of life, look not upon the flush when
it is red--not even the straight one; for had I not done that on a
damned steamboat coming up from St. Louis I should not have been thus in
my old age forsaken. And let me tell you, one day my coachman will pull
up at the door of your farm-house and take you and your wife and
children in my coach and four for a drive--perhaps to see the laying of
the corner-stone of the United States court-house in Lithopolis. I go
from your ken, but I shall return--good-by."

I was sorry to see him go. It was lonesome without him; and I was
troubled by my live stock. I soon saw that I was getting so many cattle
that without help in driving them I should be obliged to leave and come
back for some of them. I found a farmer named Westervelt who lived by
the roadside, and had come to Iowa from Herkimer County, in York State.
He even knew some of the relatives of Captain Sproule; so in view of the
fact that he seemed honest, I left my cattle with him, all but four
cows, and promised to return for them not later than the middle of July.
I made him give me a receipt for them, setting forth just what the
bargain was, and I paid him then and there for looking out for them--and
N.V. Creede said afterward that the thing was a perfectly good legal
document, though badly spelled.

"It calls," said he, "for an application of the doctrine of _idem
sonans_--but it will serve, it will serve."

I marveled that the Gowdy carriage still was astern of me after all this
time; and speculated as to whether there was not some other road between
Dyersville and Independence, by which they had passed me; but a few
miles east of Independence they came up behind me as I lay bogged down
in a slew, and drove by on the green tough sod by the roadside. I had
just hitched the cows to the end of the tongue, by means of the chain,
when they trotted by, and sweeping down near me halted. Virginia still
sat as if she had never moved, her hand gripping the iron support of the
carriage top, her foot outside the box as if she was ready to spring
out. Buck Gowdy leaped out and came down to me.

"In trouble, Mr. Vandemark?" he inquired. "Can we be of any assistance?"

"I guess I can make it," I said, scraping the mud off my trousers and
boots. "Gee-up there, Liney!"

My cows settled slowly into the yoke, and standing, as they did now, on
firm ground, they deliberately snaked the wagon, hub-deep as it was, out
of the mire, and stopped a