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“Just my rotten luck,” he muttered. “The first women’s libber is going to Oregon on my wagon train.”
    “Maybe it’s your
good
luck,” Stevie whispered, hitching up Yankee and watching as Gabriel hurried over to help a family struggling with their horses’ harness. “Now you can learn firsthand what womenfolk can really do!”

B Y LATE AFTERNOON Stevie had shown Deborah how to steer their horses to the right by saying “gee” and to the left by calling “haw.” Much to her disgust, she had also donned a long-sleeved brown dress that scratched every inch of her. Lisa was outfitted in an equally itchy blue dress with a floppy collar, while Carole, because she was a horse rider, sported a blue homespun shirt and jeans with a battered cowboy hat.
    “I can’t believe I have to drive this wagon across the country in a dress,” Stevie complained, already scratching behind one shoulder. “Are you sure they didn’t have any extra jeans?”
    “I’m sure, Stevie,” Carole explained for the thirdtime as she tried to relax on her new horse, a gray Appaloosa named Nikkia. “All the trousers were for the people who’d been assigned horses.”
    “I’ll tell you something else you’re not going to believe,” called Lisa as she pulled a slow-moving white cow up to their wagon.
    “What?” Stevie asked grumpily.
    “This cow’s name,” Lisa replied.
    “Let me guess,” Carole said as Nikkia slapped his ears back and tossed his head. “Bossy.”
    “Better than that.”
    “Flossy,” guessed Stevie, still scratching.
    “Even better than that,” Lisa said.
    “Okay, we give up,” said Carole.
    “Veronica!” Lisa answered with a huge grin.
    Stevie and Carole howled with laughter. Veronica di Angelo was the snobbiest, most stuck-up girl at Pine Hollow Stables. Somehow it was poetic justice that she should share her glamorous name with a stubborn cow.
    “Veronica would just die if she knew someone had named a cow after her,” hooted Stevie, forgetting about her scratchy dress.
    “I know,” Lisa laughed. “Isn’t it great?”
    A little while later it was time to corral the livestock for the night. Lisa took Veronica back to her pasture, while Carole gratefully pulled off Nikkia’s heavy Western saddle. As Stevie began to unhitch Yankee andDoodle, she noticed that Gabriel was leaning against a fence watching her work. For once his blue eyes sparkled in honest admiration at the smooth way she handled the horses. She was just about to say something to him when someone called him from the other end of the wagon train. She turned back to her horses, and as she returned them to the corral she realized that every time she’d seen Gabriel that day, he’d been going from wagon to wagon, pitching in wherever he was needed and generally giving people good advice.
    “Well, okay, so he knows a lot,” she admitted to Yankee and Doodle as they walked along beside her. “But his attitude toward ‘the womenfolk’ could sure be improved.”
    After the girls had taken care of their livestock, they decided to move from their comfortable lodge rooms out to their wagon. “If we’re roughing it,” said Stevie, “we ought to really rough it.” Just as they were spreading their sleeping bags out on the hard wagon floor, the dinner bell rang.
    “Howdy, pilgrims!” called a short, dumpy man with a grizzled beard. “My name’s Shelly Bean and I’m the cook of this outfit. All who are eating out here with me need to come and get it now!”
    “Let’s go,” said Stevie, scrambling out the back end of the wagon and nearly tripping over the hem of her long dress. “I’m starved!”
    Everyone lined up. As they passed the chuck wagon, Shelly Bean grinned and ladled some odd-smelling stew onto their plates. Then they all sat in a big circle around the campfire.
    “How do you like your supper?” Jeremy asked after everyone had begun to eat.
    “Tastes kind of unusual,” a woman said, coughing slightly.
    “It’s