come, the Mormon majority controlled the results.  Winning a place on the jury, Ben was among the few gentiles selected to serve.  But he thought everyone elected this time, whether gentile or Mormon, would do a good job, assuming, of course, that Congress didn’t disallow all the work the squatter government had begun.

    Ben picked up his boys Thursday afternoon.  Nelly was a little put out with him because he wouldn’t stay to supper and refused her invitation to Sunday dinner, too.  “Haven’t you seen enough of us the last week or so?” Ben teased.

    “You’re always welcome here, and you know it, Ben Cartwright!” Nelly sputtered.

    Ben laid an affectionate hand on her shoulder.  “I do know that, and I want to keep it that way.”

    “Well, you are coming for Thanksgiving, aren’t you?” Nelly demanded, clearly perturbed at not getting her way.

    Ben laughed.  “Wouldn’t miss it!  If the weather holds, that is.  We had our first snow the day after Thanksgiving last year, remember?”

    Nelly nodded.  “I do, but there hasn’t even been snow on the mountains yet, Ben.  Funny, ain’t it?  If the snows had held off last year like they’ve done this, we’d all be livin’ in California.”

    It was funny, Ben thought, as he and the boys headed home.  A thing as ordinary as the weather could decide a man’s future.  If it had been more favorable last year, he would have bypassed the Carson Valley the way most emigrants did.  Had Inger been alive, she would have pointed out that weather was in the hands of God and been sure the snows were His way of making His will known.  And she’d have been right, Ben decided, feeling more strongly than ever that this place had been his destined home long before he first saw it.

    Dreamy-eyed, Ben snuggled Inger’s son against his chest.  This child, too, had been the product of his wife’s faith, a demonstration of her conviction that God would fulfill her heart’s desire for a child in His time.  And now her faith had taken root in Ben’s heart.  He’d been a believer in God all his life, of course, but Inger’s simple trust in an all-knowing, all-caring Father had changed the way he looked at everything, from the changes of the weather to the development of this land he would call home.  Whatever affected him or his boys, Ben now felt, was not ruled by happenstance.  Everything, great and small, was directed by the hand of a loving Creator, who had a plan for each individual life and was perfecting it in ways beyond the understanding of mere man.
 

Though snow began to dust the Sierras by Thanksgiving, none fell on the valley floor.  The Cartwrights and Thomases were able to count their blessings together over a table even more bountifully spread than the one they had enjoyed their first winter together.  Not until mid-December did the first snowflakes float down on the Cartwright’s roof.  Ben greeted their coming with pleasure, certain now that the temperature would remain cold enough to store whatever game he shot.

    The day after that first snowfall he and Clyde took an extended hunting trip to lay in a supply of meat.  The results of that trip, along with the pig he’d bought from one of the residents of Mormon Station and butchered and smoked earlier, made Ben confident he and the boys would eat well during the months the Carson Valley was shut off from California.  Not as well as the Thomases, of course, who had a better cook, but what Ben’s cooking lacked in quality, he could rectify with quantity.  And for Hoss, especially, quantity was the key word.

    About a week and a half before Christmas, Ben began to whittle some simple shapes similar to those that had decorated their tree in St. Joseph.  “Are we gonna have our own tree or put one up at the Thomases again?” Adam asked.

    Ben saw the yearning look in his boy’s dark eyes, so he didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway.  “Which would you prefer?”

    “Our own,” Adam answered at once.  Forthright by nature, Adam had never had the least fear of speaking his feelings, for his father encouraged openness.  “Can we have one, Pa?”

    Ben chuckled.  “Why do you think I’m sitting here whittling these things, boy?  If we were sharing a tree, we’d have no need for more than we made last year.”

    Adam grinned.  “I guess that’s right.”  He frowned, then.  “Uh-Pa?”

    “Yeah?” Ben asked, smoothing the back of the deer he was carving.

    “You think maybe Mr. Thomas would make us some animals to hang on the tree?” Adam asked tentatively.

    Ben’s head jerked up.  “Mine aren’t good enough for you, boy?”

    Adam’s mouth twisted askew.  “They’re all right, Pa, but—”

    “But not as lifelike as Mr. Thomas’s, eh?” Ben said.

    Adam gulped.  “N—no, sir, and I think we should make our tree the finest there is——for Hoss, I mean.”

    “For Hoss, is it?” Ben laughed.  “I doubt it’s Hoss’s interests you’re concerned about.  Tell the truth, Adam.”

    Adam grinned sheepishly.  “For me, then, Pa.”

    “Mr. Thomas has enough chores without decorating our tree,” Ben said soberly.  “Besides, I think by the time we’re finished, you’ll be pleased with the result.  I brought some special things back from Sacramento.”

    “What things, Pa?” Adam demanded.

    “Paint, for one.”  Ben smiled.  “Remember how much fun you and Jamie had painting the ornaments in St. Joseph?”

    Adam was smiling broadly now.  “I sure do.  That’ll make our tree real colorful, not plain like last year.”

    “It’ll be almost like the one we put up in St. Joe,” Ben said.  “I bought some small candles, too, and popcorn to string for a garland.”

    “And to eat!” Adam chirped.

    A bleary-eyed Hoss, just up from his nap, toddled into the room in time to hear his brother’s last statement.  “Eat?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.  Ben and Adam both laughed.  They might have known Hoss would wake up to hear that word!

    Once Ben had a dozen shapes carved, he gave Adam small cans of red, blue and yellow paint and a brush.  “Wait ‘til Hoss takes his nap, then you can go to work,” Ben whispered.

    Adam nodded solemnly.  He could just imagine Hoss’s plump fingers taking a dip in the pretty colors and smearing broad strokes across the table or, worse yet, his big brother’s shirt.  Pa was right; waiting ‘til the baby was sound asleep was the best plan.

    Adam smiled.  That way, too, the tree could be a surprise for Hoss come Christmas Eve.  Last year, when Pa was trying to soothe Adam’s disappointment over learning there was no Santa Claus from loud-mouthed Billy Thomas, he’d said that now Adam was old enough to play the Santa game with Hoss.  Pa had said then it would be fun.  And as Adam anticipated his baby brother’s wide-eyed wonder when he saw the tree, he began to understand what Pa had meant.

    Like Adam, Ben found himself looking forward to Hoss’s daily nap time.  While Adam worked busily at painting the new ornaments, Ben sat by the hearth carving first more ornaments and then slats for ladder back chairs the way Clyde had shown him.  The house was quiet with both father and son intent on their work, and Ben found the stillness restful after the constant activity of spring, summer and fall.  He’d never been overly fond of cold weather, but being shut in had its advantages.  Quiet afternoons like this brought a refreshing peace to his soul.

    One afternoon Adam, with the tip of his brush, gave his yellow bird a blue eyespot and sat back, satisfied.  “They’re all painted, Pa,” he reported.

    Ben looked up from the chair he was working on.  “That’s good, Adam.  I’ve been watching your work, and you’ve done a real fine job.”

    “Were you gonna carve some more?” Adam asked.  “The tree will seem kind of bare if this is all, don’t you think?”

    Ben chuckled.  “Maybe, but I don’t think we have time to make more this year.”

    Adam frowned thoughtfully, then his countenance lifted.  “What about hanging pinecones to fill in with?  We did last year.”

    “So we did,” Ben said, “and maybe you could add a touch of paint on the tips.”

    “Yeah!” Adam cried enthusiastically.  “I’ll get some cones right away.”

    “Not now, son,” Ben said with a shake of his head.

    “But, Pa, I’ve already got the paint out and everything,” Adam argued.

    “Yes, but Hoss is likely to wake soon, and you’ll want to get things put away before he does.  Then you can take him with you to pick up pinecones and paint them tomorrow.”

    “Aw, Pa, he’s no help,” Adam complained.

    “Then teach him to be a help,” Ben said firmly.  “You might keep your eye out for the tree you want while you’re at it.”

    “Oh, I already know that!” Adam exclaimed.  “I spotted one just the right size last week.”

    Ben laughed.  “All right.  Day after tomorrow we’ll chop it down and set it up.  Now put your supplies away, son.”

    Adam did as he was told, setting the ornaments atop the mantel to dry and the paints and cleaned brush on the highest bookshelf in the cabin.  He went to the front window and pressed his nose against the glass pane.  “It’s snowing again, Pa,” he said softly.

    Ben caught the note of uneasiness in Adam’s voice.  “Real pretty, isn’t it, when it drifts down slow like that,” he commented tentatively, standing up and stretching the kinks out of his back.

    Adam turned worried eyes to his father’s face.  “You think there’ll be too much?  For us to get to the Thomases, I mean.”

    Ben moved to the window beside Adam.  “I don’t think so, son.  Unless there comes a real storm, we’ll make it.  I’m looking forward to that goose Mrs. Thomas promised, too.”

    “And the presents,” Adam grinned.

    Ben tousled Adam’s dark hair.  “Time I started supper.  Fried ham and potatoes sound good to you?”

    “Yeah, especially if you throw in some applesauce on the side,” Adam giggled.

    “Good idea,” Ben laughed.  “Get some dried apples out of the shed.  I already have everything else.”

    Adam snatched his red and black plaid jacket from the peg by the door and ran outside.

    “No, Hoss!” Adam ordered, swatting the little boy’s hand.  Hoss immediately sent up a bellow of angry frustration.

    Ben turned sharply from the counter where he was dicing leftover boiled beef.  “Adam, what did you do?” he demanded.

    “I just spatted his hand, Pa,” Adam said.  “He keeps sticking it in the popcorn, and I’ll never have enough for the garland at the rate he eats!”

    “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Ben snapped.  “There’s plenty of popcorn, and if you need more, I’ll pop it.”  He laid down the butcher knife and sat on the bench next to Hoss.  Putting his arm around the youngster, he soothed him until he quieted, then turned displeased eyes on his older son.  “If there’s any spatting to be done, Adam, I’ll do it,” he said gruffly.  “Last time I looked, I was still the father.”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam said, his chin drooping.  He picked up a kernel of popcorn and held it out to his brother.  “I’m sorry, Hoss.  Here, you can have a piece.”

    Hoss grabbed the popcorn and stuck it in his mouth, immediately reaching into the bowl in front of Adam once again.

    “See what I mean!” Adam fumed.

    “Here, here now,” Ben said, standing up.  “I have the solution to this problem.”  He took a tin plate from the shelf to the right of the fireplace, filled it with popcorn and set it in front of Hoss.  “Now you eat from your own plate, Hoss, and leave brother’s popcorn alone.”

    “That won’t hold him long,” Adam warned.

    Ben arched an eyebrow, but decided the statement was probably valid.  He squatted down to meet Hoss at eye level.  “If you want more, Pa will get you some, Hoss.  Don’t reach in the bowl.”

    “Mo’,” Hoss said.

    Ben laughed.  “Eat what you have first.”  He stood up.  “You’ve got a ways to go, Adam,” he observed.

    “Yes, sir,” Adam said.  “I was hoping to be done by suppertime, but I don’t think I’ll make it, thanks to you-know-who.  What are you fixing for supper, anyway?”

    “Oh, I thought I’d make some biscuits and cut that smidgen of meat we had left from dinner into some gravy to pour over them,” Ben said, walking back to the counter to continue the meal preparation.

    “Gavvy,” Hoss squealed on hearing one of his favorite foods mentioned.

    “Gravy, Hoss,” Adam corrected.

    Hoss’s face puckered with effort.  “Gwavy,” he tried again.

    Adam shook his head.  “No, Hoss, it’s—”

    “No lessons today, Adam,” Ben chuckled.  “It’s Christmas Eve.”

    Adam grinned.  “Okay, Pa, no lessons.  Just lots of gavvy.”

    Soon the three Cartwrights were digging into plates full of biscuits with “lots of gavvy” and fried potatoes on the side.  Hoss, of course, never dawdled over his food, but tonight even Adam ate hurriedly, anxious to finish his garland and decorate the tree.  He had better success after supper, for with a full stomach Hoss seemed less inclined to gobble his brother’s stock of popcorn.

    By the time Ben had the dishes cleared, scoured and put on their storage shelf, Adam’s garland seemed long enough, so the two of them set to work winding it around the tree with Hoss as an avid audience.  When the garland was in place, Ben started attaching small candles to the tips of the branches, while Adam hung the painted ornaments by strings of red yarn Nelly Thomas had donated to the cause of Christmas cheer.  Hoss watched quizzically for a moment, then grabbed a yellow star and draped it over a lower branch.

    “No, Hoss,” Adam scolded.  “Me and Pa will fix the tree.”

    “Adam,” Ben chided softly, “it’s his tree, too.  Let him put some on where he can reach.”

    “It won’t look as nice,” Adam grumbled.

    Ben lifted the boy’s chin with one broad finger.  “It will to me,” he said.  “This is supposed to be a night of ‘Peace, goodwill to men,’ Adam.  It had better start between you two.”

    Adam nodded slowly.  “Yes, sir.”  He picked up a wooden bird and handed it to Hoss.  “Here, baby, put it on the tree.”

    Hoss grinned, took the bird and fumbled to drape its yarn loop over the tallest branch he could reach.  Getting into the spirit of the occasion, Adam helped guide the fat fingers, then patted the toddler’s head.  “That’s a good job, Hoss.”

    Ben beamed an approving smile at his elder son.  “Now I have another surprise,” he said.  From behind the wood box that sat just inside the front door, Ben drew a small package wrapped in tissue paper.  “And since Adam’s been such a cooperative helper, he may open it.”

    “A present?” Adam murmured in awe.

    “Not yet,” Ben laughed.  “This is for the tree.”

    Adam grinned sheepishly and removed the tissue paper, drawing out a shiny metal star.  “Ooh, it’s gold,” Adam cooed.

    “Not exactly,” Ben chuckled, “but made to look that way.  Put it on the top of the tree, Adam.”

    “Billy’s tree won’t have anything to match this,” Adam said as he pulled the bench close enough to stand on and reach the top of the tree.  He affixed the spiral wire at the star’s base to the tree and turned to look at his father.  “Like that, Pa?”

    “Just like that,” Ben said.  “Now, if you’ll watch Hoss for a few minutes, so I can light the candles, I’ll have one more surprise for my boys.”

    “Something else for the tree?” Adam asked, jumping down from the bench.

    “No, and no more questions, you inquisitive rascal,” Ben ordered.

    “Come on, Hoss,” Adam said, taking the baby’s hand.  “Let’s go sit in the rocker.”

    Ben lighted the tiny candles adorning the branches of the verdant pine, then stepped back to admire his handiwork.  “There.  What do you think of that?” he asked brightly.

    “Great, what’s the surprise?” Adam demanded.

    Ben’s laughter rocked the rafters.  “I shouldn’t tell you anything a minute ahead of time, should I, boy?” he teased.

    Adam ducked his head, a lopsided grin lifting one corner of his mouth.

    Shaking his shaggy brown locks, Ben went into the bedroom for a moment and returned carrying a thin volume Adam had never seen before.  “A book!” Adam cried.  “For me?”

    Ben scowled playfully.  “For all of us,” he scolded softly.  “A Christmas story I want to read you, but I thought I’d pop some more corn first for you to nibble while I read.”

    Adam’s face beamed just as brightly as before.  He loved to hear his father read.  “I’ll get the popcorn,” he offered, plopping Hoss into the rocker.

    Soon Ben was seated in the rocker, book in hand, while the boys sat at his feet, a large bowl of salty popcorn between them.  “Now, this story may get a little intense for Hoss.  If it does, we’ll have to stop and put him to bed.  You understand?”

    Adam’s brow wrinkled.  “No, sir.  What does ‘intense’ mean, Pa?”

    “Well, in this case, ‘scary,’” Ben replied.

    “Scary!  A Christmas story?” Adam scoffed.

    “Ah, but you see,” Ben went on, his voice dropping mysteriously, “this is a Christmas ghost story.”

    Adam’s black eyes widened with excitement.  A Christmas ghost story!  That was something different, indeed!  His arm instinctively slipped around Hoss’s ample mid-section.  “Don’t be scared,” he whispered.  It would be just his luck for the baby to take fright at the most interesting part of the story.  Hoss reached for another handful of popcorn.

    “‘Marley was dead, to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that,’” Ben began, the cello-timbered tones of his voice hushed with suspense.  On he read, while the lights flickered on the fragrant pine and their warmth seemed to waft the brisk aroma across the room.  Adam became so involved in the story that he only thought to take a kernel of popcorn now and then.  That was fine with Hoss, who was quite content to have it to himself.

    Finally, Ben came to the last line.  “‘And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us every one!’” he read and slowly closed the book.

    Adam let out a sigh of deep content.  “That was wonderful, Pa,” he whispered, not wanting to break the mood with louder words.

    Looking up, Ben chuckled at the scene before him.  Hoss hadn’t quite made it through the story.  He lay with his head in Adam’s lap, still clutching two kernels of popcorn in his chubby fist.  “Looks like someone’s ready for bed,” Ben said softly, gathering the baby into his strong arms.  “Probably time you were asleep, too, Adam.”

    Adam gave a little yawn.  It was late, the story having been a long one, but he wasn’t sure he could sleep with all those images of Christmas ghosts to float through his dreams.  Anxious to be up early the next morning, however, he dutifully went to bed and was soon snoozing cozily next to his little brother.

    Ben placed the last present under the tree and stepped to the doorway to check on the boys.  By some miracle, both of them were still asleep.  Ben chuckled softly, pleased with himself.  It had been hard work the last several Christmases to wake up before early-bird Adam, but the boy was sleeping soundly this morning.  Figuring he’d have time to mix the batter for their pancakes, Ben stepped briskly to his worktable at the other end of the main room.  He had just started stirring the ingredients together, though, when he heard rumblings from the bedroom.

    Adam shook Hoss’s small shoulder.  “Wake up, Hoss,” he said.  “It’s Christmas!”

    Hoss’s blue eyes slowly opened.  He gave his brother a puzzled look, for he was used to sleeping as late as he liked.

    “Time to get up,” Adam urged, “and open presents.”

    Hoss showed no inclination to leave his warm bed.

    “Don’t you want to see what Santa brought you?” Adam demanded.

    “Sanna?” Hoss asked, his eyes showing no recognition of the name.

    Adam gave his little brother a shake.  “Santa Claus, Hoss,” he repeated impatiently.  “I’ve told you a dozen times.  He brings presents.”

    Hoss’s face showed no greater understanding, so Adam sighed and rolled out of the bed.  Reaching back, he pulled Hoss up.  “Come on,” he ordered.

    Amiable Hoss, always glad to follow where his big brother led, let himself be guided into the other room.  Ben scooped his baby up and snuggled him close.  “Merry Christmas, Hoss!” he said enthusiastically, then turned to smile at his other son.  “Merry Christmas, Adam.”

    “Merry Christmas, Pa,” Adam replied, but his black eyes were staring at the bundles under the tree.

    “Go ahead,” Ben laughed.  “Maybe Hoss will get more in the mood once he sees what’s in one of those packages.  Yours are on the left.”

    Adam grinned and eagerly tore brown paper from a square box. He read the title on the box aloud.  “Round the World.  What’s that, Pa?”

    “It’s a board game,” Ben explained.  “You can learn more about geography while you play.”

    “Oh, that sounds like fun!” Adam said.

    “Yeah, well, the only problem is you need someone to play with,” Ben explained.  “Maybe you’d like to take it with you to the Thomases this afternoon.”

    Adam laughed.  “Yeah.  Maybe Billy’ll like geography better if we make a game of it.”  He untied the string around the top of a paper bag and pulled out a new pair of shoes.  “Thanks, Pa,” he said.  “I needed a new pair.”

    “I know,” Ben chuckled.

    Hoss suddenly seemed to comprehend the purpose of the knobby packages under the tree.  He squirmed and pointed.  “Me!” he cried.

    “All right, you can go next,” Ben said.  “Hand me the small sack, Adam.”

    Ben untied the string and helped Hoss open the bag.  One fat fist plunged inside and drew out a shoe like Adam’s, only smaller.  Hoss crowed merrily and banged the shoe against his father’s arm.

    “That’s not what it’s for,” Ben scolded gently and laced the shoe onto Hoss’s plump foot.  Ben was pleased to see that it fit.  Shoes for the boys had been hard to find in California, whose population as yet boasted few women and children.  The toys would have been even more difficult had not Ben’s old friend Lawrence Larrimore, owner of a San Francisco emporium, placed a special order for him.

    When both feet were shod, Hoss happily banged them together, then pointed to the tree.  “Mo’!” he demanded.

    “You and Hoss have one present just alike,” Ben told Adam.  “Let’s open it next.”

    “I see it,” Adam said, grabbing an oddly shaped bundle from each side of the tree.  He handed Hoss’s package to Ben and tore the paper from his own.  “A top!” he screamed.

    “Top!” Hoss screamed in response.  His toy was blue, while Adam’s was red.

    “Show him how it’s done,” Ben suggested.

    Adam took his top to the table and set it spinning dizzily.  Then Hoss tried, with less success, but equal pleasure.

    “One more gift for each of you,” Ben said.  “Who wants to go first?”

    “Let Hoss,” Adam offered.

    Ben smiled broadly.  “That’s my good, unselfish boy.”  He set Hoss beside the largest gift under the tree.  The baby needed no instruction now.  He grabbed the paper and ripped it off.

    “Look, Hoss; it’s a Noah’s Ark,” Adam said, then grinned up at his father.  “I bet I know who made this.”

    “You’d be half right,” Ben smiled.  “I made the ship, but Mr. Thomas did carve several of the animals.”

    “I can tell which ones,” Adam teased.

    Ben tweaked his ear.  “Open your last present now before Santa takes it back for all your sass.”

    Adam grinned and carefully took the paper from the last package.  He could tell from the size and shape that it held books, and Adam was always careful with books.  He eagerly read the titles:  Pilgrim’s Progress and Aesop’s Fables.

    “I hope you enjoy them,” Ben said.

    “Oh, I know I will!” Adam cried.  “Can I read one now?”

    Ben laughed.  “Don’t you want your stocking first?”

    Adam giggled.  “I forgot.”  He ran to the fireplace and took both his stocking and the one he had loaned Hoss from their nails on the mantel.

    Ben set Hoss on the bench at the table and helped him empty his stocking.  Hoss’s held mostly candy, while Adam’s included some marbles and a two-bit piece, as well.

    “It’s been the best Christmas ever, Pa!” Adam said.  “I never had so many presents before.”

    “Santa’s been a little more prosperous this year,” Ben said, giving Adam a wink.

    Adam winked back.  He knew what Pa meant and understood why he’d said it the way he did.  Hoss wasn’t in on the secret about Santa Claus yet, so they’d have to talk circles around him.  Suddenly, Adam felt very grown up and knowledgeable, and that was the best Christmas gift of all.

    “Get your sled from the barn, son,” Ben ordered, “while I get Hoss bundled up.  Then we’ll be ready to leave.”

    “There’s not enough snow to go sledding, Pa,” Adam argued.

    Ben tousled the boy’s dark hair.  “No, but there’s just enough on the ground that I can pull you boys, if you’re willing to hold the gifts for our friends.”

    Adam grinned.  “I’m willing.  What did you get Billy?”

    Ben swatted the youngster’s backside with a light hand.  “No questions.  Get the sled.”  Adam took off.

    Soon both boys were settled on the sled, the gifts for the Thomases wedged between them.  “Hang on to Hoss,” Ben instructed.

    “Ain’t it about time he did that kind of thing for himself?” Adam grumbled.  “He’s big enough.”

    “Isn’t,” Ben corrected, “and no.  It isn’t his size that’s in question, Adam; it’s his age.  You hang on.”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam mumbled, “but it won’t be easy with all these presents, too.”

    “You’ll manage,” Ben said bluntly, picking up the rope he’d attached to the sled.

    Despite his doubts, Adam did manage to keep both bundles and brother in place on the sled.  He had to admit the trip went quicker this way.  The sled skimmed easily over the snow, much faster than Adam’s short legs ordinarily covered the distance between the two cabins.  Pa looked kind of out of breath when they arrived, but Adam wasn’t a bit tired, and Hoss was giggling merrily from the brisk slide over the wintry carpet.

    Billy Thomas came bursting out the cabin door as soon as the Cartwrights came into view.  “I got a sled of my own now!” he yelled to Adam.  “It’s got real metal runners, too.”

    “That’s great!” Adam said.  “Can we take turns with it?”

    “If I can talk Pa into takin’ us up in the hills,” Billy promised.  He pointed to the packages on the sled.  “Which one of them is for me?”

    “Pa wouldn’t tell me,” Adam replied, disgruntled.  Honestly, you’d think Pa would know he was big enough to keep a secret!

    Ben gave Billy’s ribs a good tickle.  “Who says any of them are for you, you scamp!”

    Billy just grinned.  He knew Mr. Cartwright better than to think he’d be left out in the gift-giving.  “Want me to tote ‘em inside?” he offered.

    “I do not,” Ben chuckled, “but since you’re so fond of toting, I’ll let you tote this.”  He plunked Hoss in Billy’s arms.

    “The presents’d weigh less,” Billy muttered, but he hefted the baby to his shoulder and lugged him inside.

    “Need any help?” Clyde called from the door.

    “Nope!” Ben said, then winked at the other man.  “You’re as bad as your boy; you just want to pinch at the presents.”

    Clyde snickered.  “Never denied it.”  He stepped aside to let Ben in.  “You can put ‘em under the tree, but keep your paws off anything else you see there.”

    Adam leaned the empty sled against the cabin wall and went inside, carrying his new board game.  Billy pulled him into his bedroom.  “Ain’t you got no idea what your pa got me?” he whispered.

    “I got one idea,” Adam whispered.  “One of them feels like something I got, but I ain’t telling.”

    “Gimme a hint,” Billy demanded.

    Adam plopped onto Billy’s bed.  “Okay, if you tell me what you got for Christmas.”

    “Already did, mostly,” Billy replied.  “I got the sled and a pocket knife and tons of candy.  Oh, and a two-bit piece.”

    “Me, too,” Adam said, his brow furrowing.  Sometimes he wondered if Pa and Mr. Thomas didn’t work in cahoots on ideas for presents.  He hadn’t gotten a pocket knife, though, and he’d surely have treasured one.

    Billy gave Adam’s arm a hard punch.  “So, what’s my hint?”

    Adam grinned.  “Well, mine was red, and Hoss got one, too——a blue one.”

    Billy frowned.  “A baby’s toy?”

    “You’ll like it,” Adam promised.

    Billy charged back into the main room.  “Hey, Ma, when we gonna open them presents?”

    “Not ‘til after lunch,” his mother scolded.  “I’m too busy cookin’ now to be bothered with presents.”  She was wearing a crisply starched white apron over her best blue dress, the one that had belonged to Inger and that Ben had given her for Christmas the previous year when there’d been no chance to shop for holiday gifts.

    “Wouldn’t be no bother for me,” Billy grumbled under his breath, then turned and called back to Adam, “You want to seesaw ‘til dinner?”

    “Yeah,” Adam agreed.  Both boys charged out the front door, Billy slamming it hard behind them.

    Hoss toddled across the room and spatted his palms against the log door.  “Bubba,” he called.

    Nelly lifted the baby in her arms.  “Too cold for you outside, Sunshine.  How ‘bout one of Aunt Nelly’s sugar cookies?”

    “Tookie!” Hoss crowed, all thoughts of his brother banished by brighter prospects.

    “That’s right,” Nelly laughed.  “A cookie and a nice glass of milk.  I don’t think it’ll spoil his dinner, do you, Ben?”

    “Nothing ever does,” Ben said wryly.  He lifted chocolate eyes to Nelly’s face.  “You still have milk?  I’ve already let my cow go dry for the winter.”

    “I wanted the milk for the holiday bakin’,” Nelly explained.  “We’ll let her go dry after today.  Chickens has quit layin’, too, but I stored back enough eggs for the pies and cakes.”

    “Pies and cakes,” Ben said.  “Plural?”

    Nelly’s brown eyes narrowed.  Sometimes Ben Cartwright could be right rilesome about throwin’ around high-falutin’ words.

    “Think he means more than one of each, woman,” Clyde offered, remembering the word from the lessons Ben had taught him the previous winter.

    “Well, lands, yes, there’s more than one!” Nelly exclaimed.  “There’s dried peach, pumpkin and custard pies, fruit cake and pound cake and plum pudding, too.”

    Ben gave his stomach a sympathetic pat and addressed it directly.  “Do you hear that?  Do you hear what I’m supposed to fit into you?  The woman has no pity.”

    “I reckon it’ll get eaten,” Nelly smirked.

    “I reckon you’re right!” Ben guffawed.  “Too many hungry men and boys at the table to let much go to waste.”

    “You gonna talk pie and cake all morning or ain’t you got no man’s business to discuss?” Clyde asked dryly.

    Ben smiled.  “Not much going on at my place.  Been working on some chairs for the table.”

    “Show him what you made me for Christmas,” Nelly suggested.  “That man of mine’s been busy these cold days, too, Ben.”

    Ben already knew what Clyde had made Nelly for Christmas.  They’d discussed it many times, but he hadn’t seen the finished project.  In the corner by the cook stove sat a new pine cupboard with ivy vines carved into the face of each door.  Ben examined its workmanship with interest.  He didn’t need anything as fancy for his own use, of course, but it would be nice to have a place to store dishes besides an open shelf pegged to the wall.  Ben mentally added a cupboard to his list of projects, though he doubted he’d get to it this winter.  Not being as gifted with wood as Clyde Thomas, he was slower about making things.  The chairs were probably all he could manage before spring came, leaving him no leisure for woodwork.

    The table Nelly spread for Christmas dinner was lavish beyond Ben’s belief.  “Nelly, this is the closest thing I’ve had to a real New England Christmas dinner in years,” he said.  “Roast goose, Boston-baked beans and steamed pudding, too.  It takes me back to my boyhood.”

    Nelly flushed with pleasure at the compliment.  “Well, my folks was from there, Ben.  These are just old family receipts, handed down from mother to daughter.”

    “I thought you were from Indiana,” Ben said, surprised.

    Nelly laughed.  “I was reared there, but my folks came from Massachusetts, same as yours.”

    Clyde cackled.  “Maybe you really are kin, then.”

    Ben arched an eyebrow, then smiled.

    “Well, now.  I hope you saved room for dessert,” Nelly said as she began to clear the blue pottery plates.  They, too, were a Christmas gift, and she was using them for the first time.

    “I’ll take a little pudding,” Ben said, “but anything else will have to wait.  I’m stuffed fuller than that goose.”

    “Yeah, I want to wait, too, Ma,” Billy said.  “Let’s open presents.”

    “No presents ‘til everyone’s done eatin’ and the dishes cleared,” his mother stated firmly.

    “Aw, Ma,” Billy wheedled.  “Adam wants his presents now, and he’s company.”

    Clyde guffawed.  “We all know how you’re frettin’ about Adam gettin’ his presents, son!”

    Billy gave a sheepish shrug.  Now would have been the perfect time for Adam to take the hint and speak up, but, of course, he didn’t.  Adam, unfortunately, was cursed with an overabundance of manners, in Billy’s opinion, and sometimes it got in the way of his doing what the saucy redhead thought he ought.  So Billy had to hold in his curiosity until everyone had finished, even that everlastingly slow Hoss, who seemed more interested in custard pie than in what was under the tree.

    The toddler’s attitude changed quickly, though, once the gift exchange began.  He squealed with delight when Clyde pulled the wooden squirrel set on wheels across the puncheon floor, and he seemed even more pleased with the soft calico dog Nelly had stitched for him.

    “It’s just a cuddle critter to take to bed with him,” she explained in response to Ben’s expression of thanks.  “I made it from some scraps I had left from my new work dress.”

    Her gift to Ben had been made of scraps, too, but he praised the hooked rug as profusely as though it had been a Turkish carpet.  “This will look perfect in front of our fireplace,” Ben said.

    “I was aimin’ to make one for your bedroom, too,” Nelly apologized, “but I run out of time.  I’ll get around to it someday, though.”

    “Nelly, you spoil us,” Ben smiled.

    “Hope you like that book I picked out for you,” Clyde said.  “I don’t know one from another, but the bookseller over to Sacramento said this were a good un.”

    Ben looked fondly at his new copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.  “It looks very interesting, Clyde, and there’s nothing I love more on a winter’s night than a warm fire and a good book.”

    “Thought you ought to have something besides that Shakespeare feller,” Clyde explained.  “Course, ain’t no tellin’ how good a man with a name like dumb ass is with words, but leastways he sounds like a good American ‘stead an old redcoat.”

    Ben smiled.  No need to tell Clyde that Alexander Dumas was French.

    “I love my wagon, Uncle Clyde,” Adam said.  Clyde had made the boy a miniature prairie schooner, its body painted bright blue and its wheels red to match the ones they had all driven west.  This one was just the right size for a boy to pull, and Nelly had stitched a white wagon cover to go over the detachable hickory bows.

    “Thought you could use something to pull that chunky brother of yours in,” Clyde chuckled, “and I reckon you’ll find other uses for it, too.”

    “I reckon,” Adam grinned.  He was sure he could find better uses than just pulling Hoss around!  “Thanks for the mittens and the muffler, too, Aunt Nelly,” he said.  “I needed new ones.”

    Nelly smiled her acceptance of his thanks and offered a few words of appreciation for the flower seeds and mantel clock Ben had given her.

    “Can me and Adam go to my room and play this here game?” Billy asked.

    “Glad to get shed of you,” Clyde said dryly.

    Knowing he was being teased, Billy just tucked his Snakes and Ladders board game under one arm and motioned Adam to follow him.  Hoss toddled in right behind them, carrying Billy’s new yellow top, which he had appropriated as soon as the nine-year-old unwrapped it.

    “You set for a lickin’?” Clyde asked, setting the checkerboard Ben had given him on the kitchen table.

    “We’ll see who gets the lickin’!” Ben scoffed, seating himself opposite his friend.  “Before I leave, though, I want to see how you are at chess.”  In addition to a store-bought checkerboard and pieces to replace the homemade one he’d given Clyde the previous Christmas, Ben had purchased chessmen.

    “Never played that before,” Clyde said.  “You’ll have to teach me the rules.”

    Ben nodded.  “There aren’t many rules to learn, but it’s more challenging than checkers.  You’ve got think further ahead.”

    “Sounds like you know this game pretty good,” Clyde remarked.

    Ben shook his head.  “No, I’m a beginner.  My friend, Josiah Edwards taught me, and we played a number of times that last winter I spent in St. Joseph, but that’s all.”

    “Maybe I won’t be too far behind, then,” Clyde chuckled.  “Red or black?”

    “Red,” Ben said and the checkers match began.  They played five quick games, Clyde winning three to Ben’s two.  Then Ben explained the rules of chess to Clyde and they began a game.

    “Slow-moving game, ain’t it?” Clyde said after they’d been playing an hour.

    “Yeah,” Ben admitted, “but I thought it would be a good one to have going this spring while we’re running the trading post.  You can think through your next move while we wait on customers.”

    “Or you yours,” Clyde smirked, moving his queen in direct line with Ben’s king.  “Check,” he announced triumphantly.

    “But not mate,” Ben said, deftly moving his knight to capture Clyde’s queen.

    Clyde scowled.  “I keep forgettin’ them horsey fellers can move crooked-like.”  He propped his elbow on the table and leaned his cheek against his fist as he pondered what to do next.

    “Nelly, I believe I’m ready for a slice of pie now,” Ben announced.

    “Help yourself,” Nelly said from the rocker by the fire where she sat holding a drowsy Hoss.

    Between pie and games and light-hearted conversation the afternoon passed quickly.  Though the Cartwrights had originally planned to stay for an evening meal of leftovers, a light snowfall about four o’clock that afternoon changed their plans.  For once  Nelly made no protest.  Four miles was a long walk, and with the possibility of heavier snow, it was safer for her guests to start home early.

    Ben padded Adam’s new wagon with the multi-colored hooked rug and lifted Hoss to set him inside.  When Ben pried Billy’s yellow top from the fat fingers, though, Hoss sent up a loud, indignant wail.  “That’s Billy’s,” Ben said firmly, spatting the little hand.  “You have your own.”

    “Now, Ben, do it the easy way,” Nelly advised, holding out a sugar cookie to the baby.

    With one final sniffle Hoss grabbed the cookie and willingly let himself be placed in the wagon along with the other gifts his family had received.

    “I boxed up some of the leavin’s to take with you,” Nelly said.

    “Wouldn’t put ‘em in the wagon with that youngun if you expect any supper,” Clyde drawled dryly.

    Ben chuckled.  “A point well taken.  Loan me a piece of rope and I’ll tie the food box to Adam’s sled.”

    With Ben pulling the wagon and Adam the sled of goose meat, pie and cake, the Cartwrights headed for home, reaching their cabin shortly before the snow began to fall in heavier clumps.

    Hoss had long since fallen asleep, but Ben and Adam celebrated one more tradition before they turned in for the night.  Beside a flickering fire Ben sat with Adam in his lap, reading, as he did each year, the centuries-old story that alone gave meaning to all the celebrations since that first one in a Bethlehem stable.
 

Snow covered the ground occasionally during January, but most of February was cold and clear.  On the nineteenth of that month, Ben finished his chores quickly with Adam’s help.  Coming into the cabin, Ben immediately shed his warm coat, but Adam left his on.  “Can we go in to Mormon’s Station today, Pa?” he asked.

    Ben shook his head.  “It’s too cold for Hoss to be out that long, son.  What’s the attraction at Mormon Station, anyway?”

    “Aw, Pa,” Adam whined.  “I want to see what Billy got for his birthday.”  Billy Thomas had celebrated his tenth birthday the day before while Adam would commemorate his ninth on Friday.

    “You’ll likely see him Sunday,” Ben said, “and that’s soon enough for you boys to compare notes.”

    “But, Pa, I want to check on the mail, too.  Can’t I?” Adam begged.

    “Oh, Adam, don’t be foolish,” Ben scolded.  “The mail hasn’t gotten through since October.”  A man named Chorpenning had contracted to carry mail from Placerville to Salt Lake City that year, and everyone in the valley had eagerly awaited each monthly delivery.  Until November, that is.  That month, for the first time, the mail failed to arrive.  One hundred miles outside Salt Lake City, Indians had waylaid the mail train and the letters had been lost.  As far as Ben knew, he personally hadn’t lost any mail, but neither had he received any.  Chorpenning simply didn’t show up at the expected time in either December or January, and Ben suspected the snow-packed passes of the Sierras had defeated the man’s intention to provide regular service.

    “Can’t I check anyway?  Please, Pa?” Adam pleaded.  “I want to see if my journal to Jamie gets off, and maybe his will be there for me.”

    Ben smiled.  He knew how eager Adam was to receive that journal from his friend in St. Joseph.  Last year he’d had to wait until spring, but Chorpenning’s monthly visits had given the boy hope he might hear from Jamie Edwards sooner this year.  “I think it’s a wild goose chase, Adam,” Ben said, “but if your heart’s set on it, I guess you can go.”

    “Thanks, Pa!” Adam cheered.

    “Bundle up snug,” Ben said, “and ask Mrs. Thomas to give you your dinner.  You should have something warm before starting home.”

    “Oh, she’ll be glad to do that,” Adam replied confidently.

    As Ben did his chores that morning, he frowned at the snow-laden Sierras to the west.  Much as he enjoyed the beauty of the dark evergreens set against a backdrop of glistening white, the snow effectively cut Carson Valley off from the rest of the world several months each year.  Ben chuckled to himself.  Funny how little it took to spoil a man, like those boys and their soft beds.  Last year all he cared about was having enough food to survive the winter.  Now, because of a few months’ mail service, he fretted about blocked passes.  Like Adam, he’d grown to rely on the monthly opportunity to send and receive mail, but he saw no way Chorpenning could continue with the snows as deep as they appeared.

    Ben’s fears were confirmed that evening when Adam returned without mail.  Foolish as he knew it to be, Ben had hoped for a letter from his brother John or his sister-in-law Martha.  Adam was especially disappointed, though.  “Hearing from Jamie would have made my birthday perfect,” he sighed.

    Ben had given his son a sympathetic hug, but he wasn’t too concerned about Adam’s birthday.  He had a feeling the new pocketknife the boy would receive tomorrow would make up for any disappointment he’d suffered today.

    Another month passed without the return of the mail carrier.  Ben would ultimately learn that Chorpenning had gotten the mail through in February, but he’d had to route it up the Feather River over Beckworth Pass, then down to the Truckee River and the Humboldt, far to the north of his usual route.  It had been a horrible trip, too, all the horses freezing to death and the men forced to pack mail and supplies for two hundred miles on foot.  After that fateful trip Chorpenning’s men quit, choosing to remain in Salt Lake City rather than tackle the deep snows once more.  Chorpenning was forced to carry the mail back to California unassisted, but not even he dared risk the journey again until spring.  Ben wouldn’t discover that for several months, though.  For now he and the other residents of Carson Valley could only guess what was going on in the outside world.

    Winter confined the Cartwrights close to home, but even the coldest days, when no one ventured outdoors, were far from idle.  Ben busied himself making chairs, three full-sized ones and a tall one so Hoss could sit at the table.  Ben felt prepared, then, for a visit from his friends, although when they came, his older son would have to give up his chair and share a bench with Billy.

    Adam spent extra time with his lessons and seemed perfectly content to spend a chilly afternoon sprawled on his father's bed reading one of his new books while Hoss napped on the trundle below him.  He usually read one of Aesop’s fables to his little brother after lunch each day to help Hoss lie still until he fell asleep.  Then, in the evenings after Hoss was in bed, Ben would read aloud to Adam, either an act from one of Shakespeare's plays or a chapter from The Count of Monte Cristo.

    When weather permitted, Ben chopped down pines and split rails for the corral he planned to build once he had enough.  March arrived before he completed that task, so it had to be laid aside while he and Clyde plowed their fields in preparation for the spring planting.  Technically, the fields were on Clyde's property, but both men agreed that it made more sense to combine their efforts in one area and share the produce.  Since Clyde's land was closer to the trading post they'd run together once the emigrant traffic began, as well as closer to a water supply with which to irrigate the fields, that's where they would cultivate their crops.

    The work was done by the end of the third week of March, however, and since that was still too early to plant, Ben went back to splitting rails.  He'd only been at it two days, though, before something again interrupted his work.

    Early on the morning of March 24th, Ben woke to the sound of someone pounding on the door.  “Hey!  Let me in!” a young voice hollered.

    Good lands, Ben thought.  What’s Billy Thomas doing here this time of the morning?  He stumbled to the door and opened it.

    Billy squeezed in as soon as the door opened a crack.  “Brr!  It's freezin' out here,” he declared.

    “What are you doing here, Billy?” Ben demanded.  “Do your folks know you’re gone?”

    “Sure, they sent me,” Billy announced.  “Ain’t Adam up yet?”

    “I am now,” Adam yawned from the bedroom doorway.  “What’s going on?”

    “It's comin’,” Billy said, “and Pa said to get out from underfoot, so here I am.  What’s for breakfast?”

    Ben laughed.  “I haven’t had time to decide.  What do you mean ‘it's coming’?  What’s coming?”

    “The baby, of course,” Billy explained, wondering why Mr. Cartwright hadn’t figured that out for himself.  “I like pancakes best, if you're lookin’ for suggestions.”

    “And sausage,” Adam added.  “That’d be good, Pa.”

    “All right.  Get some out of the shed then,” Ben ordered, “and see to your regular chores while you’re out there.  You can help, Billy.”    Billy shrugged.  He didn't mind working for his breakfast so long as it was a big one.

    The size of Billy’s breakfast met with his approval, as did the heaping plateful of rabbit stew Ben dished up at noon.  “This is real good, Mr. Cartwright,” the redhead announced appreciatively.  “We ain’t had no fresh game for a spell on account of Pa stickin’ close to home.  And Ma’s cookin’ ain’t been up to snuff lately, either.”

    “I wonder why,” Ben muttered wryly.  “Couldn’t be she was extra tired these last few weeks, and you didn’t do your part in helping out, now could it?”

    Billy grinned.  “Naw, that couldn’t be it.  I been as saintly as ever.”

    “That’s what I meant,” Ben teased.  “You had enough to fill you or you want more, son?”

    “Mo’, Pa!” Hoss shouted, banging his spoon against his tin plate.

    Billy shook his head, his blue eyes wide with amazement, for Hoss had already eaten a helping as large as either Billy’s or Adam’s.  “How you ever put enough game on the table to keep up with him is beyond me, Mr. Cartwright!”

    “It’s a challenge,” Ben chuckled.  He stood and dished Hoss another plateful of stew, then turned to his older son.  “Adam, you and Billy get the table cleared and the dishes washed up.  And put Hoss down for his nap.  I’ll be back soon, and we’ll take Billy home.”

    “I ain’t forgot the way,” Billy snorted.

    Ben winked at the boy and took his rifle down from its peg over the front door.

    “Where you going, Pa?” Adam asked.

    “Not far,” Ben promised.  “I thought I’d try to scare up a little fresh game to take to our friends, so Billy here won’t wither on the vine.”

    Billy grinned.  Fresh meat on the table would be worth washing a few plates for.

    Ben returned by middle of the afternoon with two sage hens, but Hoss was still asleep.  “Guess you’d better stay here, Adam,” his father said.

    “Aw, no, Pa,” Adam whimpered.  “I wanted to go, too.”

    “I understand, son, but your brother needs you to watch over him,” Ben explained.

    Adam scuffed his shoe across the floor.  “That’s all I do lately, Pa.”

    Ben knelt and gave him a hug.  “I know I’m asking a lot of you, Adam, and I wish I didn’t have to.  There’s just no one else that Pa can depend on, and I’m real proud of the way you handle the responsibilities I give you.”

    Adam smiled slightly at his father’s words of praise.  “Okay, Pa, I’ll take good care of him.”

    Ben patted the sturdy young shoulder.  “That’s my boy.”

    While Billy walked toward his home, he frowned up at Ben.  “If this here baby of ours is as much trouble as Hoss, I might just be willing to sell him off cheap.”

    “I’m not in the market,” Ben said dryly.  “Besides, you know you don’t mean a word of it.  And what makes you think the baby’s a boy?”

    Billy shrugged.  “Just took it for granted.  Who’d want a girl baby?”

    Ben laughed loud.  “Your mother, for one.  I imagine she’s about ready for some female company.”

    Boy and man arrived to discover that Nelly had, contrary to Billy’s expectation, given birth to a tiny girl with red-blonde hair and pale blue eyes.  “What a little doll,” Ben cooed when the baby was placed in his arms.

    Nelly beamed her pride.  “Ain’t she pretty, Ben?”

    “She is indeed,” Ben replied, not quite truthfully.  Like most babies, this infant was red and wrinkled, but all babies were beautiful in the eyes of their parents and doting friends, Ben supposed.  “Do you have a name picked?” he asked.

    Nelly nodded.  “I’d like to call her Inger,” she said softly, “if it’s all right with you, Ben.”

    Ben’s eyes glistened.  “I’d be very pleased,” he said, “and so would my Inger.”
 

Ben stood, breathless, appreciative eyes scanning the evergreen-edged shores of the alpine lake.  The climb to this vantage point had left him winded, of course, but what really took his breath away was the beauty of the scene.  Never in his life, though he’d traveled widely, had he seen a place so picturesque.  Lying north to south, the huge expanse of blue-green water stretched for more than twenty miles, its width half that distance.  Reflected in the clear water, so clear Ben could see the pebbly bottom deep below, were the surrounding snow-capped mountains with fluffy clouds floating overhead.  The pines and aspens, rocks and boulders encircling the lake also found their counterpart in its shimmering waters, and Ben’s seafaring eyes spied excellent bays and coves in all directions.  If this matchless serenity resembled even slightly the mountain lakes of his beloved Inger’s homeland, Ben could understand why she had yearned for them.  This was the kind of place any man would cherish as a home, the kind of place Ben would ultimately like to build his.

    For the time being, of course, home was some fifteen miles southeast of this point.  Ben had come this far out of desire to see the lake John Frémont had called Bonpland in his descriptions of his travels in the west, but the panorama had exceeded Ben’s imagination.  Scenery wasn’t his alleged purpose for being here, however.  As it was early April, both he and the Thomases had begun to run short of meat, so he was supposed to be hunting, and it was time he got to it.  Reluctantly, Ben turned away from the lake and began watching the ground for animal tracks.

    It felt good to walk alone through the virgin forest.  Ben was sorry, of course, that Clyde had been too ill to come on this hunt, but the blacksmith would have wanted to hunt closer to home.  Pragmatic by nature, he cared little for scenic views.  Adam, however, would have enjoyed the trip.  Ben regretted having to leave the boy home, but someone had to look after Hoss.  Though their friends hadn’t seemed dangerously ill, Ben had thought it safer to keep some distance.  With no doctor this side of the Sierras, he’d hate to have two sick boys on his hands.  Besides, with a new baby and both Billy and Clyde coughing hard enough to rattle the cabin walls, Nelly didn’t need two more boys to look after.

    Ben spotted deer tracks and began to follow them, his path leading up a rocky ridge.  Suddenly his jaw tightened.  The deer tracks still led upward, but they had been joined now by tracks of another sort, tracks no animal had made and, probably, no white man——moccasin tracks.

    He hadn’t expected to see signs of Indians up here.  He hadn’t thought the Washos’ range extended this far north or the Paiutes’ this far south.  Foolish of him.  Why would people living on the subsistence level of the Diggers ignore a game-rich country like this?  Of course, they would come here and one obviously had.  Perhaps more than one.

    Ben had continued up the ridge while he thought over the situation, but he came to an abrupt halt.  Obviously, another hunter was already on the track of this deer, one who might take interest in more than meat should Ben overtake him.  Not a good idea, he decided, prickles starting up his neck.  He could find game nearer home and wisdom dictated that he should.

    Just as Ben turned, however, his ears caught a low sound.  He held his breath.  There it was again, like the whine of a dog with a thorn in its paw, but Ben instinctively knew the sound hadn’t come from an animal.  Somewhere down the rocky slope below him was an injured person, probably the one whose moccasins had followed the deer.

    Ben’s broad brow furrowed as he pondered the dilemma.  He felt wrong to leave without offering assistance to someone in obvious pain.  But was it safe to help an injured Indian?  After all, Ben was no doctor.  What if the man was badly hurt?  What if his people showed up and misunderstood Ben’s intention?  Ben swallowed hard.  What was the use of asking unanswerable questions when someone was lying down there in need of help?  Whatever the risk, he couldn’t just walk away.

    He followed the moccasin tracks on up the ridge.  They didn’t go much further.  At a narrow place scattered with loose gravel the tracks stopped.  Ben looked down a sharp incline, not seeing anyone, but certain from the crushed plants below that the Indian had fallen over the edge and rolled down the hill.  Ben looked for, and found, a safer place to descend the gorge.

    About halfway down he sighted the Indian and felt instantly foolish for his fears.  This was nothing but a boy, a lad of some fifteen or sixteen years.  Should he show any signs of belligerence, Ben could easily handle so small an opponent.

    Relaxing, Ben approached the boy.  But Ben’s calm contrasted sharply with the sudden tension of the Indian youth.  Gripping a knife, he thrust it threateningly toward Ben.

    “Here now, none of that.  I mean you no harm, boy,” Ben said, then chided himself for his stupidity.  The boy probably didn’t know one word of English.

    The Indian struggled to sit up, drew his arm back and threw the knife, falling back from the expended effort.  Ben side-stepped the flying blade just in time, the knife whizzing past his right leg.  His jaw tight, Ben stepped toward the boy, hoping he didn’t have a second weapon.  He didn’t, but with all the energy he had, the youngster fought against Ben’s hands as they held him to the ground.  Exhausted at last, the boy lay still, gazing wide-eyed at the white man.

    Ben slid his hands down to the youth’s injured leg, lying beneath him at an acute angle.  Obviously broken.  At least, it was an injury Ben knew how to treat.  Gently, he pulled the leg from beneath the boy and laid it out straight.  Spotting a nearby sapling, Ben took the Indian’s knife and whacked off several branches to use as splints.  He broke off one small piece and held it to the boy’s mouth.  The Indian spit at it, his dark eyes disdainful.

    Ben arched an eyebrow.  Indians were reported to be stoical, of course, but he doubted one this young could accept the pain of having his leg set without something to bite down on.  He offered the stick again and met with the same response.  “Have it your own way,” Ben muttered, grasping the boy’s leg and giving it a quick yank.

    A groan escaped the youngster’s lips, but nothing more.  “You’re a tough young fellow,” Ben admitted as he tied the splints to the straightened leg.

    Once the procedure was complete, he squatted down beside the Indian.  “Now what do I do with you?” he asked, smiling ruefully, knowing he’d receive no answer.  What would I do if he were white? Ben asked himself.  Take him home to his folks, of course.  But Ben wasn’t sure the Golden Rule was a good guide for this situation.  This boy’s folks might decide taking Ben’s scalp was the best way to reward his well-intentioned intervention.

    What alternative did he have, though?  Take the boy home with him?  Ben scoffed at the idea.  Drag a reluctant boy fifteen miles away from his home.  His own people were surely closer than that and likely looking for the missing lad already.  If they overtook Ben, how would he explain why he was taking the boy the wrong direction?  No, far better to be caught returning him to his home.  That was the right thing to do anyway, Ben decided, so he might as well brace himself to it.

    He took a closer look at the Indian.  He was dressed somewhat differently than the Washos Ben had seen close to Mormon Station.  “Paiute?” he asked.

    The boy nodded.  “Pah-Ute,” he replied.

    Ben pointed north.  “Home?” he asked.  “Teepee?”

    The boy gave no sign of comprehension.

    Ben laid his head on his hands, as if in sleep.  “Sleep where?” he asked, hoping the gesture would convey the meaning of his words.

    The boy’s eyes sparked with understanding.  “Karnee,” he said, pointing north.

    Ben pointed to himself, then to the Indian, then north once again.  “I take you karnee,” he explained while he was gesturing his meaning.

    “Truckee,” the boy replied.

    Truckee?  Did the boy mean the Truckee River?  Ben hoped not.  That was probably a longer trip than the one to his cabin would have been.  Still, the river did lie to the north, so Ben might as well head toward it and hope he came across the boy’s family before going that far.  He clapped his hand to his head.  What was he thinking!  Meeting up with the boy’s family was likely to cost him his life.  Well, he’d already committed himself.  There was no backing out now.

    Getting the boy out of the gorge was Ben’s first problem, and it wasn’t an easy one.  In fact, had the Indian not been as tolerant of pain as he was, Ben doubted he could have accomplished it, for he had to half drag, half carry the lad over rocky, steep terrain until they again reached the top of the ridge.  It was easier going after that, but Ben and his patient still made little progress before the sun began to sink behind the western slopes.

    When he determined to visit Lake Bonpland on his trip, Ben had planned to camp out one night, of course, due to the distance involved.  He carried a blanket roll for that reason, so he made the Indian youth a bed, then scouted around for something to eat.  Not wanting to go too far, he couldn’t track any large game, but he did spot and shoot two rabbits.  That would do nicely for their supper.

    Ben groaned inwardly.  To cook the meat, he’d have to light a fire, and that would make his position more visible to the savages.  Ben shook his head.  With the venture he had before him, meeting them was unavoidable anyway.  He built a fire and roasted the rabbit over it.

    The Indian wolfed down his food, making Ben wonder how long the boy had lain helpless in that gorge.  Then Ben chuckled.  Judging by his own appetite, it didn’t take all that long to make a man ravenous.  He polished off his share of the meat almost as quickly as the Paiute boy had.

    Ben covered his patient carefully and sat down opposite the fire, leaning back against a boulder with his gun across his lap.  He intended to keep vigilant watch, so no visitors took him unaware.  Yet in the quiet of the night, thoughts he’d pushed to the back of his mind all afternoon surfaced, thoughts of the two boys he’d left home alone.  Would he ever return to them?  If not, how would they manage without their father?

    Ben smiled as he thought of responsible, reliable Adam.  The boy would have sense enough to go to the Thomases for help if Ben were overdue.  And Ben had no doubt his friends would take his sons in and raise them as their own.  The boys would be all right, but how Ben would miss ardent Adam and hearty Hoss.  He drifted to sleep, their sweet faces smiling at him in his dreams.

    He woke with a jerk when he felt his rifle yanked from his grasp.  Opening his eyes, he saw it pointed at his chest.  Afraid to move, Ben pressed his spine against the boulder behind him and prayed fervently.  The Indian boy by the fire gave a sharp cry and began to talk with rapid-fire words.  Help him explain.  Dear God, help him explain, Ben prayed.  His life was now in the hands of that injured boy, and Ben could only hope the lad had understood his intentions and could communicate them to the other natives now standing over Ben’s frozen figure.

    Another voice rang out.  Ben couldn’t understand the words, but they were spoken with authority.  As an Indian old enough to be father to the one holding the gun on him came into the firelight, the younger man lowered the rifle.  His sputtered words, though, sounded argumentative.  Ben had a feeling the man still wanted to kill him, but would not without the other’s permission.

    The older man approached Ben.  “Me Truckee,” he said, striking his palm against his chest.

    Ben gasped.  Truckee!  Was that what the boy had meant?  Not the river, but the man for whom it had been named?  Truckee was a name Ben knew from his reading of Captain Frémont’s report, the name of the man who had helped guide the explorer over the mountains.  Could this be the same man?  Ben took hope.

    After announcing his own name, Chief Truckee tapped Ben’s chest.  Ben understood.  “Cartwright.  Ben Cartwright,” he replied.

    “My nah-tze say you help him,” Truckee stated.

    “Yes,” Ben said quickly.  “I helped him.  I was trying to bring him to his people.”  He wasn’t sure how much English the Indian had picked up in his previous contact with the whites so he kept his words simple.

    Truckee said something in Paiute to the man who still held Ben’s rifle.  The younger brave grunted and responded in his own tongue.  Truckee again turned to Ben.  Laying a hand on the other Indian’s shoulder, the chief said, “This Poito, man of my daughter Tuboitonie.  Him ask why you help his son.”

    Ben looked into the stony gaze of Poito and answered slowly.  “The boy was hurt.  He needed help.”

    Truckee translated, his words meeting with muttered response from Poito.  “Poito say white men bad, want only kill Indian, take land, burn piñon.  Why you not kill son?”

    Ben forced himself once more to look directly into the eyes of the distrustful Indian.  He decided a bold answer would win him more respect than backing down.  “Indians killed my woman,” he said.  “Does that make all Indians bad?  Does it make Poito bad?”  He waited for Truckee to translate.  “I, too, am a father,” he continued.  “I know a father’s heart for his sons.  That is why I helped yours.”

    When Truckee conveyed Ben’s words to Poito, the man’s expression changed slightly.  To say he grew warm and receptive would have been an exaggeration; the expression was more one of thoughtful consideration, as if the Indian father were mulling over the words of the white one.

    Truckee motioned for Ben to rise.  “You come our camp,” he said.

    Ben paled.  “No,” he said, with what he hoped was polite refusal.  “I go to my own camp, to my sons,” he said.

    “Near?” Truckee asked, his eyes scanning around.

    “No,” Ben said quickly, wanting to keep Hoss and Adam’s position vague.  “Far to the southeast.”  He pointed toward that direction.

    Truckee grunted.  “Washo land.  You come our camp,” he repeated, obviously unwilling to take no for an answer.

    Feeling he had no choice, Ben nodded.

    Truckee muttered harsh words to Poito, who thrust Ben’s rifle into his hands and turned away toward the other Indians assisting his son.

    By the return of his weapon, Ben realized he was being invited as a guest, not taken as prisoner, to Truckee’s camp.  He began to believe he would get out of this encounter alive after all and perhaps could even establish the foundation for good relations with these fierce neighbors.  Friendly relations could prove invaluable if he did decide to build north of his present location, as he’d been considering, especially after seeing the beautiful Lake Bonpland.

    It was still dark when Ben and his hosts arrived at the Indian camp, but Truckee ordered food prepared for his guest.  Ben swallowed hard, hoping it would be something more appetizing than what he’d heard these Diggers ate.  Whatever was set before him, however, he was determined to eat enthusiastically, to avoid insulting his hosts.  He knew he could carry it off, too, for he’d managed with feigned relish to eat grasshoppers in Africa for the same reason.

    Fortunately, the bowl Ben was handed looked as if it contained nothing more threatening than cornmeal mush.  Ben took a tentative taste and smiled at Truckee.  “Good,” he said, meaning it.  Though the dish obviously wasn’t cornmeal, having a nuttier flavor, its taste was quite respectable.

    “Truckee,” the Indian responded.

    Ben’s brow wrinkled.  “Yes, you are Truckee.  You told me before.”

    A slight smile touched the Indian’s lips.  “Truckee mean good, like you say,” he explained.

    Ben chuckled.  Now he understood, not only the chief’s words, but young Natchee’s response when Ben announced his intention to take him home.  The boy had meant that going home was good, truckee.  Ben lifted his bowl.  “Food is truckee,” he said, “but I do not know its name.”

    “Come from piñon tree,” Truckee explained.  “Paiute can not live through winter without piñon nuts.  That why Poito say white men bad to burn trees.”

    Ben set the bowl down and looked sorrowfully into the chief’s dark eyes.  “I, too, have burned the piñon in my fires,” he said.  “I will not do so again.  I did not know they were Indians’ food.”

    Truckee nodded.  “Even white men can learn,” he said.

    “Do you want white men to go from your land?” Ben asked quietly.

    Truckee looked at the stars overhead.  “White men here.  Cannot make leave.  I think can live in peace, but not all my people think this.”

    “Poito?” Ben asked.

    Truckee shook his head.  “No.  To Poito, all whites bad.  Maybe you show him some have good hearts.”

    “I hope so,” Ben replied earnestly.  “I wish to be a friend to your people, to live in this land as a good neighbor to you.”

    Truckee drew a rolled piece of paper from his shirt.  “This my white rag friend,” he said, handing it to Ben.

    Ben unrolled the scroll and read with amazement a letter addressed on the chief’s behalf by Captain John Frémont.  “A treasure,” he said, returning it to the chief.  He wasn’t sure the Indian understood the word, but Truckee nodded, having gathered Ben’s meaning from his respectful tone and manner.

    Truckee stood.  “Now time sleep.  You come my karnee.”

    Ben grinned as he recognized another word Natchee had used.  Karnee evidently was the name for the wickiup to which Truckee led him and beneath whose domed roof Ben soon drifted to sleep, grateful to be alive and to have made, he hoped, a friend.

    Adam read the arithmetic problem a second time, but it didn’t make any more sense than it had the first.  He looked toward the cabin’s door and sighed.  He needed Pa to explain this lesson, but Pa wasn’t here.  He should have been, too.  He’d been due back from his hunting trip yesterday.  It wasn’t just perplexity over his schoolwork that furrowed Adam’s brow:  he was beginning to fear something had happened to his father.

    Hoss, playing with his Noah’s Ark on the rug by the fire, glanced up at Adam.  “Done, Bubba?” he asked, having learned by experience that Adam was unlikely to respond well to any request made during his study time.

    “As much as I can,” Adam sighed and slammed the book shut.

    Hoss immediately pushed himself up and toddled over to his big brother.  “Eat?” he asked hopefully.

    Adam frowned.  It was getting close to lunch time, all right, but the boy was running out of options for meals.  Pa’d made a big kettle of oxtail stew before he left, but that was gone now.  There were plenty of supplies still in the larder, but Adam had no training as a cook.  He wasn’t sure what he could fix on his own.

    Hoss patted Adam’s leg to get his attention.  “Eat, Bubba?” he asked again.

    “Later,” Adam muttered.

    Hoss’s lower lip pooched out.  “Hungee,” he whined.

    “You always are!” Adam snapped.

    A tear trickled from the corner of Hoss’s eye.  Adam reached out quickly to brush it away.  “Don’t cry, baby,” he soothed, feeling ashamed of himself for the sharp answer he’d made to Hoss’s very legitimate request.

    “Bubba mad,” Hoss wailed.

    Adam put his arms around his little brother and gave him a hug.  “No, brother’s not mad.  I just don’t know what to fix for lunch, Hoss.”

    “Stew!” Hoss shouted.

    Adam shook his head.  “You ate it all.  I guess I could make pancakes.”

    Hoss scowled.  “No!” he hollered.

    Adam’s nose wrinkled in agreement.  He’d tried his hand at pancakes that morning with less than appetizing result.  “Well, you got any better ideas?” he demanded.

     “Pie?” Hoss suggested.

    “Pie!” Adam yelled.  “I burn plain pancakes, and you want me to tackle pie?”

    Hoss shook his head vigorously.  “An’ Nenny,” he explained.

    “No, Hoss,” Adam said firmly.  “Aunt Nelly has sick folks to look after.  We can’t bother her unless it’s an emergency.”  The boy’s lip started to tremble.  If Pa didn’t get home today, Adam figured he’d have a genuine emergency on his hands, and they’d have to head for the Thomases, sickness or no sickness.

    Hoss couldn’t really understand the explanation his brother had given, but he understood enough to know there’d be no pie for lunch.  “Hungee, Bubba,” he repeated insistently.

    “Okay, okay, I’ll think of something,” Adam promised.  His black eyes brightened.  “How about popcorn, Hoss?”

    Hoss grinned.  “Good,” he said.

    Adam stood quickly, glad to have come up with an idea that would work.  Popcorn might not make the most nutritious meal they’d ever eaten, but, at least, Adam knew how to prepare it.  And the fluffy kernels ought to fill Hoss up for awhile, anyway.

    After lunch Adam pulled out the trundle and made Hoss lie down.  “Stowy?” Hoss begged.

    “Yes, I’ll read you a story,” Adam said, pulling his volume of Aesop’s Fables from beneath his arm.  “It’ll have to be one you’ve already heard, though.  We finished the book yesterday, Hoss.”

    Hoss didn’t seem to care what story he heard, so Adam opened the book to the first page and began to read.  Hoss soon drifted to sleep, as he usually did once his tummy was full, and Adam closed the book.

    Ordinarily, Hoss’s soft snores would have been Adam’s cue to find a book of his own and sprawl out on Pa’s bed for a comfortable afternoon’s read.  Today, however, Adam was in no mood for books.  He slipped out the front door and stood for a long time looking north, but he didn’t see his father.  Finally deciding he was wasting his time, Adam took two pails and headed for the nearby creek.  Whatever else happened, he’d need more water before morning.  As he walked, he tried to decide what he could cook without ruining it.  Potatoes, maybe.  He could probably chop them up and fry them like he’d seen Pa do.  And some bacon.  He could slice that off and fry it first so he’d have some grease to fry the potatoes in.  Yeah, Hoss would like bacon and potatoes——so long as his big brother didn’t burn them the way he had the pancakes.  Adam sighed and hoped Pa would be home before supper.

    But Ben hadn’t returned by the time the sun started to slip behind the western mountains, painting the hillsides with a pinkish-auburn glow.  Hoss was up from his nap and, naturally, hungry again, so Adam got the side meat from the shed and started to slice off short, fat pieces.  “Get me a couple of potatoes, Hoss,” he ordered.

    Feeling big, Hoss waddled to the burlap bag in the corner that held potatoes and grabbed one with each hand.  He had started back toward Adam when he looked up and saw a familiar figure looming in the doorway.  “Pa!” Hoss shouted, letting both potatoes drop and roll across the floor.  He ran toward the open door as fast as his fat legs would go.

    Ben laughed and scooped his baby into his arms.  “Pa’s mighty glad to see you, too, little fellow!”

    Ever responsible, Adam first picked up the potatoes his baby brother had dropped, then rushed to throw his arms around his father.  “Oh, Pa, you were gone so long!” he cried.

    Ben set the baby down and stooped to enfold the older boy in his arms.  “I know, son, and I’m sorry for worrying you, but it couldn’t be helped.”

    “Did you have a hard time finding game, Pa?” Adam asked.

    Ben laughed.  “No, I just found the wrong kind first.”  Seeing Adam’s puzzled look, Ben explained.  “I ran into some Paiutes, son.”

    Adam paled.  “Paiutes!  Oh, Pa!”

    Ben patted the boy’s shoulder and stood up.  “There, there now.  No harm done.”

    Adam stared, wide-eyed.  “But Paiutes, Pa!  Aren’t they the ones that killed——”

    Ben laid his index finger across Adam’s lips and tilted his head toward Hoss.

    Adam got the message.  He wasn’t to say anything in front of Hoss about the death of the baby’s mother at the hands of the Diggers.  He nodded to show his father he understood.

    “I’ll tell you all about it later,” Ben said.  “Now what’s this I see you fixing for supper?”

    “Just side meat and potatoes, Pa,” Adam said, “but I’m sure open to other ideas.”

    Ben laughed.  “I think bacon and potatoes will do nicely tonight, Adam,” he said.  “We need a quick supper because I want to get a share of the meat I shot over to the Thomases tonight.”

    “Tonight?” Adam queried.  “But it’s getting dark, Pa.  Won’t it keep ‘til tomorrow?”

    “We have more important things to do tomorrow,” Ben said.  “I want you to get Hoss ready for bed right after supper, and you turn in, too, as soon as you’ve cleaned up the supper things.”

    “Why, Pa?” Adam asked, curiosity sparking in his black eyes.

    “Because we’re getting up bright and early tomorrow to pay a visit to our neighbors, the Paiutes.”  Seeing his son’s troubled look, Ben reached out to stroke the boy’s cheek.  “It’s safe, Adam.  I made friends with them, and the chief himself invited me to bring you boys to Pyramid Lake for their spring gathering.”

    Adam could hardly contain his excitement.  “I’ll get to bed real early, Pa,” he promised, not even caring now that he’d miss the trip to the Thomases.  What was that compared to meeting a Paiute chief!
 

Getting two small boys to Pyramid Lake was a challenge, of course.  Having failed to convince Ben to forego the trip to the savages’ camp altogether, Nelly Thomas had argued vehemently that Hoss, at least, should be left with her.  Frankly, Ben himself would have preferred to leave the toddler behind.  However, he hadn’t been able to persuade Captain Truckee, as the chief liked to be called, that a three-day journey with an infant in diapers represented a hardship.  After all, Indian babies traveled regularly with their nomadic parents, and Truckee had insisted on meeting both Ben’s sons.

    Diapers were, of course, the main problem, one Indian parents probably didn’t have to deal with, Ben grumbled to himself.  He could just see Nelly’s reaction to letting Hoss traipse through the sagebrush bare-bottomed, though, so he piled every clean didee the baby owned into Adam’s wagon, along with bedrolls, a skillet and grub for the journey.  He also squeezed in a tin of tobacco and a bag of flour as gifts for his Paiute friend.  That left little room for Hoss, so Ben had to carry the squirming armload except for brief respites when the baby fell asleep.  There was room enough in the wagon to wedge a sleeping baby, but not an alert, active one.

    While Hoss’s presence on the trip was almost more trouble than it was worth, Adam’s, on the other hand, more than made up for it.  The boy willingly took his turn pulling the wagon (when Hoss wasn’t in it, that is), but more than that, Ben just enjoyed his son’s company.  As they walked north the first day, Ben shared the exciting tale of his first encounter with the Paiutes.  Adam listened, enthralled, as Ben described seeing the moccasin tracks and following them to the injured Indian and shivered when his father told of waking to find his own gun pointed at his chest.

    As he talked, Ben emphasized to Adam the importance of making friends with these fierce neighbors.  “They’re not bad people, Adam,” he said.  “When the first white men came through this land, the Paiutes offered friendship and guidance to them.  But with the discovery of gold, more and more came, upsetting the balance of survival in this delicate land.  We can’t really blame the Indians for shooting at the emigrants’ oxen the way they do.  They’re hungry, and some of that is the white man’s fault.”

    “That’s why they shot Mama, isn’t it?” Adam asked.

    “I don’t think these Indians were part of that tribe,” Ben said soberly, “but it’s true the ones who did were acting out of hunger; they were shooting at our cow, not Mama.”

    “And Mama said to forgive them, didn’t she, Pa?” Adam murmured softly.

    “Yes, she did,” Ben replied, “and I hope you’ve been able to, son.”

    “I try, but it’s hard, Pa.  I miss her so much.”

    Ben laid a gentle hand on Adam’s slender shoulder.  “Me, too, Adam, but I think I honor her by doing as she asked.”

    Adam looked up into his father’s face.  “I want to honor her, too, Pa.”

    Ben smiled.  “Good.  I know your mother would be proud of you for extending the hand of friendship to these people, Adam, and I’m proud of the courage you’re showing in making this trip.  I want to caution you, though, to avoid giving offense in any way.”

    “I don’t know what you mean, Pa,” Adam said.

    “The Indians have different ways from us, son,” Ben explained.  “That doesn’t mean our ways are good and theirs bad.  You must keep an open mind and try to understand them, not brag about how much better our customs are.”

    “That would be rude, Pa!” Adam asserted loudly.

    Ben nodded.  “It would be very rude——and very dangerous.  I know I can trust you, Adam, but I should warn you that they may offer you some strange foods, some you may not want to eat.  You will eat whatever you’re given, though, and if you don’t like it, keep your opinion to yourself.”

    Adam frowned, remembering his brother’s outspoken rejection of the pancakes the previous morning.  “What about Hoss, Pa?  He don’t have sense enough to keep his opinions to himself.”

    Ben chuckled.  “If it’s something to eat, Hoss will probably like it.  Besides, I think the Paiutes would make allowances for a baby.  You’re a big boy, though, Adam, big enough to mind your manners.”

    “I will, Pa,” Adam promised earnestly.  “Did you eat any of their food while you were with them?”

    “Yes, of course,” Ben responded, “and what I had tasted fine, so there may not be a problem.  I just wanted to prepare you in case there was."

    When the sun began to sink behind the mountains to their west, Ben selected a campsite and began to unload the supplies they’d need that night.  “Gather up plenty of firewood, Adam,” he ordered.  “The nights still get real cool outdoors.”

    “Okay,” Adam agreed readily.

    Hoss toddled toward him.  “Help bubba,” he called.

    Adam turned to frown at him.  “Some help you’ll be,” he scolded.

    “Take him with you, Adam,” Ben said.  “He needs to learn, and big brothers make the best teachers.”

    Adam scowled at the baby, but took his fat hand and led him into the woods.  Finding some dry branches that had fallen from the trees, he placed a small bundle in Hoss’s outstretched arms and gathered an armload for himself.  “Walk ahead of me, Hoss,” Adam ordered, “so I can keep an eye on you.”

    Hoss headed back for camp with an unerring instinct that surprised his big brother.  “Hoss found his way real good, Pa,” Adam reported, when he and his brother dumped their loads at the spot their father had cleared for the campfire.  “I didn’t have to give him one hint.”

    Ben gave his younger son an approving pat on the head.  “You’re going to make a good woodsman, are you, Hoss?”

    “Good boy!” Hoss beamed.

    “That’s right,” Ben laughed, then laid a hand on Adam’s shoulder.  “And here’s another,” he said fondly.  The smile on Adam’s face spread as broad as that on the baby’s.

    While supper was cooking, Ben told the boys about the beautiful alpine lake he’d seen before meeting the Paiutes.

    “I wish I could see that,” Adam sighed.

    “You can,” Ben promised.  “We’ll swing by there on our way home.”

    “Oh, boy!” Adam cried.  “And can we go swimming?”

    “Brr!  No,” Ben shivered.  “Not this time of year, son.”

    “Brr!” Hoss chortled, not having the slightest idea what the sound meant, but enjoying the way it buzzed past his lips.

    Ben and Adam laughed as they cleared away the supper things and made a bed for the three of them to share.  Ben arranged it so that Adam lay closest to the fire with Hoss sandwiched between the two of them.  The sleeping arrangement was uncomfortable, of course.  Ben would have preferred a bedroll to himself, but didn’t want to take the chance of having Hoss wake and wander off during the night.  Actually, though, it was Adam, with his endless questions, who kept Ben awake long after the stars sprinkled the blackness above.  Finally, all three Cartwrights fell asleep, each dreaming of the adventure ahead.

    Late in the evening of the third day of their journey, a sheet of blue water came into view.  “Is this the lake you told me about?” Adam asked excitedly.  “It’s beautiful, Pa!  But I thought we weren’t gonna see it ‘til we went home.”

    Ben chuckled.  “Beautiful it is, Adam, but it isn’t Lake Bonpland.  This, I believe, is Pyramid Lake.  See the rock in the middle.”

    “You can’t miss it, Pa,” Adam scoffed.

    “That’s true,” Ben laughed.  “But notice its shape, Adam.  When Frémont first saw it, it reminded him of the pyramids of Egypt.  What do you think?”

    Drawing on his memory of a picture he’d seen in his geography text, Adam nodded.  “Yeah, I can see what he meant, Pa.  So that’s why he called it Pyramid Lake, huh?”

    “That’s why.”

    Hoss squirmed in his father’s arms, pointing ahead.  “Lookee, Pa.”

    Ben bounced the boy up and down.  “What do you see, baby?”

    “Men,” Hoss cried.

    “I see them now!” Adam announced.  “Are they Paiutes, Pa?”

    “Yep,” Ben replied.  “Remember all I told you along the road, Adam.  Mind your manners.”

    Adam nodded his acquiescence and followed his father toward the Paiute encampment by the lake.  “Those are funny teepees,” he commented.

    “They’re not teepees, Adam,” his father corrected, “and that is just the kind of remark I was warning you about.  Don’t use words like ‘funny’ when describing someone’s home, son.”

    “Sorry, Pa.  I’ll do better,” Adam promised.

    “Good boy,” his father said, giving him a smile.  “Now, the Paiutes call their homes karnees, though those look different from the one I stayed in before.  They may have a different name.”  Instead of the mat-covered domes Ben had seen at the winter camp, the structures near Pyramid Lake consisted of nothing more than a grassy roof stretched over four upright poles.  Shelter from the sun, but not much else.  Maybe, though, that’s all that was needed during spring and summer, Ben thought, chiding himself for judging by white men’s standards.

    As Ben and his two boys entered the encampment, a dozen small brown children in loin cloths encircled them, evidently fascinated by the small covered wagon Adam was pulling.  They’d seen emigrant wagons before, of course, but the sight of one so small clearly amused them.

    Hearing a loud voice, the children scattered.  Ben smiled and extended his hand as he saw his friend Truckee walking toward him.

    Truckee took his hand.  “Your sons?” he asked, pointing to the two boys.

    “Yes,” Ben said.  He put his hand against Adam’s back and pushed him forward.  “My oldest, Adam.”

    “He is welcome,” Truckee said with a nod toward the boy.

    “And this,” Ben said as he juggled the chubby tike he was holding, “is my second son Hoss.”

    Hoss grinned and reached out to touch the Indian’s craggy face.  Something close to a smile touched Truckee’s lips, but he turned away immediately.  “Tuboitonie!” he called sharply.

    From a nearby shelter a woman approached, a pretty little girl slightly younger than Adam clinging to her apron of sagebrush bark.  “My daughter,” Truckee said, waving his hand toward the woman, “and this shy one who hides from whites is her daughter Thocmetony.”

    Ben smiled gently.  “Thocmetony is a lovely little girl with a lovely name.  I hope she will soon learn I am her friend.”

    The little girl stepped out from behind her mother and held out her arms.  “I take baby?” she asked in stilted English.

    “You take,” her grandfather answered before Ben had a chance to say anything.  “She take good care,” the chief assured Ben.

    Hesitantly, Ben lowered Hoss into the girl’s arms, then relaxed as he saw her tender touch with the baby.

    “Boy stay with women,” Truckee said.  “We walk together, talk while food is made ready.”

    Adam didn’t like that idea.  Being left alone with Indians, even if they were just females, felt uncomfortable.  Hoss, on the other hand, showed no trepidation at all.  Cooing contentedly, he grabbed one of Thocmetony’s shiny black braids.

    “Ow-oo!” she cried.

    “Hoss!” Adam rebuked, sharply rapping the baby’s fingers.  “That’s no way to act.”  Hoss puckered up.

    Thocmetony giggled and gave the baby a quick kiss, turning the impending whimpers into smiles again.  “I am not hurt,” she said.  “He surprised me only.”

    Adam’s brow wrinkled.  “You talk pretty good English for a Paiute,” he offered.  “Where’d you learn it, from your grandfather?”

    “Grandfather?” Thocmetony asked, as if the word were unfamiliar to her.

    “Chief Truckee,” Adam explained.  “He is your grandfather, isn’t he?”

    “He is father of my mother,” Thocmetony said.  “Is that ‘grandfather’?”

    “Yeah,” Adam said, wide-eyed at her ignorance.

    “Grandfather,” Thocmetony repeated, savoring the sound.  “I like that word.  You have grandfather?”

    Adam shook his head.  “Not anymore.  Pa’s father died when Pa was not much older than me, and my mother’s father when I was about two.”

    “Ah,” Thocmetony sighed sympathetically.  “Too bad.  Grandfathers teach much.”

    “So is he the one who taught you English?” Adam asked again.

    Thocmetony shook her head.  “Some from him I learn, more from white people over mountains.  I learn fast.”

    “Have you been across the mountains?” Adam asked, stunned.

    Thocmetony nodded.  “I not like.  Too many whites.”

    “How come you’re scared of whites?” Adam pressed.

    “I not want them eat me,” the Indian girl said seriously.

    Adam tittered.  “We don’t do that!”

    Thocmetony nodded quickly.  “Oh, yes.  No Indian do so bad thing, but in mountains whites in wagons do this.”

    Adam shook his head.  Where had the girl gotten such a stupid idea?  “Well, I never met any who did, and we sure don’t,” he said firmly, “so you shouldn’t be afraid.”

    Thocmetony smiled.  “I try.  Now I must help mother with food.”

    Adam gulped.  He wanted desperately to ask what was for dinner, but he didn’t dare.  Dinner, when it appeared, turned out to be strange, but basically good.  Adam had no idea what the tender, pale green shoots were, but he was so hungry for fresh vegetables he didn’t really care.  Of course, these would have benefited from a little sideback being mixed in, maybe some salt and pepper, but even without seasoning the novelty of fresh food made the dish a treat.  And Adam had been unable to hold back his enthusiasm when he saw the other item offered to the white guests.  “Eggs!” he chirped.  “I haven’t had eggs in forever, Pa!  Do they raise chickens here?”

    Ben laughed.  “They’re marsh birds’ eggs,” he said, then did his best to explain to his Paiute hosts the difference between the birds the white men raised for eggs and the ova the Indians harvested here on the shores of Pyramid Lake.

    “Some white ways good,” Truckee stated.

    “More bad,” Poito said bluntly from across the fire.  Ben arched an eyebrow.  He hadn’t thought Truckee’s son-in-law spoke any English.  Evidently, he did, though not nearly so much as Captain Truckee or little Thocmetony.

    “They have more food,” Truckee insisted.

    “Because we have learned to grow our own,” Ben commented.  “This is something your people could learn, too, Truckee, to help them eat better through the winter.”

    “I am old to learn new ways,” Truckee said, “but it be good Pah-Utes have more food.”  Poito only grunted.  Truckee ignored the other Indian’s rudeness and turned back to his guest.  “Tomorrow I show you the treasure of the Kuyuidokado.”

    “Kwi-kwi-kado?” Ben asked.

    Truckee thumped his chest.  “Kuyuidokado,” he repeated.  “In your tongue, ‘fish people.’”

    “I thought you were Paiutes,” Ben puzzled.

    Truckee nodded.  “All our people Pah-Ute,” he replied.  “My people, Kuyuidokado.”

    Ben wasn’t sure he’d understood correctly, but as best he could make out, Truckee was telling him that his particular branch of the Paiute tribe were known as the fish people.  “Are the fish good here?” he asked.

    “You see——tomorrow,” Truckee promised.

    The next day Truckee, accompanied by young Natchee, led Ben to the shores of Pyramid Lake to show him the fish the Indians came here each year to harvest.  “Fishing feast next moon,” Truckee explained, “but for you we spear cui-ui today.”

    “You don’t need to change your plans for me,” Ben said urgently.  “If it will cause bad feelings among your people—”

    “No bad feelings,” Truckee replied quickly. “Catch only few today, but before big harvest we pray and dance so Kuyuidokado spear many fish to dry.”

    “Ah,” Ben said.  “My people wait ‘til after the harvest to say prayers of thanks, but your way is good, too.”

    While Ben was watching the natives spear the suckerfish from which the tribe derived its name, Adam and Hoss were accompanying Thocmetony as she gathered green shoots from the edge of the marshes.  “Is this what we ate last night?” Adam asked.

    Thocmetony nodded.  “Tule,” she said.  Peeling the green exterior from the shoot, she bit off a piece of the white inner layer and then offered it to Adam.

    The boy took a tentative bite.  “Not bad,” he said, “but I like it better cooked.”

    Hoss grabbed the peeled tule shoot and took a bite.  His face puckered and he spit it out.  “No good!” he declared and toddled over to splash at the water’s edge with small bronze bodies diapered, despite Ben’s presumption that they went bare, in coverings woven of sagebrush fiber.

    Adam took a deep breath, fearful the baby’s response would cause trouble, but Thocmetony just tittered.  “He look like me first time I eat white food,” she giggled.

    “You don’t like white food?” Adam said.  “I—I think it’s real good.”

    “Some like, some not,” the Indian girl said as she waded into the water and began pulling tule shoots to fill the basket she had brought.

    Adam pulled off his shoes and waded in beside her.  When he reached for a green shoot, however, Thocmetony pushed his hand aside.  “Woman’s work,” she said.  “Men hunt eggs.”

    “Oh, okay,” Adam replied.  “I’ll look for eggs then.”  If there was one thing he didn’t want to do, it was woman’s work!  Besides, he’d rather have more eggs for dinner than all the tule in the lake.  He waded through the marsh searching for a nest.  At last he found one and gathered the eggs into his hat.

    He hurried back to where he had left the Indian girl.  “See what I found, Thock——Thockma—”  He gave her a chagrined look.  “Why do Paiutes have to have such hard names?” he demanded, in his frustration forgetting his father’s injunctions against criticism of Indian ways.

    “White names hard,” Thocmetony said calmly.  “Ca—Ca—rye,” she sputtered.  “See?  Hard!”

    “Cartwright,” Adam said.  “I guess it is hard to say if you’re not used to it.  You can call me Adam if it’s easier.”

    “Better,” the Paiute girl said.  “You call me Sarah.”

    “Sarah?” Adam said.  “That’s a white name.”

    Thocmetony nodded.  “White people over mountain call me that.  It better for them.”

    “Easier,” Adam rephrased.  “Yeah, it would be, but I want to learn your Paiute name, too.”

    The girl smiled.  “Thocmetony,” she said slowly.  “It mean ‘shellflower.’”

    “Shellflower?” Adam asked.

    “Pink flower of desert,” Thocmetony explained.

    “Oh!  I’ve seen that,” Adam said.  “It’s pretty.  I’ll call you Shellflower then.”

    “What Adam mean?” Shellflower asked.

    “Pa told me once,” Adam said, “but I’m not sure I remember.  Wait a minute:  I think it’s something like ‘man of red earth,’ because Adam was the first man, and God made him out of the earth, you know.”

    Shellflower tittered.  “Call you Red Man then.  Good Indian name.”

    Adam laughed, too.  “You’re silly, Shellflower.  You just want to turn me into an Indian ‘cause you’re afraid of white people.”

    “At first,” Thocmetony replied, growing more serious. “I cry with fear when Grandfather make me go over mountain to them.  Then I much sick.  White woman come with cool hands.  Make feel better.  Fear go, but sometimes come back.”

    “You’re not still afraid of me, are you?” Adam asked.

    “No,” the girl giggled.  “You eat eggs, not Pah-Utes.  Now, go find more, Red Man.”

    “More fish, Adam?” Ben asked.  “There’s one piece left.”

    “I’m full up, Pa,” Adam sighed contentedly.

    Ben looked at his younger son and laughed.  No need to ask if this one wanted more.  Though he obviously wanted to finish the piece in his hand, Hoss was yawning drowsily, his eyelids fighting to stay open.  “Come here, tired boy,” Ben soothed, picking up the toddler.  “Let Pa tuck you in.”  He settled Hoss in the middle of the bed they’d share and, prying the fish from the child’s clutching fingers, gave him a good-night kiss.

    Ben sat down again and nibbled the final piece of fish.  Like Adam, he was “full up,” but couldn’t let the food go to waste.  “We’ve had quite a trip, haven’t we, son?” he commented.  “Did you enjoy it?”

    “I really did, Pa,” Adam replied.  “I—I didn’t like to say so, but I was a little scared at first.”

    “Pa wouldn’t take you into danger, son,” Ben assured him.

    “I know, but they are Paiutes, Pa.”

    “Are Paiutes so different from us, Adam?” his father pressed.

    Adam grinned.  “I guess not as much as I thought.  They were nice, most of them.  I like that Shellflower a lot.”

    “A fine little girl,” Ben agreed, “and I think I’m making progress with her father, too, even if he doesn’t think too highly of white men in general.”  Part of Poito’s changing attitude was due, Ben felt sure, to the white man’s spontaneous gift.  He had originally intended both flour and tobacco for Truckee.  At the last minute, though, something told Ben to offer the tobacco to Poito.  The Indian had seemed pleased and had even begun to converse a little with Ben in his syllabic English before the visit ended.

    Ben started to say more about the foundation of good relations he hoped they had laid over the last few days, but he saw Adam’s mouth stretch wide.  “Looks like I have another tired boy,” he said, smiling.  “You crawl in next to Hoss, son.”

    “I should help you clean up,” Adam murmured slowly.

    “No, no,” Ben assured him.  “I’ll take care of everything.  We have another hard day’s walk up to the lake tomorrow.  You want to be wide awake for that.”

    “I sure do,” Adam said as he lifted the blanket and lay down next to his younger brother.  Tired as he was, though, Adam found it hard to relax with his mind full of the excitement of his visit to the Paiutes and the prospect of seeing the mountain lake the next day.  Instead of going to sleep, he watched his father clear away the plates and feed more wood onto the fire.

    “Paiutes have some funny ideas,” Adam said.

    “I hope you didn’t tell them that!” Ben chuckled.

    Adam grinned.  “Of course not, but I did tell Shellflower we don’t eat people like she thought.  She wouldn’t believe me, though.  She said white people in the mountains did it.  Isn’t that stupid?”

    “Not as stupid as you think, Adam,” Ben said soberly.  “She was talking about the Donner party.”

    Adam propped his head up on his elbow.  “Who’s that?”

    Ben came to sit next to Adam.  “Some emigrants who got trapped in the Sierras the winter of ‘46.  When they ran out of food, they did resort to eating the flesh of the people who died.”

    Adam sat up quickly, his face distressed.  “That’s awful, Pa!”

    Ben put a soothing arm around his son.  “Yes, it was a terrible thing.  Captain Truckee told me Shellflower’s fear of white men started when she heard those stories.  It had the same impact on many of the Indians, I’m afraid.  Made them think white men were savage barbarians.”

    “We’d never do something like that!” Adam said stoutly.

    Ben kissed the top of the boy’s head.  “I’m just grateful I never had to make a choice like that, Adam.  We’ve been blessed.  Now lie down and get some sleep.  Think about a clear lake surrounded by pines and snow-capped mountains that scrape the sky.”

    Adam pulled the covers up to his chin and snuggled close to Hoss.  As he closed his eyes, a grisly picture of starving people eyeing each other hungrily flitted past his eyelids; but he consciously replaced it with the image his father suggested and fell to sleep and pleasant dreams.

    The dream became reality the next day when Adam stood beside the lake his father had described to him in glowing terms.  As the boy looked at the mountains rimming the vast expanse of water, tears began to trickle down his face.

    “Why, Adam, what’s wrong?” Ben asked, setting Hoss down and kneeling to take his older son in his arms.

    “It’s like she saw it,” Adam murmured.

    Ben’s face softened.  “Mama?”

    Adam nodded.  “Like the mountains in Sweden, remember?”

    Like Ben, Adam had never seen those mountains and couldn’t be sure these were similar, but he’d felt the same impression his father had when he first saw the snowcaps surrounding the lake.  “I think Mama would have liked this place,” he said, stroking Adam’s dark, straight hair.

    “Could we live here?” Adam asked impulsively.  “We promised Mama we’d build our house in a place like this, and you said we’d always keep our promises to her.”

    Ben was taken aback.  How frequently his young son mirrored his own thinking!  “I’d like that,” Ben said, “but I doubt building our home here on the lake would be practical.  Closer to the valley floor would be better.”

    “But near here?” Adam pressed, his voice almost pleading.

    Ben smiled.  “Near here——a fine, big house just like I promised Mama.”

    “When can we start?” Adam asked, excited.

    “Oh, not for a long time, Adam,” Ben laughed.  “That’s a dream for the future, not for anytime soon.  As sparsely settled as this land is, I think it’s better to stay close to our friends for now.  And have you forgotten that the emigrant season is almost on us again?  I’ll be spending most of my time at the trading post.”

    “But after that?” Adam insisted.

    Ben tickled his ribs.  “No, not even after that.  Our cabin’s good enough for the time being.  First things first, Adam.  And first comes building up our ranch, stocking it with cattle.  Once the ranch is established on a sound footing, we can think about building a better house.”

    “But here?  For sure, here?”

    “Here; for sure, here,” Ben said, then, tapping Adam’s nose, “That’s a promise.”

    Hoss clapped his hands as he saw Adam smile.  “Pomish,” he chortled.
 
 

Dusk was just beginning to fall when Clyde Thomas and Ben Cartwright, each accompanied by a son, arrived in Placerville.  “Looks like we made it before the cafe closed,” Clyde yelled back to Ben, who was guiding the second wagon into town.

    Ben guffawed.  “As if you hadn’t timed the trip just to that end, you old hypocrite!”

    “You sayin’ you had other plans?” Clyde snickered.

    Ben shook his head, still laughing.  “Couldn’t say it with a straight face,” he called.  “Let’s get the stock tended to and see what Ludmilla’s offering tonight.”

    Adam and Billy, as eager as their fathers to sit down to one of Ludmilla Zuebner’s hefty plate dinners, helped get the teams situated in a livery at the edge of town.  Then everyone headed down Placerville’s main street with mouths drooling.

    Ludmilla, as always, wrapped each of her old friends in an exuberant embrace and seated them at their favorite table by the front window.

    “What’s the special today, Ludmilla?” Ben inquired.

    “Do you have strudel?” Adam asked, dark eyes hopeful.

    “Strudel I have,” Ludmilla replied, “and special is sauerbraten.”

    “My favorite!” Adam announced.  “That’s what I want, please.”

    Billy leaned over to whisper in Adam’s ear.  “What is it?”  Billy’d only been to Placerville once before and he’d had oxtail stew that time.”

    “Roast beef,” Adam whispered back, “in kind of a spicy gravy.  It’s real good, Billy.”

    While Billy mulled that information over, Ben placed his order.  “I think I’ll have the Hangtown Fry, Ludmilla,” he said.

    “Hey, yeah!” Billy declared.  “That’s what I want, too!”  He’d heard both his pa and Mr. Cartwright rave over the combination of oysters with scrambled eggs and decided he’d have to try it.

    “Good, good,” Ludmilla said.  “And for you papa?”

    “Oxtail stew can’t be beat,” Clyde said.

    Ludmilla bustled into the kitchen to dish up their meals.  While she was gone, the door to the cafe opened and a young man of fourteen and a younger girl came in.  Ben smiled broadly.  “Stefán!  Marta!” he called, raising his arm to wave at the youngsters.

    “Mr. Cartwright!  How good to see you again,” Stefán said, coming forward to clasp first Ben’s hand and then Clyde’s.

    Marta, meantime, had pranced up to the table, doubled her fist and slammed it into Billy’s arm.  “Look what the cat drug in!” she cried, a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes.

    Billy’s freckled hand calmly reached up to yank the long blonde braid dangling over her shoulder.

    “Here now, that ain’t no way to act!” Clyde sputtered.  “You been reared better than that, boy.”

    “Aw, Pa, it’s just Marta,” Billy asserted.  “She’s used to me teasin’.”

    “And didn’t miss it a lick,” Marta smirked, then favored Billy’s friend with a softer smile.  “Hi, Adam.  Nice to see you, at least.”

    “Hi, Marta,” Adam giggled.

    “You here for dinner, Stefán?” Ben asked.

    “Yes, we always eat here when the cafe is open,” Stefán explained.  “It is easier for Mama than bringing food home.”

    “Adam, you and Billy move to that next table and let Stefán sit here and talk with us,” Ben ordered.

    Adam immediately stood and moved to the next table.  Billy got up, too, although a little more slowly.  “Reckon we’ll have to put up with you,” he told Marta with a playful scowl.

    She scowled right back as she followed the boys to the next table.  “I’ll be the one doin’ the puttin’ up with,” she declared, tossing her head so hard that her braid bounced behind her shoulder.

    Marta’s older sister Katerina exited the kitchen, her arms laden with the dishes ordered by her old friends from the Overland Trail.  Deftly she slid each plate in front of the appropriate customer after giving them a warm greeting.

    “My, Katerina,” Ben purred, “you’re getting prettier all the time.”

    Katerina blushed, the rosy tint of her complexion making her look even prettier.  “It is so good to see you all again.  Is everyone well?  Mrs. Thomas?  And little Hoss?”

    “Hoss is getting to be a big boy now,” Ben reported.  “Healthy as a horse with the appetite to prove it.”  Katerina smiled.

    “Nelly’s doin’ fine, too,” Clyde put in, “and so’s little Inger, even if you didn’t ask.”

    “How could she, Clyde?” Ben chided softly, then smiled at the German girl.  “Clyde and Nelly had a new baby girl in March and named her after my wife.  Fortunately, Inger takes after her mother.”  Everyone laughed at the look on Clyde’s face when Ben made that final remark.

    “Such good news!” Katerina said.  “I hope someday I will see these babies.”

    “Katerina,” her brother interrupted authoritatively, “I, too, would like to eat, as would your sister.  We have had a hard day’s digging at the mine.”

    Katerina blushed again, this time from embarrassment.  “I am sorry, Stefán.  What can I bring you?”

    “Sauerbraten,” he replied.

    “Hangtown Fry for me,” Marta called.  Katerina nodded and headed back toward the kitchen.

    “Well, Stefán,” Ben said, “how’s that brewery idea of yours coming along?”

    “I am working toward it,” Stefán said, “but so far I make only a little for private use.  If you would like to taste, I will be glad to draw you a glass.”

    “Sounds good to me,” Clyde cackled.  “Oxtail stew gives a man a powerful thirst.”

    Ben chuckled.  “Just the thought of beer gives you a powerful thirst.”  Clyde just grinned and shrugged.

    Stefán went to the kitchen and returned with three glasses of homemade beer.  Ben and Clyde tasted it and pronounced it good.  “Matter of fact,” Clyde mused, “we could probably sell this at the trading post, if you have some to spare.”

    “I am afraid I do not,” Stefán replied, “but if you are interested, I will make more and save some back for the next time you come.”

    “What you think, Ben?” Clyde asked.  “This is sure better than what folks could get over to Mormon Station.”

    Ben laughed.  “You can say that again!  But I thought you liked Valley Tan.”

    Clyde scowled.  “Man makes do with what he has,” he protested.  He turned to Stefán.  “You save us back some, son, and we’ll show these emigrants what good liquor tastes like.”

    “We’ve been cooped up east of the mountains the last few months,” Ben began.  “Anything going on in the wide world we ought to know about.”

    Stefán thought for a moment.  “All I can think of is the flood at Sacramento last March.  It nearly wiped out the town.”

    Ben looked alarmed.  “That’s where we planned to resupply.”

    “Oh, you will have no problem,” Stefán assured him.  “They are set up for business again and will be glad for your trade.”

    “That’s good,” Clyde mumbled, his mouth full of oxtail stew.

    “Yeah, I’m particularly glad to hear that,” Ben stated, “because I’d planned to go on the Monterey from there.  I might have had to change my plans if we’d had to go to San Francisco for supplies.”

    From the next table Adam caught the word ‘Monterey’ and his lips curled in a surly pout.  Ben’s trip to that town had been a source of contention with his older son.  Adam, always eager to explore new sights, had begged to go, too, but Ben had refused.  Clyde and Billy would need his help getting the second wagonload of supplies back home, Ben had insisted, and nothing Adam could say would change his father’s mind.  Pa could be so stubborn, Adam had grumbled wordlessly all the way across the mountains.  It never occurred to him that he was the one souring everyone else’s trip with his stubborn, stony silences.

    As the two wagons entered Sacramento, Ben was pleased to see the place bustling with activity.  Though reportedly devastated by flood only two months before, the city had made a rapid recovery: muddied buildings scrubbed clean and necessary repairs made with the same zeal that had rebuilt San Francisco after the previous year’s near-total destruction by fire.  Sacramento looked fresher than ever, restocked and ready for business and, if the saloons lining the streets perpendicular to the American River were any indication, for pleasure, as well.  “Westerners pitch right in to rectify anything man or nature throws at them,” Ben commented.  “Makes a man proud to number himself among them.”

    “Yeah,” Clyde agreed, “but it stands to reason, Ben.  The cowards never started, and the quitters didn’t make it halfway.  What you got left is bound to be the cream of the crop.”

    Ben smiled.  “Like you, you mean?”

    “Like the both of us,” Clyde said firmly.

    The two men guided their wagons to the business that had supplied them with trade goods the previous year and found it in operation.  After selecting the items they wished to purchase, they left the wagons to be loaded and led the oxen to a livery for the night.  Clyde would pick up the loaded wagons the next morning and with the help of the two boys begin the trip east while Ben headed southwest to Monterey.

    As they walked toward the K Street lodging Clyde had suggested, he pointed out the main reason he’d recommended staying in this part of the city.  “There it is, Ben.”

    Reading the sign posted outside the business, Ben nodded.  “Alpha Bath House.  Yeah, you could use a good scrubbing, Clyde.”  He pinched his nose between his thumb and index finger.  Trailing behind their fathers, Billy and Adam snickered.

    “Very funny,” Clyde snorted.  “How long since you had a good washin’, Mr. Snoot-nose?”

    “Saturday before we left,” Ben said with a proud uplift of his chin, “and high time for another, I’ll be the first to admit.”

    Clyde scowled.  He should have known Ben Cartwright would be one of them weekly bathers, though he hadn’t gone in for it that winter they’d lived together.  Not enough privacy, likely enough.  Clyde, personally, considered too many baths unhealthful, but the habit didn’t seem to be doing Ben and his boys any harm.  Jerking out of his reverie, Clyde pointed to the final words on the sign.  “It’s that shower bath I’m after,” he said.  “Had one last time I was through and found it right refreshin’.”

    “I’m willing to try it,” Ben said.

    “Hey, we ain’t got to take no bath, do we?” Billy demanded.

    “Only if you want one,” his father said.  And just let Ben Cartwright wrinkle his nose!

    “Well, we don’t!” Billy declared.

    Ben arched a blue-black eyebrow.  “Maybe Adam would like to speak for himself.  You want a fresh scrubbing, son?”

    Adam thought a shower bath sounded interesting, but before he could answer, he saw Billy shaking his head violently.  The look in Billy’s eye told Adam the impish redhead had mischief brewing.  Already outside his father’s good graces, Adam decided he’d better stay in Billy’s.  “Naw, I don’t want no bath,” he replied, deliberately using poor grammar to further irritate his father.

    Ben’s eyebrows knit together.  He’d tried to be patient with Adam’s sulkiness, but he’d just about had his fill.  “Fine,” he said sharply.  “We’ll find a room, then have some dinner.  Afterwards, Clyde, let’s deposit these two dirty urchins in bed and treat ourselves to a night on the town.”

    “Sounds mighty fine,” Clyde agreed.

    After a dinner that in no way lived up to the one they’d eaten in Placerville, the quartet went back to the rooming house on K Street.  There Ben and Clyde gave the boys strict instructions on bedtime before heading out for a bath and a beer.

    No sooner had the men left than Billy began to pull on his lightweight jacket.  “Come on, now’s our turn for some fun,” he announced.

    “What you up to?” Adam asked, knowing from experience that some of Billy’s ideas were nothing short of hare-brained.

    “You remember how your pa told us about that saloon here in Sacramento with all the picture paintings of the trail west?”

    “Yeah,” Adam said slowly.

    “Well, don’t you want to see ‘em?” Billy demanded.

    “Sure I do,” Adam said, “but my pa’d have a fit if I went in a saloon.  Yours, too.”

    Billy rolled his blue eyes at the ceiling.  “So who’s gonna tell ‘em?”

    “Nobody’ll have to tell them if they come back and find us gone,” Adam reasoned.

    “We won’t stay out that long,” Billy argued.

    “We try going in a saloon, though, and they’ll kick us right out.  Maybe even send for the law,” Adam said nervously.

    “Look, ‘fraidy cat,” Billy pressed.  “We’ll just peek in at doors ‘til we find the right place.  Then we’ll march in and tell the barkeep we come to see his artistic masterpieces.  He’ll be so flattered he won’t give us a lick of trouble.  Probably give us a tour of the place.”

    Adam bit his lip.  He really would like to see the pictures his father had described, and Billy made his plan sound workable.  Though he normally thought things through before acting, Adam was just mad enough at Pa to be reckless.  “Okay,” he said impulsively, “but if we don’t find the right place in, say an hour, we got to come back.  Agreed?”

    Billy grabbed his friend’s hand and pumped it.  “Agreed!”

    Adam slipped his jacket on, and soon the two conspirators were walking the darkened streets in search of one particular saloon.  It was a quest destined to fail, for covering all the opportunities for liquid temptation Sacramento offered would take far longer than the hour allotted to the venture.

    Billy didn’t mind, of course.  He wasn’t as much interested in art work as he was in seeing the inside of a saloon, anyway.  But he intuitively sensed Adam would have said no to that without added enticement.  “Hey, this one looks interestin’,” he announced as they approached a huge circular tent with big blazing letters declaring it the City Diggins.

    “I don’t know,” Adam said.  “It looks like a circus tent.”

    “Oh, it ain’t no circus,” Billy scoffed.  “Use your ears, boy.  Can’t you hear that plunky ole piano and all them miners carousin’ around?”

    “I know it’s a saloon!” Adam snapped.  “But it’s probably decorated like a circus inside, too.  It won’t have the pictures we’re after.”

    “Won’t know ‘til we look,” Billy said, nonchalantly pushing Adam inside.

    “You said we wouldn’t go in,” Adam hissed.

    Billy shrugged.  “How else we gonna see?  Come on, ‘fraidy cat.”  He began edging his way into the rowdy crowd.

    “Billy!” Adam wailed, pushing after his friend.

    A miner turned at the sound of the youthful voice.  “What you doin’ in here, kid?” he demanded, pushing a brawny palm against Adam’s chest.

    Adam pointed into the crowd.  “My friend.  I need—”

    “No place for kids,” the man said gruffly.  “Where’s this here friend of yourn?”

    Adam pointed again.  “There he is.”

    “The little redhead, huh?  Yup, he’s too young to be in here, all right.”  The miner plowed through the bodies between him and Billy and, grabbing the youngster by one ear, pulled him back to Adam.  Then he grabbed Adam’s ear with his other massive hand and escorted both boys roughly to the entrance to the saloon.  “And stay out!”  he ordered, dusting his hands after thrusting the two intruders outside.

    Billy picked himself up.  “Weren’t the right one,” he announced.

    “What gave you your first clue?” Adam demanded hotly from his seat in the dust.  He scrambled to his feet.  “Let’s get back to the hotel.”

    “Not yet,” Billy insisted.  “We got to try one or two more.”  He started off down the street in the opposite direction from their lodgings.

    Adam rolled his eyes heavenward.  He should have known better than to let Billy talk him into this fool idea in the first place.  But he couldn’t abandon his friend on the dark streets; he had to follow.

    Billy next approached a drinking establishment called the Round Tent.  “They got fiddles playin’ in here,” he said.  “That’s the kind of high-class place we’re lookin’ for.”

    “Maybe,” Adam agreed.  The music was nice, not as raucous as the out-of-tune piano from the City Diggins.

    “You can stay here,” Billy offered.  “I’ll just slip inside the door and see if they got pictures.”

    “Okay, but come right out if they don’t,” Adam told him.

    Billy nodded.  He didn’t particularly relish staying long enough for some miner to grab his ear again.

    Adam crowded close to the entrance as Billy went inside.  Billy didn’t come out right away, but neither did he tell Adam to come inside.  “Billy!” Adam whispered intently.  “You there?”

    “Yeah,” Billy drawled, his voice awestruck.

    “Well, do they have pictures or not?” Adam asked.

    “Oh, yeah, they got pictures, all right,” Billy said.  “You gotta see this!”

    Grinning, Adam walked in.  His eyes widened when he saw the paintings on the canvas walls.  “Naked ladies!” he sputtered, then dropping his voice to a whisper, “We gotta get out of here, Billy!”

    “Uh-huh,” Billy agreed, but he didn’t move.  He continued to gape at the erotic paintings as if in a trance.  Adam grabbed his arm and pulled him outside.

    “I ain’t never seen the like of that!” Billy exclaimed.

    “You ain’t supposed to see the like of that!” Adam shouted.  “Nor me, either.  Why didn’t you tell me what kind of pictures they had?”

    Billy shrugged.  “Too busy lookin’, I guess.”

    Adam’s eyes narrowed.  “Billy Thomas, you wanted to gawk at those ladies!”

    “You did plenty of gawkin’ yourself!” Billy yelled.

    Adam doubled his fist and plowed it into Billy’s nose.

    “Yeow!” Billy shouted and landed a flying fist on Adam’s left jawbone.

    Adam fell to the ground and Billy hurled himself on his friend’s prone body.  The fist fight turned into a wrestling match with neither boy landing another telling blow, but each tearing the other’s shirt as they clawed and kicked on the ground.

    “Fight!  Fight!” yelled voices all around them.  Pouring from the nearby saloons, men crowded around, amused to see two youngsters scuffling in the street.  “Hit him, Red!” called one.

    “Two bits on the little one!” another called, and his bet was accepted by Billy’s supporter.  Neither man collected the prize, however, for the fight ended abruptly when strong hands pulled the battling boys apart.

    “Adam!” shouted the man collaring the dark-haired boy.

    “You scoundrel!” the man holding a squirming Billy hollered.

    Both boys looked up into the eyes of their irate fathers, and all the fight washed out of them as they were peppered with questions.  What were they fighting about?  Where had they been?  Why weren’t they in the room where they’d been told to stay?  Adam and Billy both tried to answer at the same time, each pointing accusingly at the other.

    A roar of laughter rose from the surrounding throng.  Secretly sorry to see the fisticuffs end, the audience still found the aftermath amusing.  Two naughty boys berated by two crimson-faced fathers was a sight not often seen in a society dominated by grown men.

    Suddenly noticing the crowd of onlookers, however, Ben decided it was time the spectacle ended.  “Come on!” he growled, gripping Adam’s elbow with an iron hand and steering him through the congregation of miners.  Clyde, dragging Billy in the same manner, followed in his friend’s wake.

    The quartet moved awkwardly toward their lodgings.  When they arrived, Ben exchanged a significant look with Clyde.  “You’re welcome to the use of the room for awhile,” he muttered.  “Adam and I will be taking a short walk before we turn in.”  Adam and Billy exchanged a significant look of their own.  Each had a good idea what awaited him at the end of his journey.

    Clyde nodded, giving Billy a swat that was a foretaste of things to come, and pulled him inside while Ben continued to steer Adam down K Street toward the docks.  “Pa, you’re hurting me,” Adam whined.

    It was the one thing Adam could have said to dilute his father’s anger.  “I’m sorry, Adam,” Ben said, loosening his grip, but continuing to clasp the elbow firmly enough to steer the boy where he wanted him to go.  They turned onto Front Street, walking past the ships tied up along the shore.  The riverfront wasn’t entirely silent, for even at night some steamboats were unloading cargo.  The street was quiet, the only sound the footfall of their steps on the planked walkway.  But to Adam, the stillness was the calm that portended a storm.  “I—I guess we’re gonna have a very necessary little talk, huh, Pa?” he asked nervously.  He knew that was his father’s favorite euphemism for a spanking.

    “We are,” Ben said firmly.  “You’ve disobeyed and you’ve got that coming, but first we’re going to have an even more necessary little talk.”  Adam wasn’t sure what that could mean, but it sounded ominous.

    Ben stopped near a pile of crates that had been unloaded from a now vacant steamboat and motioned for the boy to sit on one of them.  “I’ve been very disappointed in you, Adam,” Ben said, facing his son, arms akimbo.

    “It was Billy’s idea, Pa,” Adam accused.

    Ben’s right hand fired forward, his index finger almost striking Adam’s nose.  “That’s enough!” he shouted.  “I don’t care whose idea it was, and I don’t care why you were fighting!  When I say I’m disappointed, Adam, I’m talking about more than just tonight.  I’m talking about your behavior this entire trip.”

    “Oh,” Adam said, his face draining.  Ben didn’t need to elaborate.  Adam knew he’d behaved badly——had, in fact, done so intentionally to irk his father the way his father had irked him.  But Adam knew he’d crossed over the line tonight and it was all going to catch up with him.  “I’m sorry, Pa,” he said quickly.

    “Are you?” Ben asked dubiously.  “Adam, I suspect all you’re sorry about is being called to account.”  He lifted the boy to his shoulder and pointed at the boat tied to the wharf.  “What controls that ship, Adam?”

    “The wheel, I guess,” Adam replied.

    “Which turns?” Ben probed.

    “The rudder,” Adam responded, remembering tales of his father’s life at sea.

    “Who turns your rudder, Adam?” Ben asked softly.

    Adam’s lips curled.  “I do, Pa.”

    Ben shook his head.  “No, that’s what you want, not what is.  Tonight, by your own report, Billy Thomas turned your rudder, son.”

    “No, Pa,” Adam insisted.  “I—I could have said no.”

    “You could have, yes,” Ben agreed.  “You could have kept your own hands on the wheel, but you didn’t.  You turned command over to someone else.”

    Adam frowned.  He didn’t like the picture his father was painting.  “I—I was mad at you,” he offered as explanation.

    “I know that,” Ben said.  “You’ve made that clear every day since I told you you couldn’t come to Monterey with me.  So what you’re telling me now is that your anger is your rudder.”

    “No,” Adam protested.

    “Yes,” his father insisted.  “You let it control you, didn’t you?”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam admitted, his head hanging.  He looked up and said, “I’m sorry, Pa,” meaning it this time.

    “You are forgiven,” Ben said, giving the boy a squeeze, “but there’s one thing more you need to understand, Adam.”

    “What’s that, Pa?”

    “You need to understand, son,” Ben said, “that you do not command your own vessel.  At nine years of age, you haven’t the wisdom to pilot your own life.  That is the task of your father.”

    “You’re my captain?” Adam asked.  “Is that what you mean?”

    Ben chuckled.  “That’s one way of putting it.  And when you disobey, Adam, you’re committing an act of mutiny.”

    Adam gulped.  He knew no crime aboard ship merited harsher punishment.  “I—I don’t want to do that,” he said earnestly.

    “Then you’ll do as I say and return home without giving Mr. Thomas any trouble?” Ben asked.

    “Yes, sir,” Adam promised.

    “And without subjecting him to anymore of your sullen behavior?”

    Adam flushed, ashamed now of how he’d acted the last several days.  “No, sir.  I’ll behave, Pa.”

    “Good,” Ben said, setting him down.  “And now, Adam, I’m afraid it’s time for that ‘very necessary little talk’ I promised you.”  Adam nodded solemnly and dropped his trousers.
 

Just ahead Ben could see a small adobe house with a red clay tile roof.  He hoped the directions he’d been given were accurate and that he would soon see his old friends, Jonathan and Rachel Payne.  His journey had already taken three days longer than planned, for the Paynes hadn’t been in Monterey.  Ben had, however, learned from a hide merchant that they lived on a small ranchero some fifty miles east of there, and this place fit that description.  Though he felt awkward about arriving so near suppertime, Ben walked to the house and rapped on the door.

    A dark-haired woman in her late twenties opened the door.  “Yes?” she asked, peering into the sunlight from the darker room.

    “Rachel?” Ben smiled.

    Rachel squealed.  “Ben Cartwright!”  She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the door.  “Oh, Jonathan, look who’s come!”

    Long, lanky, light-haired Jonathan Payne got up from the gold Spanish-style sofa and extended his hand.  “Ben, what a surprise!”

    Ben laughed.  “A pleasant one, I hope.”

    Rachel squeezed him.  “How could you think anything else?  Where are the boys?”  Her face sobered suddenly.  “They—they are all right?”  Rachel, as well as anyone, knew the dangers of the overland journey.  Like Nelly Thomas, she had lost a son to cholera.

    “The boys are both fine,” Ben assured her quickly.  “And how is little Susan?  I heard she took quite ill during your ordeal in the mountains.”

    “She did,” Rachel said, “but she’s fine now.  Shows no ill effects of the hardship of her first year.  The children had an early dinner, so she’s sleeping in the other room now with her brother.”

    “Her brother?” Ben asked, his countenance lifting.

    “Born in January,” Jonathan said proudly.  “We call him Samuel.  Sit down, Ben, and we’ll share all our news.”

    “And hear all yours, too,” Rachel added as she seated herself in the rocker near the sofa where Ben took his seat.

    “I should see to your horse,” Jonathan said, starting for the door.

    “Don’t bother,” Ben chuckled.  “There isn’t one.  That, as a matter of fact, is why I’m here.  You told me once that if I’d see you a year after you reached California, I could pick out the best of your string.  I’m a little late getting here, of course.”

    “Just as well,” Jonathan laughed as he sat next to Ben.  “It took me longer than I expected to get established here.  I lost my colt and my mare in the blizzard that hit us in the Sierras.”

    “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ben sympathized.  “I remember how much she meant to you.  And the little colt Inger helped into the world, too.”  Ben shook his head sadly.

    “Well, I’ve managed to catch and tame a few mustangs,” Jonathan said, “so—”

    “Oh, hush that now,” Rachel protested.  “Business talk can wait.  I want to hear all the gossip about our old friends.  You said your boys were fine.  Did Clyde and Nelly survive the winter in Carson Valley, too?”

    “They did, indeed,” Ben said.  “In fact, we’ve survived two winters there.  Once spring came, we found we liked the place so well we decided to settle there.”

    “Oh, my” Rachel giggled.  “Imagine that!  So you’re all still living together?”

    “Heaven forbid!” Ben guffawed.  “No, Adam and Hoss and I have our own cabin now, just under four miles from the original one where the Thomases still live.”

    “And is that Billy as sassy as ever?” Jonathan asked.

    “Sassier,” Ben said wryly and related the trouble the two boys had gotten into in Sacramento.

    After the three friends had a good laugh at Billy’s expense, Rachel said, “Nelly’s got her hands full with that one.”

    “Her hands are doubly full since March,” Ben smiled.  “That’s when her baby was born.”

    Rachel clapped her hands, delighted.  “Oh, I’m so glad.  Of course, the new ones never take the place of the ones we lost, but it is a comfort to have someone to cuddle again.  Boy or girl?”

    “A little girl; they call her Inger,” Ben said softly.  Rachel reached out to squeeze his hand.  She had been one of the original Inger’s closest friends.

    A Mexican lady in a red gathered skirt and a white peasant blouse embroidered with red flowers around its scooped neckline entered from the next room.  “La comida está servado, señora,” she said softly.

    “Gracias, Mañuela,” Rachel replied.  “We have a visitor, so please set an extra place.”

    “It is already done, señora,” Mañuela said shyly, dark eyes fixed to the floor.

    “Bueno,” Rachel said, smiling brightly.  “Let’s go in to dinner, then, gentlemen.”

    “You don’t have to ask me twice,” Ben said, rising at once.

    “I’m afraid you may be in for a surprise,” Jonathan chuckled, taking his guest’s arm.  “Mañuela cooks like a dream——if you dream of Mexican food, that is.”

    “I’ve tasted it before,” Ben said, “and liked it quite well.”

    “We’re having arroz con pollo,” Rachel announced, sitting at one end of the table.  “Have you had that before?”

    “I don’t think so,” Ben said.  “At least, I don’t recognize the name.”

    “Chicken with rice,” Jonathan interpreted as he indicated the chair at the middle of the table to Ben and seated himself at the end opposite Rachel.

    Ben unfolded his napkin and laid it in his lap.  “Sounds wonderful.  You must be doing very well, Jonathan, to afford household help.”

    Jonathan laughed.  “Not as well as it looks, Ben.  Mañuela is married to one of my vaqueros, so we’re almost getting two for the price of one.”

    “I see,” Ben said.  “Well, if this tastes as good as it looks, you’re definitely getting a bargain, my friend.”

    “Believe me, we are,” Rachel said enthusiastically.  “With two babes under two, I don’t know what I’d do without Mañuela.  She’s wonderful with the children.  Ben, you’ll do us the honor of saying grace, won’t you?”

    “Of course,” Ben agreed readily and bowed his head.

    As they ate, Rachel reluctantly let the men discuss business.  “I know just the horse for you, Ben,” Jonathan said.  “He’s a bay gelding, well-broken to the saddle and easy to handle.  And there’s a gray colt about the right size for Adam, if you’re interested.”

    “I hadn’t thought about a mount for Adam,” Ben mused, “but perhaps he is old enough.”

    “Certainly, he is!” Jonathan said enthusiastically.  “He’ll be a better horseman for starting early, Ben, and that’s important in this part of the country.”

    “I’m sure you’re right,” Ben said, “so if we can come to terms on the price, I’d like the colt, too.  I’d also hoped to purchase some cattle while I was here.  I hadn’t, of course, expected you to be in that business, but since the hide merchant in Monterey knew you, I assume you must be.”

    “I am, but not in a big way,” Jonathan laughed.  “At least, compared to some of my neighbors, my herd is quite small.  I could let you have about twenty-five head, Ben, but surely you’ll want to make a bigger start than that.  With the influx of miners into California, cattle aren’t just raised for their hides anymore.  There’s good money in selling the beef now.”

    “I suppose so,” Ben said.  “Truthfully, Jonathan, I’m not sure how many I can handle.”

    “I’d recommend a hundred, to start,” Jonathan advised.  “That is, if your funds will stretch that far.”  Jonathan told him the price he could expect to pay for prime Spanish cattle.

    “I think I can swing that,” Ben said.  “I’ll be spending a little more than I’d planned, but I do have the funds available.  Our trading post did quite well last year.  But won’t it be difficult for me to herd that many back over the mountains?”

    “You’ll need help, of course,” Jonathan stated.  “I can loan you one of my vaqueros for the trip, and you can probably pick up any others you need in the area.  I’ll ask around when we visit some of the neighboring ranchos tomorrow.”

    Ben raised an eyebrow, and Jonathan laughed.  “It’s the only way to find the cattle you need, Ben.  Don’t worry; I’ll see to it you’re treated fairly.”

    Ben smiled.  “I knew I could count on you for that, Jon, and I appreciate your taking time to show me around.”

    “Well, if you gentlemen are through discussing livestock,” Rachel tittered, “I’ll have Mañuela serve the flan.”

    “I’d halt any discussion for that!” Jonathan exclaimed.  And when Ben spooned the first creamy taste of cool, caramel-sauced custard into his mouth, he added a hearty amen. 

    Disgruntled, Billy Thomas took a whack at the weed crowding close to a bushy green turnip top with his hoe, killing both it and the turnip at the same time.  “Dadbern it!” he growled.

    “You watch where you’re slingin’ that hoe, boy!” his father snapped.

    “And watch your language while you’re at it,” Nelly put in.

    “Yes, sir; yes, ma’am,” Billy responded perfunctorily.  He looked over at Adam, hoeing in the row next to him and sighed.  No use looking for sympathy from that direction.  Adam actually liked working in the garden.  Besides, ever since that night in Sacramento when they’d both taken lickings from their fathers, Adam had been practicing up for sainthood.  Even the two babies were more fun these days.

    Billy glanced at the edge of the garden where his sister lay on a blanket spread on the ground with Hoss sprawled beside her, tickling her tummy.  Raising his eyes to the distant horizon, Billy saw a rider on a yellowish horse, leading a gray one behind him.

    “Billy, quit that wool gatherin’ and get back to work!” Clyde snapped.

    “Rider comin’, Pa,” Billy reported.

    Adam looked up from his diligent pursuit of weeds, shading his eyes against the bright sun.

    “You need glasses or somethin’?” Billy demanded.  “It’s your pa, stupid!”

    “Why, it is!” Nelly cried, overlooking Billy’s disrespectful namecalling.

    Adam threw down his hoe and ran from the garden, heedless of the tender plants he trampled on the way.  “Pa!” he shouted.

    Hoss clambered up from the blanket and trotted after Adam.  “Pa!” he yelled.

    Ben all but leapt from his horse and swept the two boys into his arms.  “Oh, am I glad to see you!”  He smothered them both with kisses.

    “I’m glad to see you, too,” Billy said, sauntering up to them, “but don’t try any of that slobbery stuff on me.”

    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ben snorted, reaching out to ruffle the unruly shock of fiery hair.

    Clyde was already examining Ben’s bay gelding.  “Mighty fine lookin’ animal,” he appraised.

    Ben stroked the animal’s black mane.  “Yeah, Jonathan sure picked out the best for me.”

    “Oh, you found them!” Nelly cried, giving little Inger a squeeze to express her pleasure.

    “Yes, ma’am,” Ben laughed, “and I’m full of gossip, as Rachel calls it.”

    “I can’t wait!” Nelly said.

    Perched in Ben’s arms, Hoss reached out to pat the horse, too, in imitation of his father.

    Adam couldn’t take his eyes off the gray colt beside the bay.  It couldn’t be for him, could it?  Adam shook his head sadly.  No, not after the way he’d behaved.  The horse must be for Mr. Thomas, though it looked small for a man.

    Ben couldn’t imagine why his older son suddenly seemed so somber.  Picking up the reins of the gray’s bridle, he smiled and held it out to Adam.

    “That’s not for me,” Adam murmured, then his voice quavering hopefully, “is it?”

    “Well, if he don’t want it, I’ll take it!” Billy hollered.  Everyone but Adam laughed.

    “It’s yours, son,” Ben said, puzzled by Adam’s behavior.

    A slow smile brightened Adam’s face.  “Honest, Pa?”

    “Of course,” Ben said.  “Climb up and give her a try.”  He showed Adam how to mount the horse and let him walk her around the yard.

    “Can I try?” Billy begged.

    “Billy, you let Adam enjoy his own horse awhile,” his mother scolded.  “You got weeds to hoe.”

    “Aw, Ma,” Billy whined.  “Who wants to hoe weeds when he can—”

    A heavy swat landed on Billy’s backside.  “Do like your ma says.  Git now!” his father ordered.

    “Oh, here now,” Ben soothed.  “I didn’t mean to make trouble.  I’m sure Adam won’t mind giving his friend a turn on his horse.”

    “Well, I mind backtalk,” Clyde said emphatically, “so Billy’ll just have to wait a spell for his turn.”

    Ben didn’t argue the point.  A father had the right to discipline his own son.  He reached up to lift Adam down.  “You have some hoeing to do, as well, I expect.”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam said at once and dutifully followed Billy to the garden.

    Hoss lifted his arms toward Ben.  “Up!”

    Ben obligingly picked the youngster up again, but Hoss leaned out toward the gray filly.  “Oh, no,” Ben chuckled.  “You’re too small for that.”

    Hoss started to whimper, but a tight hug from his father brought back his characteristic toothy grin.

    “Well, come on inside and tell me all that gossip,” Nelly suggested.  “I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee, and there might even be a doughnut or two left from breakfast.”

    “Provided, of course, that feed bag you’re totin’ ain’t snuck in and helped hisself,” Clyde snickered.

    Ben laughed.  “You mean bag of feed, don’t you?  He’s heavy enough.”  He set the boy down on the ground as they approached the cabin door.

    Inside, Ben reached for the baby in Nelly’s arms.  “Now, here’s a load I can handle.  Come to Uncle Ben, darling.”  He’d been amused when Nelly adopted the title of aunt to his boys, but now that he had a “niece” of his own, Ben decided there was no better word to describe the closeness he felt for this child not of his blood.  Of course, that would make Billy his “nephew,” too.  Ben chuckled, not at all disturbed by the addition of the irrepressible redhead to his family.  At least, life would never be boring.

    Little Inger made no protest at leaving her mother’s arms.  “What a sweet little lady,” Ben cooed as he sat in the rocker by the empty fireplace and stroked the baby’s wispy, strawberry blonde hair.  On a warm spring day like today, no fire was needed; even the heat from the cookstove provided more than the small room required.

    “Did you know that Uncle Ben’s been looking out for you while he was away?” Ben teased, more for the ears of Inger’s parents than for the baby’s.  “Yes, Uncle Ben’s found just the right boy for you.  His name is Samuel, and he’s just two months older than you and as handsome as you are pretty.  Brown hair like his mother, but he has his father’s blue eyes.”

    Nelly spun from the stove where she had just set the coffee to boil.  “Rachel has a new boy!” she exclaimed.

    “That’s right,” Ben laughed.  “You’re a good guesser, Nelly.”

    “Oh, that’s good news,” Nelly said.

    “Yeah,” Clyde snorted, “but Ben here’s already tryin’ to marry off our little girl.  That ain’t good news to me.”

    “Now, you know Ben’s teasing,” Nelly scolded.

    Hoss had pressed close to his father’s knee as soon as Ben sat down.  At first Ben thought the boy was jealous of Inger’s place in his father’s arms, but Hoss evidently was as interested in being close to the baby as to Ben.  Ben gave the boy’s head an approving pat, receiving another of Hoss’s sunny smiles in response.

    “Thought you was gonna bring back some cattle, too,” Clyde was saying.

    “Hmn?” Ben said, his attention jerking back to the conversation.  “Oh, yeah, I did.  They’re back at my place.  I got in yesterday, but it was so late, I figured I should wait ‘til this morning to pick up the boys.  I hope they weren’t too much trouble.”

    “Just keepin’ the feed bag full,” Clyde cackled as he swooped Hoss up and gave him a good-natured tickling.

    “And Adam?” Ben asked more seriously.  “He give you any problems on the way home?”

    “Naw, not really,” Clyde said.  “He’s been extra quiet, as a matter of fact.  That boy’s a brooder, Ben.”

    Ben frowned.  “Still sulking?”

    “No,” Nelly put in quickly.  “More like he’s mullin’ things over.  No trouble, honestly.”

    Ben nodded, satisfied.

    “So, how many head you buy?” Clyde asked.

    “A hundred,” Ben replied.  “That’s what Jonathan advised.  He says prime beef brings a high price now with all the miners to be fed.  I can believe it, too, when I see what Jon’s been able to accomplish with his place.  You should see the house, Nelly.”

    “I want to hear all about it,” Nelly said, pouring each of them a cup of coffee.  There were only three doughnuts left, so she handed one each to Clyde, Ben and Hoss.

    Clyde tried to turn the conversation back to the price of cattle, but Ben laughed.  “Ladies first,” he jibed.  “The Paynes’ house is larger than either of ours, really shows mine up for the hovel it is,” he began.

    “Hey!  I thought we done right well on your place,” Clyde snorted.  “Hovel, he says.”

    “I stand corrected,” Ben chuckled, “but the Payne place does show mine up for a cramped, crudely furnished cabin.  Their house is made of adobe in the Spanish style you see so much in southern California, and I’d just as soon have logs like we do.  But they have a parlor and dining room and a kitchen out back to keep from heating the house.  The climate there’s dry and hot, you know.”

    “A separate room just for eating?” Nelly said.  “Imagine that.  And they got enough furniture for all that?”

    “The furnishings are a little sparse,” Ben admitted, “but what they have is good quality.”  He described the parlor for Nelly.  “I didn’t see the bedroom,” he said.  “There’s just one large room, where they all sleep.  Not liking to intrude in there, I slept with the vaqueros.”

    “They got hired hands, too?” Clyde asked.  To him, that was a greater sign of prosperity than store-bought furniture.

    “They even have a cook!” Ben reported, amused by the surprised looks on both his friends’ faces.  “Jonathan’s place is small, though, compared to some of his neighbor’s haciendas.”

    “You wishin’ you’d gone on to Californy after all, are you?” Clyde demanded.

    Ben shook his head.  “Not at all.  I doubt they’re much, if any, ahead of us financially, Clyde.  And I surely wouldn’t trade the life I have here for all the gold in California.”

    “Nor all the store-bought furniture, either,” Nelly said firmly.  Then, she sighed.  “A parlor does sound nice, though.”

    “Someday, darlin’,” Clyde promised.  “If this here emigrant season goes good for us, I just might bring you back a sofa come fall.”

    “You’d have to add a room to put it in,” Nelly giggled.  “No, I expect a parlor can wait ‘til there’s more folks around to entertain in one.”

    Ben leaned back in the rocker, patting Inger to sleep.  Nelly’s remark about adding another room had been made in jest, but Ben found himself wondering if another room wasn’t just what his own cabin needed.  A separate room for the boys with a bed for each, so Adam didn’t wake up next to a soaked diaper every morning.  There was no time for that now, of course, with the emigrant season almost upon them, but when the weather cooled—

    “I’d better be getting home,” Ben said softly to avoid waking the baby.

    “Can’t you stay to dinner?” Nelly asked.

    “Not today,” Ben said, “but we’ll see you Sunday.”

    “All right, then,” Nelly said, mollified.

    Ben handed her the baby and reached for his own boy.  “Time to go home, Hoss,” he said.

    Hoss stretched his arms toward Inger.  “Baby,” he said urgently.

    “That’s right,” Ben said, patting the boy’s sturdy back.  “Inger’s a baby.”

    “Mine!” Hoss said, reaching for her again.

    “No,” Ben laughed.  “She’s not your baby.”

    Nelly giggled.  “I’m afraid he’s got real attached while you were gone.”

    “You can’t have my baby, you little cradle robber,” Clyde snickered, poking Hoss’s well-padded ribs.  “Tell pa he’ll have to git hisself hitched so he can give you a baby brother or sister of your own.”

    Hoss’s head bobbed up and down vigorously.  “Bubba!” he cried.

    “That’s not funny, Clyde,” Ben sputtered.  “Don’t go putting something in the boy’s head that he can never have.”

    “Well, you never know,” Clyde teased.  “Just might be a widder woman on one of these emigrant trains who’d take a shine to you.”

    “Hush now, Clyde,” Nelly hissed.  Knowing how sensitive Ben was about the idea of marrying again, she thought her husband had gone far enough.

    Hoss wailed at leaving his new playmate behind, but once Ben lifted him into the saddle of the yellow bay and climbed up behind him, Inger was forgotten in the excitement of the new experience.  Adam mounted his gray colt and waved good-bye to the Thomases.

    “I wanna ride that horse tomorrow!” Billy called.

    “You can,” Ben promised.  “Adam, at least, will be here to help in the garden tomorrow, probably the rest of us, too.”

    Hoss babbled happily as they rode along, but Adam was virtually silent.  From time to time Ben glanced over at him.  “You seem unusually quiet, son,” Ben finally commented.  “Something wrong?”

    Adam shook his head.  “No, Pa.  I just, that is, I—”

    “What is it, son?” Ben asked gently.  “Since when can’t you talk to Pa about whatever troubles you?”

    “Since I acted up so bad on our trip to California, I guess,” Adam admitted.  “I really am sorry, Pa.”

    “I know that, Adam,” Ben replied.  “That’s all in the past, son; no need for you to keep brooding over it.”

    “But I don’t understand you bringing me a present when I don’t deserve it one bit,” Adam quavered.

    “Adam, Adam,” Ben said gently.  “You don’t understand forgiveness, do you, son?”

    “I guess not, Pa.”

    “Listen, son,” Ben said earnestly.  “You told me you were sorry back there in Sacramento, and I forgave you.  When I say it’s all in the past, I mean I won’t hold it against you in the future.  So if I choose to make you a present, what you did before is no hindrance to me.  You understand?”

    Adam smiled.  “I think so.  Thanks for the horse, Pa.  She’s the best present you ever gave me.”

    “You’re very welcome,” Ben said.  “These animals will certainly make it easier to get around.”

    “Yeah,” Adam agreed.  “I can go see Billy any time I’ve a mind to, and—”

    “Not quite,” Ben said, his eyebrow arching.

    “When you say I can, I mean,” Adam added hastily.

    Ben laughed.  “That’s better.”  He gave Hoss a squeeze.  “Now, is my other boy about ready for his present?”

    “Hoss gets a horse, too?” Adam cried.

    “No!”  Ben shook his head, chuckling.  “What Hoss gets is a puppy.  One of the dogs at Rancho Hermosa gave birth a couple of months ago, so Mr. Payne said I could take one of the pups home to my boys.  Since you have a new horse, I figure the dog should be Hoss’s.”

    “I guess that’s fair,” Adam admitted, “but I’d like a pup, too, Pa.”

    “I imagine Hoss will share,” Ben said, “especially the chore of feeding and cleaning up after him.”

    Adam scowled, secretly planning to teach Hoss to do his own chores.  They rode in silence for awhile, then Adam asked, “What’s Rancho Hermosa, Pa?”

    “That’s the name of the Payne place,” Ben explained.  “It means ‘beautiful ranch.’”

    “Ooh, I like that!” Adam bubbled.  “We should have a name like that for our place.”

    “Well, I’ll put you in charge of thinking one up,” Ben said, reaching over to tousle Adam’s dark hair.

    “Tree!” Hoss shouted.

    “Huh?” Ben asked, looking down at the baby seated in front of him.  “What about a tree, son?”

    Adam giggled.  “I think he wants to call our ranch Tree!”  Hoss’s fat chin bounced up and down.

    “Surely, we can do better than that!” Ben laughed.  “Something to do with trees might be appropriate, though.”

    “I’ll work on it,” Adam promised.
 
 

Having a name for his ranch made Ben Cartwright feel more like a solid fixture in the community of Carson Valley, though neither he nor Adam was satisfied with the designation of Pine Tree Station.  Somehow, the name didn’t suit the lofty dreams Ben described for his son, but they’d been unable to come up with a name grand enough to match their aspirations.  For Hoss, of course, even Pine Tree Station was too much of a mouthful.  To him, home remained simply “Tree.”  The toddler’s refusal to use the full title frustrated Adam, for it pointed out the name’s inadequacy.

    “Don’t worry about it, Adam,” Ben laughed.  “After all, this cabin is just temporary.  Surely, by the time we build our big house, we’ll have thought of something more appropriate.  And by that time Hoss will be better able to pronounce whatever name we choose.”  Adam couldn’t take much comfort in Ben’s words, however, for from the way his father talked, the big house was years in the future, so far removed that it seemed as substantial as a castle in the clouds.

    Name aside, the ranch itself was flourishing, the cattle thriving on the rich meadow grasses.  Near the trading post the garden, larger this year than last, was sprouting bountifully in expectation of a profitable emigrant season.  Though Adam, with Billy’s reluctant help, was kept busy chopping the weeds attacking their produce, this was his favorite season of the year.  He liked the feel of the warm sun on his back, the touch of the breeze rippling his sweat-soaked shirt.  Best of all, he liked pausing now and then to look at the wild peach trees flaming with pink blossoms.  Though most Americans thought of the Great Basin as arid and barren, the Carson Valley, at least, dazzled the eye with vibrant, colorful life every spring.

    Adam threw down his hoe one tranquil afternoon and walked to the bucket of water sitting in the shade of a willow.  Tossing a dipperful down his throat, Adam looked up to see Billy reaching for the dipper.  “Funny how you always get thirsty same time as me,” Adam teased.

    Instead of answering, Billy dipped up some water and threw it in Adam’s face.  “You need coolin’ off,” Billy snickered.

    “You, too,” Adam giggled, splashing a handful of water drops at Billy.

    The incipient water fight halted abruptly when the boys saw a rider galloping recklessly toward them.  The man bounded off the horse and threw its reins to Adam.  “Where’s your pa, boy?” he demanded urgently.

    “In the trading post,” Adam said.  “He and Mr. Thomas are stocking the shelves for—”  Before Adam could finish his explanation the man turned and raced toward the trading post.

    Billy slapped his friend’s arm.  “Come on; let’s see what’s up.”

    Adam didn’t budge.  “Maybe we better not.”

    “Well, I’m going!” Billy declared.  “Stay or go, it’s all the same to me.”

    Overcome by curiosity, Adam followed Billy, his steps, like his friend’s, growing stealthy as they approached the post.  Billy plastered himself against the outside wall near the door and Adam crowded close to him.  The first words they heard explained the rider’s agitation.

    “Is he dead?” Ben was asking.

    “Not yet,” the man said breathlessly, “but I don’t see how he can last.  Haskill shot him full of holes.”

    Adam’s eyes flew wide.  Haskill was an important man at Mormon Station, a member of the governing committee.  And he’d shot a man!

    “How can you be sure it’s Haskill that did the shooting, Jameson?” Ben asked.

    “Well, he sure isn’t denying it!” Jameson shouted.  “Reese has got him locked up in a storeroom at his trading post and aims to hold the trial tomorrow morning.  Asked me to see that all the jury members got the word.”

    “We’ll be holding court at Reese’s place?” Ben asked.

    “Yeah.  Can you make it?”

    “I’ll be there,” Ben promised.

    “Good,” Jameson said.  “I’ve got to get over to Eagle Station to see another juror.”

    “Joe Barnard,” Ben said.  Like Ben, Joseph Barnard had been selected for the jury the previous November, but until now there’d been no cases for them to try.  Ben followed Jameson outside, suddenly seeing the two boys beside the door.  “What are you doing here, Adam?” he asked sharply.

    Adam bit his tongue.  “Listening, Pa,” he admitted.

    “And how much did you hear?” Ben probed.

    “He said Mr. Haskill shot someone,” Adam replied, “but I didn’t hear who.”

    “William Byrnes,” Ben said softly, laying his hand on Adam’s neck.

    “Is—is he gonna die, Pa?”

    “Sounds that way, son,” Ben answered, “but we’ll sure pray otherwise.  Now you and Billy get back to the garden.”

    Adam nodded and headed back to his chores at once, Billy following.  “I hope they shoot that Haskill full of holes,” Billy sputtered.

    “That’s not nice,” Adam said bluntly.

    “I don’t care; I liked Mr. Byrnes.  Besides, it’s Bible,” Billy insisted.  “An eye for an eye.”

    Adam picked up Billy’s hoe and tossed it to him.  “Oh, hush and get to work.”

    Billy rolled his eyes heavenward.  Murder and carnage going on in the valley and all Adam could think of was killing a few stinkin’ weeds!

    Ben’s heart was heavy as he entered Reese’s trading post the next morning.  Only a few months ago a hundred men, their hopes high, had met here to establish a basis for law and order in the valley.  Now two of those in whom they’d placed the highest confidence had blighted those budding hopes, blasting them as full of holes as Byrnes’ bullet-ridden body.  Ben greeted the other members of the jury quietly, their expressions and wordless nods telling him that they, too, were shocked to silence by the sudden intrusion of violence into their peaceful community.

    Reese called the jury to order.  “This is a sad day, men.  When we constituted this jury, I assumed we’d be dealing with civil matters, not criminal cases.  Now the decision before us is not a matter of property rights, but of—”

    “Murder!” Jameson shouted.  “Murder, pure and simple.”

    “Attempted murder,” Reese corrected the vituperative juror.

    “Byrnes is still alive?” Ben whispered to Joseph Barnard, seated next to him.

    Barnard nodded.  “Just barely,” he whispered back.

    “It’s murder,” Jameson insisted.  “Everybody knows Byrnes can’t last much longer.”

    “We can’t try a man for murder without a dead body,” John Reese protested.

    “Well, we can’t keep Haskill locked up in a storeroom ‘til Byrnes kicks off,” Jameson snarled.  “His partner already tried to break him out last night.”

    Ben’s heart sank further.  Washington Loomis, Haskill’s partner, had served with Ben on the committee for laws and resolutions.  Now he, too, was caught up in this morass of contention, aligning himself against the laws of civilized men.

    “I understand,” Reese said.  “We aren’t equipped to confine criminals on any long-term basis, so we’ll have to deal speedily with the charges.  But we have to act lawfully.  Unless Byrnes dies during our deliberations, the charge must remain attempted murder.  Is that agreed?”  Murmurs of assent rumbled reluctantly across the room.

    “Were there any witnesses to the shooting?” Joe Barnard asked.

    “Just Byrnes himself,” Reese replied.  “I thought we should adjourn to his place and hear his testimony if he’s able to talk.”

    “I know what happened,” Jameson snapped.  “No need to be bothering Byrnes.”

    “You think you know what happened, but you weren’t there,” Reese pointed out patiently.  “Let’s take Byrnes’ statement, if possible.”

    Reese’s suggestion seemed the best policy, so the others trooped down the street behind him until they reached the small cabin where William Byrnes lay——weak, wan, breathing hard.

    “We’re sorry to disturb you, Bill,” Reese said, “but the jury needs to hear what happened to you.”

    “Went to serve Haskill,” Byrnes gasped.  “Court notice.”

    “We understand,” Reese said.  Turning to the jury, he added, “For those who don’t know, there was a dispute between Haskill and Jameson concerning water rights to an irrigation ditch.  Byrnes was acting in his capacity as sheriff to inform Haskill that he’d have to come before our court to settle the issue.”  He turned back to Byrnes.  “Tell the jury what happened when you went to see Haskill, Bill.”

    Byrnes took a slow, shallow breath.  “Said no one had right——judge him——grabbed rifle——fired——again, again, again—”  Byrnes’ voice tapered off and his eyes closed.

    “I don’t think we should tax him further,” Reese said.

    “We’ve heard all we need,” Joe Barnard stated grimly.

    Just before they left, Ben reached out to take Byrnes’ hand.  The man’s eyes fluttered open, and he smiled slightly when he saw Ben.

    “You’ll be in our prayers, my friend,” Ben said softly.

    “Thanks, Cartwri—”   The eyes closed again.  Ben tucked Byrnes’ hand beneath the covers and walked softly out.

    Back at Reese’s trading post, Reese was trying to quiet the other jurors, some of whom were ready to pronounce Haskill guilty without further discussion.

    “Anyone doubt Haskill’s the one shot poor Bill?” Jameson demanded.

    No one did, but Ben raised a point.  “Was there any ill feeling between Byrnes and Haskill?” he asked.  “Anything that would make him accuse the man falsely?”  Each of the others shook his head.

    “To the best of our knowledge,” Reese said, “Bill was doing the job to which we elected him and was gunned down for no other reason.”

    The evidence seemed clear, and the jury quickly rendered a verdict of guilty.  A somber cloud hung over the room, and the next words cracked like lightning through the blackness of the mood.  “Haskill deserves to hang,” Jameson announced.

    Murmurs of agreement were heard from some, others just as loudly denouncing Jameson’s statement.

    “Not for attempted murder,” one voice shouted.  “That’s going too far.”

    “Hanging’s too good for the likes of Haskill!” another hollered.

    “Wait a minute!” Ben shouted.  “What Haskill deserves isn’t the point.  What authority do we have to condemn a man to death?  When all’s said and done, what we have is a squatter’s government.  Something as serious as the death penalty should only be given by real governmental authority.”

    “Where are we supposed to find that?” Jameson snarled.  “We’re the only effective government there is!”

    “That’s right,” Joe Barnard agreed.     “Like it or not, the decision is ours.  San Francisco found itself in the same predicament last year.  They had to take matters into their own hands and form a vigilance committee.”

    “Let’s not resort to that!” Ben cried.

    “Why not?” Barnard demanded.  “It worked well in California.  Cleared out the Sydney Ducks, who were causing all the trouble.”

    “I know,” Ben said, “but I still say we have no right to take a man’s life without appeal to recognized legal authority.”

    “You mean Salt Lake?” Jameson demanded.  “Taking Haskill that far is not practical, Cartwright; you know it isn’t.”

    Ben made no response.  He knew Jameson’s point was valid, but could not consent to hanging Haskill.  Still, he had no other solution to offer.

    “Look, men,” Reese reasoned.  “I agree that Haskill probably deserves to hang, but Ben is right.  If we take the law into our own hands, we may undo all we’ve tried to accomplish so far.  If Congress were to hear that lynch mobs ruled in this territory, that might push them to reject our appeal to separate from Utah.  Now, none of us wants that, do we?”

    Reese’s words silenced even Jameson.  The last thing any of them wanted was to remain under control of the territorial government in Salt Lake City.

    “All right,” Barnard growled.  “But maybe we can learn a lesson from the vigilantes, after all.  While they did hang several ringleaders, they just banished most of the riffraff.”

    “It’s a mild penalty,” Jameson complained, “especially if Byrnes dies.”

    Ben nodded sadly, but in the end the jury decided banishment was the only penalty they could risk enforcing.  Haskill, along with his partner Washington Loomis, was escorted over the hills into California and warned never to return.

    William Byrnes hovered near death for nearly a week, then began, miraculously, to make a slow recovery.  But to Ben, it seemed the barrage of bullets had wounded the man’s soul more deeply than his body.  Instead of open interest in the world around him, Byrnes’ eyes held a haunted look, as though he were constantly expecting bullets to fly from some dark corner.
 

Nelly tied her green-sprigged sunbonnet snugly and, smoothing Inger’s matching smock, lifted the baby in her arms and walked out the cabin’s door.  Seeing them, Hoss immediately abandoned his pup and ran over, stretching his arms up.  “Go,” he cried.

    Nelly patted his head.  “No, Sunshine, not this time.  You stay with Pa and the boys.”

    Hoss’s lower lip thrust out.  “Go,” he whimpered.

    Coming up behind him, Billy gave his ribs a tickle.  “What you want with an old hen party anyway?” he teased.  “Me and Adam’s got plans, and you’re a part of ‘em.”

    “What kind of plans?” his ever suspicious mother demanded.

    Billy turned the most innocent set of blue eyes she’d ever seen to her face.  “We was just plannin’ to help Pa and Uncle Ben all we could,” he said angelically.

    Nelly’s eyes narrowed.  Helping out was rarely at the top of Billy’s list of activities for the day.  “Best help you could be is to keep Hoss occupied and happy.”

    “Just what I aim to do, Ma,” Billy assured her.  “Just keep him out from underfoot.”

    “All right, then,” Nelly said, still dubious.  Blowing Hoss a kiss, she walked past the corral where the men were inspecting the oxen.  “I’m headed out,” she called.  “There’s a pot of beans simmering that should be ready come dinnertime.”

    “Have a good gabfest, darlin’,” Clyde called.  He grinned at Ben.  “Seems like I hardly see my good wife since them Motts moved in.”

    Ben chuckled.  “Hardly surprising when you consider how starved for female company Nelly’s been.”

    “Yeah, well, she’s sure makin’ up for lost time with that Eliza Ann,” Clyde snorted.  “Beans again!”

    Ben had to laugh.  He was a little tired of beans himself, that being one of the staples on his menu at home.  But he didn’t resent Nelly’s helping the Motts make their cabin more livable.  The place, thrown together from boards Israel Mott had scavenged from abandoned wagon beds along the Humboldt, needed all the help it could get.  And with a new baby, Eliza Ann found it hard by herself to add the little touches that spelled home to a woman.  With helpfulness being practically Nelly’s middle name and after almost two years surrounded by nothing but men, Ben could hardly blame her for seeking every opportunity to visit another woman.  And their baby girls, born just three months apart were good company for each other, freeing the mothers to stitch curtains or hook rugs while they shared recipes and compared notes on child-rearing.

    “All right, what are these ‘plans’ you and I have?” Adam demanded as soon as Billy’s mother was out of earshot.  “I don’t remember making any plans.”

    Billy grinned.  “No, but Ma’d have been even more suspicious if she knew the idea was all mine.”

    Adam’s brow wrinkled.  “If you’re plottin’ more mischief, Billy Thomas, so help me—”

    “No mischief,” Billy said hastily.  “Just helpin’ out, like I said.”

    The furrows in Adam’s brow deepened.  Like Nelly, he had no reason to trust Billy’s idea of what constituted help.  “Since when do you volunteer for extra chores?” he demanded.

    Billy scowled.  “Not chores, but I got an idea to drum us up more business.  That’s helpin’, ain’t it?”

    “I guess so,” Adam agreed.  “So what’s the idea?”

    “I figure we ride out to meet some of them emigrants headin’ our way and sort of advertise how our post’s the best in the territory,” Billy explained.  “You know, best prices, best produce.”

    A smile lifted a corner of Adam’s mouth.  Advertising sounded like a good idea, but he foresaw a problem.  “We’re supposed to be watchin’ Hoss,” he sighed.

    “We take him with us,” Billy said.  “He’s the best advertisin’ we got.”

    “Huh?”

    “You’ll see,” Billy cackled.  “Just go ask your pa if we can go ridin’.”

    Adam shrugged.  That was easy enough.  “Okay.”

    “I don’t mind your taking a ride,” Ben said as soon as Adam asked, “but one of you needs to stay here to mind Hoss.”

    “We were gonna take him with us,” Adam said.

    Ben chuckled.  “Well, I guess your horse will hold all three, but you hang tight to your brother.”

    “‘Course I will,” Adam assured his father.  He understood that keeping watch over his baby brother was always his first and most important responsibility, and he handled it the way he handled all responsibilities, with a maturity far beyond his years.

    Adam raced back to the cabin.  “Billy!  We can go,” he called.

    Billy poked his head out the door.  “Come clean up your brother!” he hollered.

    Adam frowned.  “I thought you were watching him!”  He went inside to find his brother’s face smeared with plum jam.

    “I figured we might be out past lunch time, so I was fixin’ some sandwiches,” Billy explained.  “‘Course, the bottomless pit here had to have one.”

    “Okay, I’ll wash him up,” Adam said, taking Hoss’s sticky hand and leading him outside to the bucket of water set there for just such purposes.

    “Where you boys headed?” Clyde called when the three were mounted.

    “Just down the river a ways,” Billy yelled from his perch behind Adam.  “I fixed us a picnic, so you can have the beans to yourself.”

    “Thanks a lot!” Ben guffawed.

    Billy grinned and leaned forward.  “Let’s go before they ask anything else,” he whispered in Adam’s ear.  Adam tapped the gray colt’s flanks with his heels and the animal trotted forward.

    The three boys rode for two hours before they spotted ten wagons circled near the Carson River for their noon break.  “Howdy, folks,” Billy called as they rode in.  He slid quickly to the ground, leaving Adam to help Hoss down and manage the horse.

    “Howdy, son,” a rail-thin, brown-bearded man replied.  “Where you younguns come from?  I thought we were the first train to make it this far.”

    “You are, mister; you are,” Billy assured him.  “We live here in the valley.”

    “Must be from that Mormon Station we heard about,” the man’s equally skinny wife, her drab, dust-covered calico hanging tattered around her ankles, put in.  “Folks back along the trail told us there was a trading post at the base of the mountains.  Sure hope it’s close, ‘cause we’re powerful low on supplies.”

    “Folks always is this late in their journey,” Billy commented sociably, “but you don’t look like Mormons.”

    “We ain’t,” the man snorted, “but I reckon they’ll sell to us, Mormon or not.”

    “Sure, they will,” Billy agreed quickly, “but that ain’t the best place for you, mister.”

    “Didn’t know there was any other,” the woman said.

    “Oh, yeah!” Billy said.  “Our folks run a post a mile this side of Mormon Station, and since you ain’t part of their church, you’d be a heap better off tradin’ with us.”

    “That so?” the man chuckled, folding his arms and regarding Billy with bemused gray eyes.

    “I reckon I don’t have to tell you how high Mormons price things,” Billy chattered on.  “If they did you the way they done us on our trip out in 1850, you had to pay through the nose every time you come to a ferry or trading post along the road.”

    “Ain’t it the truth!” the woman cried.

    “Billy!” Adam hissed under his breath.  He had a feeling his pa wouldn’t take kindly to their drumming up business by running down the competition.

    Billy ignored Adam.  “Well, mister, it’s the same at Mormon Station.  Now, we run an honest American trading post.  You get fair value for your dollar when you trade with us.”

    “If you got what we need,” the man probed.

    “Well, sir,” Billy said warmly, “we got prime oxen, recruited from last year’s emigration, to replace these tired beasts of yourn.  ‘Course we got the usual flour and cornmeal to restock your wagons and fresh produce, too.”

    “Good quality?” the emigrant’s wife queried.

    Billy jerked up Hoss’s smock and patted the ample belly.  “Why, here’s proof of that!” he asserted.  “This youngun was just a scrawny thing when we come here.  You can see how he’s thrivin’ on what we grow.  We eat good at home, don’t we, Hoss?”

    “Eat good!” Hoss chortled as Adam jerked his clothing down and gave Billy a stern, reproving look while the emigrant family laughed at the way Hoss’s countenance beamed when food was mentioned.

    “What kind of truck you got?” the woman asked.

    “Oh, green beans, turnips, taters and the sweetest watermelons you ever did eat!” Billy said, licking his lips as if the juice were running down his chin.

    “Watermelon!” a tow-headed youngster cried.  “Oh, Ma!  Can we have some watermelon?  Please!”

    “We’ll see, son,” his mother said.  “Depends on the price.”

    “Dirt cheap,” Billy declared.

    “Billy!” Adam protested, giving his friend a sharp poke in the ribs.

    “Hush!” Billy hissed.

    “You let your brother talk, boy,” the man said.  “He ain’t hardly said a word.”

    “He ain’t my brother,” Billy said.  “He’s just, well, my cousin, you could say.”  Adam rolled his eyes.

    “All right, then, let’s hear what your cousin has to say.”

    Billy gave Adam a look that told him he’d better go along with Billy’s advertising spiel, but Adam felt uncomfortable with any dishonesty.  “Our prices aren’t dirt cheap,” he said, his dark eyes serious.  “Prices are high in California where we buy our supplies, and we have to charge for freighting them over the mountains, too.”

    “I understand freighting costs,” the emigrant said, scrutinizing Adam’s face carefully, “but is it a fair markup?”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam replied confidently.  “You’ll likely find our prices higher than you want, but they’re below what they charge at Mormon Station and that’s the truth.”

    The man patted Adam’s shoulder.  “Son, I believe you; you got an honest way about you.”  He turned to grin at Billy.  “You could take a lesson from your cousin in that, sonny, but I like your spunk.  I reckon you can tell your folks we’ll be stoppin’ at their post.”

    “I’ll do that,” Billy grinned, “and if you tell me how many oxen you might be needin’, we could go ahead and pick out the best.”

    “What’s the goin’ rate of exchange?” the man asked.

    Billy shrugged.  “Two for one, same as anywhere,” he admitted, figuring a dose of Adam’s plain, unvarnished honesty was what was called for.

    The man took a quick poll of the other wagon owners in the train.  “Tell ‘em we’ll take eight,” the man said, “provided they’re in good condition.”

    “Yes, sir!” Billy shouted, proud of the success of his venture.  “We’ll have ‘em waitin’ for you.  Just stick to the north side of the river and it’ll take you straight to our place.”  He grabbed Hoss to lift him into the saddle, but the toddler let loose a squeal of protest.

    “Eat!” Hoss demanded, wriggling out of Billy’s grasp and heading for the emigrant’s cookfire.  “Eat!”

    “No, Hoss, we got our own food,” Adam said, shame-faced.

    “Now, now, I reckon we can share a mite, long as we’re close to fresh supplies,” the woman laughed.  “You boys set down and we’ll give you each a helping of salt pork and corn pone.”

    Adam wasn’t sure what Pa would think of their practically inviting themselves to dinner with total strangers, but it seemed impolite to refuse.  The warm food tasted good, too.  To repay the emigrants’ hospitality, Adam and Billy donated their jam sandwiches to the children in the party.  Hoss, of course, saw no need to share his with anyone.

    The emigrant train that pulled up to the Cartwright-Thomas Trading Post that afternoon was the first of a huge, hungry hoard to pass through Carson Valley that summer.  And thanks to the boys’ advertising, business was booming.  Clyde and Ben had a good laugh with many of the emigrants over the antics of the two “cousins.”

    Billy had been so pleased with the results of their first effort that he used the same tactics again and again, knowing he could count on Adam to insist on spitting out the truth at just the right moment.  Billy was a sharp enough salesman to see that the contrast between his blustering braggadocio and Adam’s painfully precise pronouncements attracted business.  Everyone liked to think he’d caught the freckle-faced redhead stretching the truth, but rarely did anyone feel put off by it.  If anything, they admired the boy’s loyalty to his pa’s place and enjoyed a good laugh at his expense.  Billy didn’t mind, so long as the emigrants arrived at the trading post in good humor, ready to buy or trade.

    Having succeeded in luring a significant portion of the emigrant traffic to the trading post, Billy next suggested to Adam that they ride north to persuade some of the miners in the area to pass up the small posts closer to them and bring their business to the one Billy called “the best in the West.”

    “All right,” Adam agreed, “but you got to quit showin’ off my brother’s belly.”

    “Aw, come on, Adam,” Billy protested.  “He’s our best sellin’ point.”

    “It ain’t decent,” Adam snapped.

    “He’s just a baby,” Billy snorted.  “He don’t mind his belly showin’ or his bare bottom, even, if the truth be told.”

    “He stays home or I do!” Adam insisted.

    “Okay, okay.  I reckon we’ll make do without him.”  Billy shook his head.  That book-crazed Adam just didn’t know a good sales technique when he saw one.

    Neither of the boys, of course, felt it necessary to inform their parents of their intention.  When they rode out, the adults assumed they were going to intercept another train and sing the praises of the business.  “Push the turnips,” Clyde hollered.  “We got plenty.”  Billy gave him a wave to acknowledge the instruction.

    Adam steered the gray colt along the river, as usual, for the miner’s camp, they’d been told, lay not far from the emigrant road.  Passing one train on the way, the boys stopped long enough to urge the men there to stop at the trading post, then continued downriver to the point where it turned abruptly to the northeast.  Near there, at the mouth of a ravine coming down the south side of a hill, the boys found the miners’ camp and dismounted.

    “Howdy, men!” Billy called, trudging up the ravine to where two grizzle-bearded miners were panning.  “You findin’ any color?”

    “Hey!  Younguns!” the older man shouted.  A child was a rare sight in mining country and almost as welcome a one as a female.

    “You findin’ any color?” Billy asked again, squatting down to chat.

    “Some, sonny, some,” the man answered.

    “You done much pannin’, boy?” the other man asked.

    “Not a lick,” Billy admitted.  “My friend there, he’s done some.”

    “Not much,” Adam said, smiling shyly, “but I know how.”

    “Well, here, boys,” the first miner said, generously offering them his pan and his partner’s.  “You pan awhile and you can keep half of what you find.”

    “Oh, boy!” Billy shouted, completely forgetting to advertise the trading post in his excitement.  He grabbed the pan and sloshed it so hard the water sprayed out, soaking the miner who’d loaned it to him.  “Sorry, mister,” Billy grinned.  “Guess I ain’t got the hang of it yet.”

    “Reckon not!” the man said, wiping his face.  “Here, let me show you.  Swish it around easy like ‘til the gravel washes away.  Now, what’s this?”  He lifted a glistening flake from the bottom of the pan.

    “Gold!” Billy yelled.  “That’s what!”

    Adam laughed, looking up from his own pan.  “I got some, too,” he said.

    The two boys panned for about half an hour before turning the pans back to their owners.  “That’s hard work,” Billy admitted, “if you was to keep at it all day.”

    “And you got to if you’re gonna make enough to buy beans,” the miner chuckled.  “You got something to tie up your dust in, boys?”

    Billy frowned.  As usual, he’d ignored his mother’s frequent admonitions to carry a handkerchief.  Adam had one, though, and offered his friend the use of a corner.  “Thanks a heap, mister,” Billy said, bouncing the gold-laden handkerchief in his hand.  “Now it’s time for us to do you a favor.”

    “What’s that, boy?”

    “Well, sir, you’re gonna be able to buy a sight more beans at the Cartwright-Thomas Trading Post than anywhere else in the territory,” Billy boasted.  “That’s what we rode all this way to tell you.”

    The miners hooted.  “Could have saved yourself the trip, boy,” the older one cackled.  “We was by your place last week and stocked up.  Didn’t see you younguns, though.”

    Billy shrugged.  “Must’ve been out drummin’ up business,” he grinned.  “We just figure everyone ought to know about our place, so you spread the word to the other miners, okay?”

    “Be glad to, son,” the other man said.  “Liked the prices and the way we was dealt with.”

    “Thank you, sir,” Adam said.  “I’ll tell my pa you said so.”

    “Which one’s your pa, boy?”

    “Ben Cartwright.”

    “Well, you can also tell your pa you boys are welcome to pan over here anytime you like,” the man offered.

    “Yeah, the other miner agreed.  “I figure you younguns’ll act like a good luck charm.”

    Adam and Billy waved good-bye and mounted the gray colt.  “Made out better than we figured,” Billy commented.

    “Yeah,” Adam said, “but I don’t know what Pa’s gonna say about me mining.”

    When Ben found out, he was mildly annoyed.  “I don’t want you traipsing all over the countryside, Adam.  I assumed you went out to talk to the emigrants.”

    “We did that, too, Pa,” Adam said hurriedly.  “We just went a little further than usual.”

    “Quite a bit further,” Ben said bluntly, then reached out to rumple Adam’s black hair.  “No harm done, I suppose, but in the future I want to know exactly where you’re going, son.”

    “Okay, Pa.  Is it all right to do some more mining?”

    “Once in a while,” Ben agreed, “but I’d rather you stuck closer to home most days.”

    The boys spent about one day a week that summer at the miners’ camp, and by the end of the season each had stashed away a few ounces of gold dust.  There wasn’t much except food to spend it on this side of the mountains, of course, and while Ben and Clyde teasingly talked of charging the boys room and board, neither youngster took the threat seriously.  Both Adam and Billy planned at the earliest opportunity to hit the stores in Sacramento feeling like millionaires.

    Most of their time was spent in the garden.  Just after the summer solstice it was time to replant, Nelly wanting to keep fresh vegetables on the table as long as possible.  So Billy and Adam did less advertising and mining and more hoeing, as they had in the spring.  One day when they were out riding, though, they saw a cloud of dust too large to be an emigrant train.  Riding closer, they grew excited and raced back to the trading post.  They both tried to leap out of the saddle at the same time and ended up sprawled on the ground in a tangle of legs.

    “Pa!” Adam shouted, scrambling to his feet.

    “What is it, Adam?  What’s wrong?” his father cried.

    “Nothing, Pa,” Adam panted.  “It’s sheep——thousands and thousands of them.”

    “Sheep?  You sure, boy?” Clyde asked.  “C. D. Jones is running a few in the valley, but nowhere near that many.”

    “Thousands,” Billy affirmed, “and headed this way, Pa.”

    “That’s a sight I’d like to see,” Clyde said.

    “Take my horse,” Ben offered.  “I’ll hold down the fort.”

    Clyde grinned, saddled Ben’s bay and took off with Billy, on Adam’s horse, to lead the way.  “What’d you find out?” Ben asked when his partner returned.

    “The boys was right,” Clyde said.  “Man named Dick Wootton is bringing some nine thousand head to Sacramento.  Says he bought ‘em for a dollar a head in New Mexico, and figures he can get five or ten in California.”

    “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

    “Told him I’d take ten head off his hands,” Clyde reported.  “Nelly’ll be glad of the wool, and I figure you and me can trade some beef for mutton.”

    “All right by me,” Ben laughed.  “I like a little variety in my diet.  But you keep your woolies away from my cattle.  I hear the two don’t mix.”

    “Don’t know,” Clyde said.  “Don’t know much about sheep, but if there’s that kind of profit in it, might be worth drivin’ a herd over the hills.”

    “Not this season,” Ben chuckled.  “We’ve got our hands full, thanks to our enterprising sons.”

    “Ain’t it the truth?” Clyde cackled.

    The “enterprising sons” so enhanced their fathers’ business, in fact, that an extra trip had to be made over the Sierras for supplies.  Ben did the traveling, as usual during their busy season, for Clyde’s skill as a blacksmith made it more profitable for him to stay in the valley.  Billy, eager to spend his gold dust, raised such a ruckus about being left behind that Ben finally agreed to take him, too, and for once Billy was on his good behavior.

    “I want to get my ma somethin’ special,” he announced.  “You got any ideas, Uncle Ben.”

    “No, but I’ll help you look,” Ben promised.  “Is this a Christmas present or just ‘cause you’re feeling rich and generous?”

    “I’d sure like to save it back for Christmas,” Billy said, “but I ain’t got no place to hide stuff where Ma won’t look.”

    Ben laughed.  “You can stash it at my place, boy.  Adam, what do you plan to spend your wealth on?”

    Adam grinned sheepishly.  “Books, mostly.  Maybe some candy for Hoss, too.”

    Ben gave the boy’s shoulder a proud squeeze.  “I think that’d be real thoughtful.”

    “Yeah, I want a bunch of candy, too,” Billy declared.

    Ben lifted an eyebrow.  “For your mother?”  He exploded with laughter at the look on Billy’s face.

    Their purchases successfully made, the trio returned home and settled back into the summer’s routine of equipping emigrant trains for the final trek across the Sierras.  September found them busier than anyone wanted to be.  Emigrants continued to pour up the Carson River, and in between servicing them, there was corn to pick, as well as the last of the green vegetables.  Clyde and Ben had spent odd hours digging a root cellar to store carrots, potatoes, onions and other root vegetables where they wouldn’t freeze during the winter.  Later, they’d dig another at Ben’s place, but for now all the spare vegetables went into this one.

    Though snow rarely fell in the mountains until November, the settlers commonly made their final trip west for winter supplies during October.  “Let the Mormons handle the stragglers,” Clyde announced.  “I aim to do me some special shoppin’ this trip.”

    Ben, too, wanted to make some extra purchases for Christmas, so he and Clyde went all the way to San Francisco this time, leaving the two boys home to harvest and store the pumpkins.  Everywhere they went there was talk of the upcoming presidential election.  Franklin Pierce was running on the Democratic ticket against Winfield Scott, Vice-president Millard Fillmore having been refused the nomination of his party because of his support for the Fugitive Slave Act.

    “That’ll split the Whigs down the middle,” Ben commented.  “Pierce is sure to win.”

    “Yeah, especially with that snappy campaign slogan he’s got,” Clyde cackled.

    Ben laughed.  The slogan, “We Polked you in 1844; we’ll Pierce you in 1852” did have a certain flair, though that was no reason to vote for a man.  Actually, whoever won the election, national politics were likely to have little effect on their lives in Carson Valley, but politics was a topic the men liked to discuss as much as Nelly enjoyed her home-and-hearth talks with Eliza Mott.
 

As soon as the emigrant season ended, Ben went to work on his planned improvements.  With Clyde’s help, he first dug a root cellar and moved his share of the produce to his own place.  Then he added another room to the cabin, extending it back from the northeast corner and cutting a door from his own bedroom by which to enter it.

    Adam was profuse in his praise of the new arrangement.  “I didn’t want to say anything,” he commented, “but I was getting awfully old to sleep in a trundle.”

    “Were you?” Ben chuckled.  “Yeah, well, I guess so.  You sure act more grown up than that.  Pa should have noticed sooner, huh?”

    Adam gave his father a quick hug.  “Oh, no, Pa.  I understand.  The ranch comes first.”

    Ben stooped down to wrap the boy in his arms.  “No, Adam.  Never.  You and Hoss come first.  The ranch means nothing unless it’s for my boys.  It’s just that Pa can’t give you everything he dreams of at once.”

    Adam rubbed his smooth cheek against his father’s stubbled one.  “Dreams take time, huh, Pa?”

    Ben laughed as he stood up.  “That’s right; that’s my mature young man.”  He swooped Hoss up in his arms.  “And how does my little boy like his new bed?”

    Two-year-old Hoss looked perplexed, not understanding the changes taking place.  That night, when Ben tucked him in his new bed, Hoss wailed.  “Now, what’s wrong?” Ben cooed, sitting on the edge of the bed to cuddle his younger son.

    Hoss stretched his arms toward Adam, who was just crawling beneath the covers of the bed on the opposite wall.

    “No, you have your own bed now,” Ben explained, “like a big boy.”  Hoss frowned eloquently as Ben laid him down again and tucked the covers snugly up to his chin.  Ben gave each of the boys a kiss and went into the front room to read a little before turning in.

    Hoss threw the covers back and slipped to the floor.  Toddling over to the other bed, he slapped Adam’s blanketed shoulder.  “Bubba!” he whispered.

    Adam rotated his shoulder, irritated.  “Go back to your own bed, Hoss!” he ordered.

    “Sleep Bubba,” Hoss insisted.

    Adam rolled over and sat up.  “No, you can’t sleep with brother.  You’re too big to act like such a baby, Hoss.  I like having a bed to myself, and you’re just gonna have to accept it.”

    A big tear ran down Hoss’s cheek.  Adam groaned.  Not that, anything but that.  “Look, Hoss,” he pleaded, “be a big boy and brother will take you down to the creek tomorrow and you can go wading.”

    “Pomish?” Hoss begged, his eyes brightening.

    “Yes, I promise.  Now, back into bed before Pa catches you.”

    Hoss wasn’t sure what would happen if his father caught him out of bed.  Adam made it sound ominous, however, so Hoss scooted back under the covers, clinging to the stuffed dog Nelly had made him for Christmas until he fell asleep.  He wasn’t entirely happy with the new arrangement, missing the comfort of Adam’s warm body pressed close to his own.  Adam, on the other hand, was only too happy to relinquish the sensation of a damp diaper plastered up against him.  Hoss had finally made his acquaintance with the outhouse, but only during daytime hours.  At night he slept right through the dampness, so diapering him still seemed the wisest choice.

    Ben was not the only one in the community making improvements in his property.  Israel Mott and John Reese had secured a franchise from the squatter government to construct a toll bridge over the Carson River.  Clyde grumbled loudly about Mormons setting up their own government, then assigning themselves the privilege of collecting tolls.  “It’s the Overland Trail all over again,” he groused.

    Ben just laughed.  “You have to admit these Mormons are an enterprising lot,” he said.  “At least, the government has set a limit to the tolls they can charge; besides, the contract also calls for them to improve the road up the mountains.  That, my friend, is worth paying for!”

    Clyde knew Ben had a point, but he wouldn’t admit it.  In his opinion, give a Mormon an inch and he was bound to take the whole territory; so concession was out of the question, regardless of the facts.

    As the Cartwrights and Thomases met to share a Thanksgiving meal, even Clyde was forced to concede that they had much for which to be thankful.  It had been a profitable year, and not just financially.  The community was growing, and most of the settlers were the kind they were proud to call neighbors, even though they did increase the Mormon majority.  Looking back over the previous year, both Ben and Clyde found much to be grateful for and much to look forward to, as well.

    The boys, of course, looked no further forward than Christmas.  Even Hoss seemed to anticipate the holiday this year.  When Adam told him tales about Santa Claus, his blue eyes sparkled with remembrance and he ran to pat his Noah’s Ark sitting in the corner nearest his bed.  “Santa!” he chortled.

    “That’s right,” Adam said.  “That’s what Santa brought you last year, and this year there’ll be new presents beneath the tree.”  Adam paused and looked soberly at Hoss.  “If you’ve been a good boy, that is.”

    Hoss’s fat chin bobbed repeatedly up and down.  “Good boy!” he announced.

    “Pretty good, I guess,” Adam grinned.  “Santa’ll probably bring you something nice.”

    Early on Christmas Eve Ben dragged in the tree and set it in place beside the front door.  Squealing, Hoss ran to bury his face in the branches, caressing the fragrant boughs with his chubby cheeks.

    Ben chuckled.  “My, you do love trees, don’t you, Hoss?”

    Hoss looked up at his father.  Pulling one of the spiny branches, he chirped, “Birdies, Pa!  ‘Tars!”

    Ben tossed the boy to his shoulder.  “You remember, do you?  Yes, we’ll put birds and stars in the branches again.”

    “Pwitty,” Hoss declared.

    “Prettier than ever,” Adam announced as he brought the popcorn garland he’d strung to drape across the branches.  He and his father had been busy the last couple of weeks carving and painting more birds, bells and stars to hang on the tree.  This year there were enough to satisfy even Adam, but he hung a few pinecones, too, just for tradition’s sake.

    Soon all the ornaments decked the tree except the tin star for the top.  “Let Hoss put it up,” Adam offered.  “I got to last year.”

    “He’ll probably need help,” Ben said, smiling approval at his older son’s unselfish suggestion, “so you stand in a chair on the other side while I lift him up.”

    Adam dragged his chair into position and mounted it.  “Ready, Pa,” he announced.

    Ben closed Hoss’s fingers around the star and lifted the chunky toddler to his shoulder.  “On the very top, Hoss,” he instructed.

    Hoss seemed to remember where the gold-painted star went.  Leaning over, he could reach the upright stem, but as Ben had predicted, his fingers lacked the dexterity to pull the spiral wire down over it.  Adam reached out to guide Hoss’s fingers, but it was obvious from the way Hoss clapped afterwards that he felt he’d done it all by himself.

    As soon as his feet touched the floor, Hoss dropped to his knees and began crawling under the tree.  “Hoss, you get out from there!” Adam ordered.

    Hoss peered out from beneath a drooping pine branch.  “Santa!” he explained.

    Ben dragged the reluctant toddler from his quest.  “Santa’s not under there, son,” he chuckled, then dropping his voice to a whisper, “Santa won’t come ‘til you’re sound asleep.”

    Hoss grabbed Adam’s hand and started to pull him toward their shared room.  “Bed,” he demanded.

    Adam pulled his hand free.  “Too early,” Adam snorted.

    “You haven’t had your supper yet,” Ben said persuasively.  “You want to eat, don’t you, Hoss?”

    For a moment Hoss looked confused.  He was eager for Santa to come, but he’d never turned down a meal in his life.  “Eat!” he decided.  “Eat now!”

    Ben laughed.  “Eat soon, yes.  Then, a story; then, bedtime.”

    After supper Ben brought out the small volume of Dickens’ Christmas tale and began to read.  This year even Hoss stayed awake through the visit of all three Christmas spirits, although he seemed more interested in the bowl of popcorn he and Adam shared than in the fate of Tiny Tim.

    Hoss needed no urging to scramble out of bed the next morning.  Just the mention of Santa brought all his eager expectations flooding back and he charged through the door into his father’s bedroom, trotting past a still slumbering Ben.

    Adam pulled him back before he could reach the next doorway.  “No, Hoss; wait for Pa.”

    Hoss ran back to swat his father’s leg.  “I’m awake,” Ben yawned.  “Just give me a moment to get conscious.”  Smiling then, he said, “Merry Christmas, boys.”

    “Merry Christmas, Pa,” Adam grinned.  “Hoss is in a hurry this morning.”

    “So I see,” Ben chuckled, grabbing his toddler and tossing him on the bed.  “You let Pa get his britches on; then we’ll see what Santa’s brought my boys.”

    “Good boy,” Hoss chirped.

    “Yes, yes,” Ben agreed, slipping his legs through the brown trousers Adam tossed him.  “Both of you are very good boys and Pa’s real proud.”  Ben took the tan shirt from its peg on the wall and motioned toward the door.  “Lead the way; I’ll follow,” he said, sticking one arm in its sleeve.

    Adam grinned and took Hoss’s hand.  “Let’s see what Santa brought,” he whispered.

    “Santa!” Hoss crowed and ran to the tree, snatching the first knobby bundle he saw.

    “Not that!” Ben shouted.  “That’s brother’s.”  He picked up a brown paper-wrapped package from the opposite side of the tree.  “This one’s yours.”  Hoss eagerly tore into the package.

    Soon that package and all its companions were opened and the contents of the two stockings hanging from the mantel dumped on the dining table.  Hoss clearly liked the candy in his stocking best of all, but he laughed happily as Ben helped him work the jointed wooden bear so it would climb a rope, and he was ecstatic as he galloped around the room on the stick pony his father had made.

    Adam examined his gifts more quietly.  “Not disappointed, I hope,” his father queried.

    Adam looked up and smiled.  “Oh, no, Pa.”  He lifted the harmonica.  “This’ll be fun to play, except I’m not sure how.”

    “Yes, I was hoping to find an instruction book, but no such luck,” Ben sympathized.  “All I know is that you make sounds by blowing into the instrument and others by sucking air out.”

    Adam blew into the instrument, producing a couple of wavering notes.  “I’ll figure it out,” he grinned, “and then I’ll play you a real tune.”

    “I’ll be looking forward to it,” Ben said.  “I know the books may be a little grown up for you, too, boy, but it’s the best I could do.  San Francisco stores don’t stock many books at all, much less ones that are aimed at children.”

    “I’m not a child, Pa,” Adam protested, “and I read real well.”

    “That you do,” Ben said proudly, “but if Sir Walter Scott proves a little hard, you just ask and I’ll help.”

    After breakfast the Cartwrights prepared to go to the Thomases for Christmas dinner.  Because they had gifts to carry there (and presumably back) Ben put Adam’s small prairie schooner to work again.  Piling the gifts inside, he set Hoss, bundled in the blue-hooded flannel wrapper that Nelly Thomas had made him, in the middle with strict instructions not to open any of them.  Then he tied a rope to the wagon and held the other end as he mounted his bay gelding.  “You ride behind so you can keep an eye on Hoss,” Ben said, turning to Adam, seated on his gray.

    “Okay, Pa,” Adam promised.

    Pulling the wagon slowed their trip, of course, but they still arrived in time to exchange gifts before dinner.  Adam and Hoss each received a small wooden chest, on the ends of which were carved pine trees with each boy’s name surrounded by pine cones on the front.

    “Seein’ as how we got such rich younguns,” Clyde drawled, “I figured they could use a trunk to keep their gear in.”

    “Aw, Pa, we ain’t got that much stuff,” Billy sniffed.

    Ben laughed.  “I’d liked to have had half the toys you youngsters have when I was young!”

    “You can say that again,” Clyde snorted.  “Only question is whether I made the chest too small to hold all your things, boy.”

    “I got one, too,” Billy confided to Adam, “but mine’s got a cabin on the ends and the river with willows bending over it on the front with my name.”

    “I want to see,” Adam demanded.

    “Now, you best look inside them chests first,” Clyde snickered.

    “There’s more?” Adam said, kneeling down to open his chest.  The “more” proved to be only a new set of clothes fashioned by Nelly’s needle and the usual knitted cap and mittens, but Adam said thank you politely.  He didn’t get new clothes often enough to take them for granted, even if they didn’t excite him quite as much as books and toys.  Hoss’s chest held clothes, too, as well as a small plain bowl.

    “To feed your pup,” Clyde explained and Hoss grinned.  “I’d carve his name on it, if you’d ever think one up.”

    “Pup,” Hoss insisted, for that was all he ever called the dog.

    “Face it, Clyde,” Ben laughed.  “That’s the dog’s name.”

    “I reckon,” Clyde cackled.  “Okay, Pup it is; I’ll carve ‘er for you after dinner.”

    “Oh, Clyde, it’s Christmas,” Ben protested.  “You don’t have to—”

    “Won’t take long,” Clyde said, as if that settled the question.

    “Hey, Uncle Ben!” Billy called as he started to go into his room to show Adam his chest.  “Did you bring my present for Ma?”

    “My present?” Nelly asked, her brown eyes widening.

    “Yes, ma’am,” Billy declared proudly, prancing back to take the small package Ben was holding out.  He gave it to his mother.  “I bought it with my own gold dust, Ma, and Uncle Ben’s been hidin’ it for me.”

    “Oh, my!” Nelly said, overcome with joy at her boy’s remembrance.  Her eyes sparkled even brighter as she unwrapped the package and drew out a lacy white scarf.  “Oh, my!” she said again, this time overwhelmed by the exquisite craftsmanship.

    “It’s a mantilla,” Ben explained, “like the Spanish ladies in California wear.”

    “Ain’t it purty, Ma?” Billy pressed.  “Like you,” he added, planting a shy kiss on her cheek.

    Nelly blushed furiously.  “Lands, boy, this finery’s a heap prettier than me.  Much too pretty to wear over my tousled head.”

    “Ma, you gotta!” Billy protested.  “I got it so you’d look extra fancy when you go sashayin’ over to Miz Mott’s.”

    “And so I shall, boy,” Nelly replied, giving her boy a squeeze.  “This is too light to wear for winter, but come spring I’ll sashay like a fine lady and make Eliza Ann pea-green with envy.”

    Billy grinned and, giving a satisfied nod, left to show Adam his Christmas riches.

    Ben Cartwright, too, felt rich as he and the boys returned home that evening after a sumptuous dinner of roast goose and other favorite foods.  It wasn’t just the contents of his stomach or of the little red, blue and white wagon that made him feel that way, either, though both were bulging.  Ben felt himself rich in the love of his sons and the warmth of friendship, treasures too vast to fit in any wagon, even one of the huge Conestogas after which Adam’s small replica had been fashioned.  These were riches, too, that would not be depleted, no matter what the upcoming year might bring.