"I expect they're just stuck on a sandbar, around the curve, and will be here as soon as they get unstuck," Uncle Seth said. He knew how impatient Ma was, and how vexed she got when events didn't go off on time. It even happened with baby Marcy, who had been in no hurry to be born. Ma finally got tired of waiting and went off in the woods to the cabin of an old medicine woman--Choctaw, Uncle Seth said. She must have been good at her medicine because Ma took a potion of some kind and delivered baby Marcy that night.

Of course, baby Marcy was already there--she just happened to be inside rather than outside. The boat was different: it wasn't there.

"I expect it'll show up within the next few minutes," Uncle Seth said, uneasily.

"He's a cheerful one, ain't he?" Aunt Rosie said. "My bet would be that it never shows up."

"Of course it will--I paid our passage," Uncle Seth said.

"All of it?" Ma asked. "No--I ain't a fool. Half of it," he said. "Neva, go ask the Indian gentleman if he's seen a boat," Ma said.

"A flatboat," Uncle Seth said. "It had a fence around the deck to keep the animals from jumping off."

I was shy around strangers, and Neva wasn't, which is why Ma asked her to go quiz the Indian. Even so, my feelings were hurt--I was the oldest, and it should have been my job. But Neva trotted right down to the Indian, a medium-sized man.

Probably it was his canoe pulled up on the bank. Neva asked her question and the man, who had finally got his line untangled, listened to her patiently. When Neva came back he followed, a step or two behind her.

"It burnt--that's that," Neva said. "I guess we'll have to go back home."

"I thought Seth was being too cheerful," Aunt Rosie said.

Sally, Uncle Seth's mare, whinnied again, and Mr. Hickok came loping up.

"Here's Bill--I guess he finished his toddy," Uncle Seth said.

"Why hello, Charlie, hoping for a perch for breakfast?" Mr. Hickok said, speaking to the Indian man. He tipped his hat to Ma and Aunt Rosie.

"I may find a fish a little later," the man said. "Right now I was going to explain to these people that the boat they were expecting burned last 55

night. I think all the people on it made it to shore. I was passing and helped two of them who were tired of swimming."

"Damn the luck!" Ma said. I had never heard her curse before.

"Yes, it was bad luck," the Indian said politely.

"You could introduce us, Bill, since it seems this gentleman and you are friends," Uncle Seth said, in an amiable tone. I believe, with Ma so angry, he was glad of the company.

"Oh, ain't you met?" Mr. Hickok said. "This is Charlie Seven Days, of the Lemhi people, from up near the Snake River, I believe--Charlie's a far piece from home."

"What people?" Uncle Seth asked, stepping down from the wagon seat.

"Lemhi--Shoshone," the man said in a careful tone, nodding to us all.

"I've heard of the Snake River, but it's out of my territory--so far, at least," Uncle Seth said.

"Charlie has the knack of turning up just when you need him," Mr. Hickok said. "He got me across a patch of thin ice once, during the war, and if he hadn't, I believe the Rebs would have caught me."

"Well, if he had a boat, we'd need him," Ma said. "We can't all fit in that canoe."

"Seen any boats, in your travels?" Uncle Seth asked.

"There is a steamboat tied up at Glasgow, which is not too far, but I don't know if it is a good boat, or if you could hire it," the Indian said.

Glasgow was several miles up the river--if we were going to take our wagon across the plains we ought to at least be able to take it that far.

"What brought you this far south?" Mr. Hickok inquired. "I thought you usually favored the northern climes."

"The Old Woman sent me to find her son," Charlie Seven Days said. "She thought he might be in St. Louis--but he's not in St. Louis. I think he may be in California, but I'm not sure. Now I have to go back and tell her he is still lost."

"What's he talking about?" Uncle Seth asked. "What old woman?"

"The Old One--the one who went with the first captains," Charlie said.

"Lewis and Clark, the woman who went with them--I forget her name," Mr.

Hickok said. "I believe she lives on the Snake River somewhere, which is where Charlie's from."

"Is that in the direction of Wyoming?" Ma asked.

"Yes," Charlie said.

56

"Then you're going the same direction we are," Ma said. "Why don't you come with us? I'd feel more comfortable if we had a guide who knew the country."

That proposition didn't seem to surprise Charlie Seven Days, but it sure surprised Uncle Seth.

"A guide?" he said. "What do you think I am, if not a guide?"

"My brother-in-law," Ma said.

"But we just met this fellow," Uncle Seth said. "He may have plans of his own."

Ma's proposition didn't seem to faze Charlie Seven Days at all.

"I could take you as far as South Pass," he said. "That is where I must go north, to find the Old Woman. She is afraid her son might have died."

"What do we do about your canoe?" Ma asked Mr. Seven Days.

"We could just go back to the cabin and wait until the next good flatboat shows up," Uncle Seth said. I don't think he liked the quick way Ma took to Charlie Seven Days.

"No," Ma said. "We left. We're gone. I'm not go- ing back. If I have to drive this wagon every step of the way to Wyoming, then I will."

Charlie Seven Days was considering the question of his canoe, which sure wouldn't fit in our wagon. "I don't want to leave this canoe," Charlie said. "We might need it up the river--sometimes the big boats get stuck.

I will paddle up to Glasgow and meet you there--it's only a day, for you, if you travel steady."

"You don't have to worry about the steady travel," Uncle Seth said. "If there's one thing I know about Mary Margaret, it's that once she starts traveling she'll travel steady."

"Getting her to stop long enough for my naps, that'll be the problem,"

Granpa said.

"I ain't able to sleep sound in a moving wagon," he added.

"I will meet you at the dock in Glasgow," Charlie said. "You should be there about sundown."

Then he got in his canoe and paddled away.

"This is your doing, Bill," Uncle Seth said, still exercised about Ma's decision. "Now we're saddled with an Indian we don't know a thing about."

Mr. Hickok was not disturbed.

"Seth, I done you a favor--there's no better man to travel with than Charlie," he said. "They say he knows every creek and varmint den in the west, and I believe it."

57

"Thank you for your introduction, Mr. Hickok," Ma said. "We had better be on our way now--I mean to make Glasgow by sundown."

Ma clucked, and the mules moved. In a minute she had the wagon turned and we were on the north road. As we passed Mr. Hickok he tipped his hat three times, once to Ma, once to Aunt Rosie, and even once to Neva, who blushed when he done it.

"This departure is sure a heartbreaker for good old Boone's Lick," he said. "There'll be a drastic shortage of pretty ladies, now that the three of you are taking your leave."