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at John Bear, still sitting groggy in the corner. And I looked at these righteous people crowding the shack. “Molly you’ll come with me,” I said.
    Bending down, I lifted her arms and put her over my shoulder. I expected her to struggle but she made no move to stop me, she weighed like a baby. The air was chill so I told the Russian to put the buffalo robe over her. The minute the robe touched her, Molly gasped and dug her nails in my neck. I carried her out of the shack and toward the dugout, the ladies of the brush following me with their oil lamps throwing a jumpy glow on the ground.
    When I got to the dugout I stepped past Jimmy and laid Molly down on a blanket. Then I hung up the other blanket for the door and poked my head out and said to these still-chattering women: “Alright, I’ll take care of her, she’ll be alright.”
    But when I turned back inside, Molly was looking at her palm—she couldn’t find her cross. “They took it from me, they stole it!” she cried out. And then she began to wail again and to curse. She cursed her father and her mother, she cursed the day she was born, she cursed herself for coming West, she cursed me. And while she ranted and carried on, Jimmy slipped out and found the cross lying on the ground halfway to the Indian’s shack where she had dropped it. He came back in and went to his knees by her side and held it out with that solemn Fee look on his face.
    Molly, all streaked with tears and dirt, looked up at Jimmy as if seeing him for the first time.
    I was wishing she could look at me that way. I said:
    “Molly, you remember Fee’s boy …”
    A few minutes later they were both sleeping sound. It was warm in the dugout, we were like three creatures in a hole, and I sat down to rest a bit before I followed the Russian and his ladies to their tent. I stretched my legs and closed my eyes and I fell asleep. Now I’m trying to write what happened and I wonder, does a dream come under that? I dreamed the Man from Bodie was driving a herd across some badland; and riding each head was a wolf or some buzzard with its claws planted. I was in the middle, running with the rest, and I couldn’t shake free of those claws. They drove me to my knees and I tumbled and was stomped into the earth by those behind me, dirt was filling my mouth. It was the taste of dirt woke me. Pieces of dried-out sod were falling from the wall, on my face. I got a shock because through the edge of the blanket hanging for a door I saw it was broad daylight outside. I had slept right through. Molly and Jimmy were still asleep as I crawled out and stood up stiffly, blinking in the sun.
    It was well along in the afternoon and I was sure those traveling people were gone. But I turned and ten yards in back of the dugout there they were striking their tent. It was a big army tent and they were having trouble, they were too busy to do the striking—they were arguing. When one made to pull up a stake another shouted something, and then they all had to shout something. In the light I could see the womenbetter than I had the night before: the one called Adah seemed to be older than the rest, the Chinese and the other two—one tall, one kind of dumpity—were not much more than girls.
    I was happy to see them.
    But this Zar caught sight of me in the middle of a long harangue and he tacked me on to the end of it: “And you, frand, are no frand of mine!” he shouted.
    I didn’t know what to say to that, I walked over to the well to wash off. He came up to me, talking every step of the way: “So what shall I do now? All morning I search for trail to mining camp! You did not tell me there was none, you said nothing. And now I have women who should be on their backs and they are on my neck. Four days have I lost!”
    My head was still filled with sleep. “Trail up through those rocks plain as day,” I said.
    “You call that trail? It is for ants. How can I get my wagon on that trail?”
    He was right there, I