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team at least.”
    “And if I can’t afford that much?”
    “Then you don’t go, or you walk,” the landlady said flatly. “Unless you could find someone with space to spare, to take you along with them.”
    “Oh,” Libby said. She put out her hand against the doorpost to steady herself. Despair was fighting with anger that she had not troubled to find out the facts before she set out on such a crazy journey.
    “Don’t give up heart now, my dear,” the landlady said, putting a big, heavy hand on Libby’s shoulder. “I hear there’s a fine, well-equipped party about to set out this week, run by a Mr. Sheldon Rival—a bigwig out of Chicago, so they say. He had a dozen wagons shipped here and a hold full of supplies with him which he aims to make a fortune with in California. He might have wagon space for the children at least. You could walk alongside. The wagons don’t move fast if they’re pulled by oxen which these are.”
    “Thank you,” Libby said. “I’ll go and try to convince this Mr. Rival to take me with him. Any idea where he’s camped?”
    “Camped?” Ma Zettel asked. “He’s at the Independence House—best hotel in town. He’s taken the whole second floor.”
    Libby felt hopeful and excited as she made her way to the big brick building on Main Street. At least Mr. Rival was a civilized man from Chicago—a businessman like her father. She could talk to him as one cultured person to another. The desk clerk pointed her in the direction of the restaurant when Libby asked for Mr. Rival’s rooms.
    “He’s taking his lunch,” he said. “You can’t miss him. Big fellow, dressed real swanky.”
    Libby went into the restaurant. It was spacious and cool, decorated with large potted palms and marble pillars. She stood behind one of these as she looked around for Mr. Rival. He was, as the desk clerk had predicted, very easy to spot; a large red-faced man, probably in his forties, with at least three chins, into the last of which a napkin was now tucked as Mr. Rival bent over, slurping soup noisily from a bowl. Libby could see the glint of gold at his cuff links and watch chain. The top of his head was starting to bald although the rest of his hair was very black, making Libby guess that he dyed it. He was accompanied at the table by two wiry young men who looked like Libby’s impression of a cowboy. They both listened politely as Mr. Rival spoke nonstop between slurps of soup.
    “I don’t intend losing one bag of that flour, you hear me? Not one bag. You’ll get your pay when I roll into the streets of Hangtown and not before. Understood?”
    “Yes sir, Mr. Rival,” two voices chorused like children in a school.
    Libby walked over and stood before him. Seeing her shadow, he raised his eyes, soup still dripping down his chins. “Watta you want?” he growled.
    “How do you do?” Libby said politely. “I’m Elizabeth Grenville and I understand that you are shortly setting out for California. I’m travelling there alone and thought you might have space to take me on one of your wagons, for a fee, of course.”
    She was very conscious of the way Sheldon Rival looked her up and down, then licked the soup from his lips. “Thanks, little lady, but it’s more profitable for me to transport flour than fancy girls,” he said. “Flour will make more for me than you will.”
    “How dare you!” Libby said, almost having to restrain herself from slapping his face.
    Sheldon Rival looked amused. “Why else does a lady on her own go out to California right now?” he asked. “There’s good money to be made in ‘entertainment’.” He put such meaning into the last word that the two men with him laughed.
    Libby’s face had flushed bright red. “I’d like you to know that I’m a respectable married woman from a good Bostonian family,” she said, “and I’m travelling to California to join my husband. I was not asking for your charity or your patronage. I can’t manage my own wagon