Page 137

The Way West (1955)

all have ideas. Some might want to go on, but some would want to wait and some wouldn't know what to do. And some would want to physic the man and some to bleed and some to blister him. The result would be an endless dillydallying, when the part of good sense was to load Martin in a wagon and start rolling.
It was like Evans to answer the question. "Camp fever," he said.
A woman's voice asked, "Is it catchin'?"
Tadlock snapped back, "Nol"
Martin opened his eyes and rolled them up from face to face as if hoping to find in one of them the answer to his trouble.
Tadlock swung around. "Go and get ready. We'll move in a few minutes. Evans, if you'll take just a little of my load, I can make a bed. We'll doctor him and roll."
" I do' know, Tadlock," Evans said.
" Don't know what?"
" Do' know as we ought to."
" I'm the captain. I'll assume the responsibility."
Behind Tadlock a dry voice spoke up that he recognized as Patch's. "We're all together, you know, Tadlock, including your hired hand."
" Who said we weren't? We'll still be all together when he's in a wagon."
" That ain't what Patch means," Evans put in.
Tadlock bit back the words that came to his lips.
The foolsl The damn fools, acting as if this were a time and place for leisurely solicitude! He looked at them one by one-Evans, Summers, Patch-trying to stare them down. In their eyes he read a stupid stubbornness.