t the word on the western side of
the mud-hole.

"Good work, Mr. Vandemark!" he said. "Those knowledgy folk back along
the road who said you were trading yourself out of your patrimony ought
to see you put the thing through. If you ever need work, come to my
place out in the new Earthly Eden."

"I'll have plenty of work of my own," I said; "but maybe, sometime, I
may need to earn a little money. I'll remember."

I stopped at Independence that night; and so did the Gowdy party. I was
on the road before them in the morning, but they soon passed me,
Virginia looking wishfully at me as they went by, and Buck Gowdy waving
his hand in a way that made me think he must be a little tight--and then
they drove on out of sight, and I pursued my slow way wondering why
Virginia Royall had asked me so anxiously if I knew any good people who
would take in and shelter a friendless girl--and not only take her in,
but fight for her. I could not understand what she had said in any
other way.

I had a hard time that day. The road was already cut up and at the
crossings of the swales the sod on which we relied to bear up our wheels
was destroyed by the host of teams that had gone on before me. That
endless stream across the Dubuque ferry was flowing on ahead of me; and
the fast-going part of it was passing me every hour like swift schooners
outstripping a slow, round-bellied Dutch square-rigger.

The mire-holes were getting deeper and deeper; for the weather was
showery. I helped many teams out of their troubles, and was helped by
some; though my load was not overly heavy, and I had four true-pulling
heavy cows that, when mated with the Alderney bull I had left behind me
with Mr. Westervelt, gave me the best stock of cattle--they and my other
cows--in Monterey County, until Judge Horace Stone began bringing in his
pure-bred Shorthorns; and even then, by grading up with Shorthorn blood
I was thought by many to have as good cattle as he had. So I got out of
most of my troubles on the Old Ridge Road with my cows, as I did later
with them and their descendants when the wheat crop failed us in the
'seventies; but I had a hard time that day. It grew better in the
afternoon; and as night drew on I could see the road for miles ahead of
me a solitary stretch of highway, without a team; but far off, coming
over a hill toward me, I saw a figure that looked strange and mysterious
to me, somehow.

5

It seemed to be a woman or girl, for I co