on. It's easy to get lost down in the
great prairie."

They heard a cat-bird singing in a near thicket as they left their camp.
It reminded Bim of her favorite ballad and she sang it with the spirit of
old:

"My sweetheart, come along--
Don't you hear the glad song
As the notes of the nightingale flow?
Don't you hear the fond tale of the sweet nightingale
As she sings in the valleys below?
As she sings in the valleys below?"

They went on shoulder-deep in the tall grass on the lower stretches of
the prairie. Here and there it gave Harry the impression that he was
swimming his horse in "noisy, vivid green water." They startled a herd
of deer and a number of wild horses. When they lost sight of the woods at
Plain's End the young man, with his cavalry training, was able to ride
standing on his saddle until he had got it located. It reminded him
of riding in the Everglades and he told of his adventures there as they
went on, but very modestly. He said not a word of his heroic fight the
day that he and sixty of his comrades were cut off and surrounded in
the "land of the grassy waters." But Bim had heard the story from other
lips.

Late in the afternoon the woods loomed in front of them scarcely a mile
off. Near the end of the prairie they came to a road which led them past
the door of a lonely cabin. It seemed to be deserted, but its windows
were clean and a faint column of smoke rose from its chimney. There
were hollyhocks and sunflowers in its small and cleanly dooryard. A
morning-glory vine had been trained around the windows.

"Broad Creek is just beyond," said Bim. "I don't know how the crossing
will be."

They came presently to the creek, unexpectedly swollen. A man stood on
the farther shore with some seventy feet of deep and rapid water between
him and the travelers.

"That man looks like Stephen Nuckles," said Harry.

"It is Stephen Nuckles," Bim answered.

"Hello, Steve!" the young soldier called.

"Howdy, boy!" said the old minister. "That ar creek is b'ilin' over.
I reckon you'll have to swim the hosses."

"They're young city horses and not broke to deep water but we'll try
them," said Bim.

They tried but Bim's horse refused to go beyond good footing.

"You kin light at that ar house an' spend the night but the folks have
gone erway," the minister called.

"I guess you'll have to marry us right here and now," Harry proposed.
"Night is coming and that house is our only refug