he
suffered pangs of hunger and of homesickness, but he never thought of
going back. His violin went everywhere with him, and in more than one
of the little towns along the big river, people began to demand the
boy fiddler who could make such gay music for their merrymakings.

When at last the snow melted, the wild geese flew northward, and the
wilderness trail was open again, he had no difficulty in finding an
emigrant party to which to attach himself. Abner Blythe was a lean,
hard Yankee, but he had lived for years in the Middle West and had
made journeys out into the prairie, although he had never gone the
whole of the way to the mountains and the coast. He knew how to drive
cattle with the long black-snake whip, whose snapping lash alone can
voice the master's orders and which can flick the ear or flank of a
wandering steer at the outermost limit of reach. His frail, eager-eyed
little wife was to go with them, their boy of five, and a company of
helpers who were to drive the wagons of supplies and to serve for
protection against Indians.

The road was crowded at first, and the prairie grass grew green and
high, full of wild strawberries, pink wild roses, and meadow larks.
But as they journeyed slowly westward, as spring passed into summer,
the green turned to brown under the burning sun, the low bluffs and
tree-bordered water-courses were left behind, and they came to the
wide, hot plains that seemed to have no end. At the beginning they
sometimes passed farmhouses to the right and left of the trail, built
by some struggling pioneer, where there was a little stream of water
and where a few trees were planted. The places looked to Felix like
the Noah's Ark he used to play with when he was small--the tiny, toy
trees, the square toy house, little toy animals set out on the bare,
brown floor of the prairie. Even the gaunt women in shapeless garments
who always came to the door to watch the wagon train go by were not
unlike the stiff wooden figures of Mrs. Noah. At last, however, even
the scattered houses came to an end and there was nothing before them
but the wilderness.

It was desperately hot, with the blazing sun above and the scorching
winds swooping over the prairie to blow in their faces like the blast
of a furnace. They made long stops at noontime, resting in the shade
of the wagons and pressed on late into the night, so that not an hour
might be lost. They went by herds of buffalo, big, clumsy, inert
creat