, writhing and leaping like a live thing frantic
to escape. Conquered, a soaked mass on the ground, he pulled the
bedding from beneath it and she grasped the blankets in her arms and
ran for the wagon. She went against the rain, leaning forward on it,
her skirts torn back and whipped up by the wind into curling eddies.
Her head, the hair pressed flat to it, was sleek and wet as a seal's,
and as she ran she turned and looked at him over her shoulder, a wild,
radiant look that he never forgot.

They sat in the wagon and watched the storm. Soaked and tired they
curled up by the rear opening while the rain threshed against the
canvas and driblets of water came running down the sides. The noise
made talking difficult and they drew close together exclaiming as the
livid lightning saturated the scene, and holding their breaths when the
thunder broke and split its furious way over their heads. They watched
it, conscious each in the other of an increased comforting
friendliness, a gracious reassurance where Nature's transports made man
seem so small.

CHAPTER VII

The Vermilion was swollen. With a bluff on one side and a wide bottom
on the other it ran a prosperous, busy stream, brown and ripple-ridged.
The trail lay like a line of tape along the high land, then down the
slope, and across the bottom to the river. Here it seemed to slip
under the current and come up on the other side where it climbed a
steep bank, and thence went on, thin and pale, rising and dropping to
the ridges till the tape became a thread.

They had been waiting a day for the water to fall. Camped in the
bottom under a scattering of trees with the animals grazing on the
juicy river grass and the song of the stream in their ears, it had been
a welcome break in the monotony of the march. There was always a
choice of occupation in these breathing spells. On the first afternoon
everybody had sat on the grass at the tent doors mending. To-day the
men had revolted and wandered off but Susan continued industriously
intent over patches and darns. She sat on a log, her spools and
scissors beside her, billows of homespun and calico about her feet.

As she sewed she sung in a low undervoice, not looking up. Beyond her
in the shade Daddy John mended a piece of harness. Daddy John was not
a garrulous person and when she paused in her sewing to speak to him,
he answered with a monosyllable. It was one of the old man's
self-appointed duties to w