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.After a long argument, Mr.Meyer sent Wash and half theable-bodied through the dead trees to check on the wagon.We drew straws for it; saber cats aside, everyone had a fairnotion what they d find and nobody was any too keen ongoing to look.I was relieved to get a long straw, which meantI d stay to help guard the injured.A few minutes later, we heard another round of shots.Awhile after that, Wash s group came back, grim-faced. Two more saber cats, a sphinx, and five cubs, Wash reported. We got them all. They had cubs to protect? Mr.Meyer said. No wonderthey came at us like that! He paused for a minute. Whatabout The settlers? Wash shook his head. No survivors. We were lucky, another man said, and spat. These catswere still half starved.It can t have been more than a day ortwo since they got the wagon; if they d had more time to feedon the greenhorn s oxen, they d have had a lot more of theirstrength back. We stayed on guard until the trackers had circled thecamp, looking for signs of any more cats.Once they weresure we d gotten them all, we had to decide what to do next.With three men hurt (two of them badly enough that theycouldn t ride), we wouldn t make it to a settlement bynightfall.Half the men wanted to get as far as we could; therest wanted to stay put and ride out in the morning.They d allpretty much decided that since the saber cats were dead, theydidn t have to follow Mr.Meyer s orders without giving theirown opinions first.They had a lot of opinions.Then the threewho were most set on having things their own way got toarguing with each other, and even when someone pointed outthat the longer they argued, the more likely it was that we dhave to stay put, it only made them argue harder.In the end, we sent five people to get the horses and theguards we d left with them, and started hacking down thedead brush for firewood.Wash and Professor Torgeson set upthe strongest protection spells they could do at short notice,though as Wash said, it wasn t really necessary. A pride of saber cats has been living here for at leastthree days, he pointed out. With cubs.Most of the wildlife has sense enough to stay far away from saber cat territory, ifthey can. Most of the wildlife? someone asked. Well, I doubt that a steam dragon would be bothered, Wash said, but it s been seven years since one of them gotblown out of the Far West into settlement territory. That got a nervous laugh from some of the settlers, but Ishivered.I remembered that steam dragon.It was the firsttime I d ever heard the alarm bell in Mill City ring the wildlifewarning.The dragon had flown right over the Great BarrierSpell, and it had taken most of the magicians in town to bringit down.Once the protection spell was up, Mr.Meyer asked forvolunteers to bury the dead and salvage what they could fromthe wagon.I wasn t too keen on helping with the burying, butI could see that someone should at least try to find out whothey d been and where their people were, so that their familycould be notified.I said I d help with the wagon.I was sorry almost as soon as I got near.The wagon hadhad four oxen pulling it, and they and the settlers had beendead in the hot sun for two days.On top of that, the sabercats had been marking the area as theirs.The whole areastank of death and decay and cat urine.I hauled out myhandkerchief and tied it over my nose and mouth.It helped,but I still had to breathe shallowly.Four of the men gathered up the bodies of the settler andhis family, while some of the others started in digging thegraves.As soon as they said the wagon was cleared out, Iclimbed up on the driver s seat and started looking around.There was an old sawed-off shotgun lying crosswise rightwhere the driver would have been sitting.Both barrels hadbeen fired.Under the seat, I found a metal box, the sort most settlers used to carry money and family papers.It wasn tlocked, and when I opened it I got a shock.The dead settlerswere Giles Carpenter, the man we d met at Puerta del Oestewho d been in too much hurry to get to his allotment to waitfor a travel guide, and his family.That rattled me more than a little, and I was still shakyfrom the fight with the saber cats.I d always known that thesettlements were dangerous, and I d met a few folks who dbeen injured by wildlife, but Mr.Carpenter was the firstperson I d met who d actually gotten killed in the West.ThatI knew of, anyway; about half of my class from the dayschool had gone out to settlements and I hadn t kept in touchwith any of them.That thought was even more unsettling.Iclosed up the box and set it aside, then crawled back into thewagon to see what Mr.Carpenter had brought along withhim.Mr.Carpenter may not have been too smart abouttraveling with a guide, but he d done a bang-up job at pickinghis supplies.There were two more guns packed away, an oldsmoothbore rifle and a revolver, and plenty of ammunitionfor all of them.He had a small keg of nails, two barrels offlour and another of sugar, a lot of beef jerky, a large crate oftools for building and mending things, seed for both a field ofsoybeans and one of Scandian wheat, and a lot of otherthings.All of it seemed like it would be real useful, even to awell-established settlement like Neues Hamburg, so ratherthan deciding anything myself, I made a list for Mr.Meyer.Iwas glad when I finished and got back to the camp, even if itwas only a little way from the wagon.Over dinner that night, the settlers had a solemn talk onwhat to do with Mr.Carpenter s wagon and supplies.Therewas too much to just abandon, but nobody wanted to come back a second time.Luckily, one of the men said he couldjury-rig a harness for horses from what was left of the strapsand the yoke for the oxen.It wouldn t be as good as a properhorse collar, but if they went slowly and some of the menhelped push the wagon, it would do.What clinched theargument was that we could put the three injured men in theback.They d be jolted around there was no helping that but there was no way they could ride, and the wagon wasbetter than having to ride double.As soon as she heard we were taking the wagon, ProfessorTorgeson asked if there d be room for one of the dead sabercats.The settlers gave her funny looks.One of them offeredto skin one for her right there, if she wanted it that bad, butshe said she wanted the whole cat for the college to dissect.Mr
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