e yokes, plodding doggedly through lakes fretted with the downpour. Breakfast was a farce; nobody's fire would burn and the women were wet through before t

assurance, to be beaten down by the rain, wh

, or dripped, or stood everywhere. The river, its surface roughened by the spit of angry drops, ran swollen among its islands, plumed shapes seen mistily through the veil. The road emerged in

ey had already come to regard the vagaries of the weather as matters of no import. Mosquitoes and Indians were all they feared. On such nights many

sposed in a form that made a comfortable seat. A blanket was spread behind her, and thus enthroned she knitted at a stocking of gray yarn. Seen in the daylight she was young, fresh-skinned, and not uncomely. Placidity seemed to be the dominating note of her personality. It found physical expression in the bland parting of her hair, drawn back from her smooth brow, her large plump hands with their deliberate movemen

the roof. He looked sleepy, gave a grunt of greeting to Susan, and then lapsed against the saddle propped behind him, his hat pulled low on his forehead hiding his eyes. In t

n to personal matters: where they came from, what they were at home, whither they were bound. The two sisters were Scotch girls, had come from Scotland twenty years ago when Lucy was a baby. T

rt," said his wife. "Couldn't wait for anything but

," said Susan, wondering

not really think it was, but was too lazy to disagr

at Fort

doctor among them. And they say it's a good place for the animals-plenty of grass-

ning on the throne of sacks. The wagon gave a creaking lurch and Bella nearly lost count of her stitches which made her frown as sh

la. These long tags hanging

ll borrow a bowl from Mrs. Peeble's mother so

llow, four years old, had on a homespun shirt and drawers, both dripping. His hair was a wet mop, hanging in rat tails to his eyes. Under its thatch his face, p

nd filling the air with the sweetness of his laughter. Then holding to her arm an

inquired, watching her face

said, trying to

rought them?" still

away. "You're soaked.

holding his flowers, w

id his mother. "I'

eg, drag him toward her, roll him up in the end of the blanket and with a silencing slap say, "There, lie still." This quieted him. He lay subdued save for a waving hand in which the flowers were still imbedded

the canvas, possessed the old, deathless charm. The doctor and his philanthropies, on which she would have liked to dilate, were given the perfunctory attention that politeness demanded. By himself the good man is dull, he has to h

are with him in our train. And so gallant and polite. Last night, when I was heating the water to wash the children

had appeared t

outed "Gee Haw" and made a fut

attention to h

you'd never met till you started o

If it did not make her love him more, it made her feel the pride of ownership in a d

ful how much he's read. And he can recite poetry, verses and verses, Byron a

lover's did not elicit a

ng stitches under her breath and then pulling a nee

he virgin state with fancy free to ran

ive in it with him he'll recite poetry to you in the

e other side of the world, caused a sudden return of yesterday's dejection. It rushed back upon her in a flood under which her heart declined into bott

. "My father and Daddy John will be there. I couldn't be separated fro

ce the tone, or ma

rried," she said with her benign co

agreed to this, and arranged the programm

ll see them often; ride over every few days. But y

hands and her kisses, not there to laugh with her and tease her and tell her she was a tyrant, only David loving her in an unintelligible, discomforting way and wanting to read poetry and admire sunsets. The misery of it gripped down into her soul. It was as the thought of being marooned on a l

us eyes, in which there was a

awfully hap

Susan, swallowing an

he New York Company on good roads, in fair weather, made twenty miles a day, and that in the mountains, where the fodder was scarce and the trail hard, would fall to a slower pace. The doctor's party, the cow long since sacrificed

h gave its members confidence in their luck and generalship. It was agreed that they should leave the big train the next morning and move on as ra

, was hard to relinquish. She would once again have to adjust herself to the dull male perceptions which saw and heard nothing that was not visible and audible. She would have to shut herself in with her o

e schooner had made the three women more intimate than a year of city visiting would have done. They made promises of meeting again in California. Neither party knew its exact

rom horizon to horizon was here and there rent apart, showing strips of lemon-colored sky. The ground was soaked, the footprints round the wagons filled with water,

r was draining off. Through the looped entrance they could see the regular lights of the fires, spotted on the twilight like the lamps of huge, sedentary glow worms, and the

s of the friendship that was to be renewed in California, and then, drawing closer together, watching the fires die down to sulk

natural that a love story of her own should be confessed. It was back in Cooperstown, and he had been an apprentice of Glen's. She hadn't cared for him at all, judging by excerpts from the scenes of his courtship he had been treated with unmitigated harshness. But her words an

u did li

im at all. I cou

sorry you didn

ference of the night made a lie seem too trivial for the effort of tellin