The week on the trail had given her complexion a light golden tan and brought out scattered freckles across the bridge of her nose. From time to time she glanced across the wagons spread out on each side of her. She had always had the idea that wagon trains would go single file, but at Owen’s suggestion the wagons made a long line, side to side. “No sense anybody eating dust if they don’t have to. It may come to that,” he had said to Ralph Ogden. “There’ll be some places where we’ll have to go in a line. In this kind of country it might be better to spread out.” As Joelle strolled along, weariness caught up with her. It was her time of the month, and she was in considerable discomfort but couldn’t show it, of course. It had taken an entire week to get the train in order, for none of them except the guide, Mace Benton, and Owen had ever been over this territory before. A sound of laughter caught her ears, and to her right she saw youngsters running through the fields, plucking wildflowers, shouting, and playing.
