it hurtled past, a screaming
thing of iron and flying sparks, both the pinto and the pony, despite
their riders' curbing, retreated so precipitately from the track that
neither she nor the youngest brother caught more than a glimpse of the
flying train, for their mounts ceased running only when the barn-yard
was reached. Then the old mare came to a stop, blowing and trembling so
wildly that she could scarcely keep her legs, while the bald-face kicked
and snorted about among the granaries and pens in a perfect paroxysm of
terror.

It was not long, however, before the pinto completely lost her fear of
the engine, and would eat quietly near the embankment while the little
girl lay flat on the ties to listen for a first faint rumble, or waved
at the people in the cars. The flock, too, became so familiar with the
track that they soon had a contempt for it, a feeling that they retained
even after a dozen of their number had been mangled on its rails; but
the cattle always kept it at a respectful distance, and only Napoleon
ever showed the train enough hostility to shake his stubby horns angrily
at it or charge toward it as it shot away over the plains. The herd was
allowed, therefore, to feed along the railroad in the custody of the
little girl.

But now, for nearly three weeks, the Swede boy had kept guard over the
grazing stock, and the little girl had not even seen the cloud above the
distant train. For she was ill: so ill that the neighbor woman, who
shared the long night watches beside the canopied bed with the biggest
brother and his mother, shook her head in the seclusion of the kitchen,
and told herself that the little girl would never be well again.

The family were beginning to have the same awful thought, and had sent a
telegraphic summons from the new station, ten miles away, to a physician
in Sioux Falls. To them a cloud far heavier and darker than the engine's
breath was hanging, day and night, over the farm-house, shutting out all
sunshine, hope, and happiness.

One warm afternoon, while the little girl was riding the cultivator mare
up and down in the Indian corn, she had suddenly been seized with a
chill. That night a fever followed, and for a week she grew steadily
worse. Her mother gave her every home remedy known to be good for
malaria, and at the end of the second week moved her to the canopied
bed, where an ever waving fan cooled her hot cheeks. It was here, almost
at the end of the third week of he