t's so tarnal cold in the winter. The trees is in
constant varder in Texas, an' that's where we'll go."

By this time the mob had retreated to their wagons, their courage giving
way before the light of day, rather than our resistance; though I could
see that the settlers had no desire to get into a row with one of their
neighbors: so shouting warnings to the Fewkeses to get out of the
country while they could, they drove off, leaving me with the
claim-jumpers. I turned and saw poor Rowena throw herself on the ground
and burst into a most frightful fit of hysterical weeping. She would not
allow her father or her brothers to touch her, and when her mother tried
to comfort her, she said "Go away, ma. Don't touch me!" Finally I went
to her, and she caught my hand in hers and pressed it, and after I had
got her to her feet--the poor ragged waif, as limpsey as a rag, and
wearing the patched remnants of the calico dress I had bought for her on
the way into Iowa the spring before--she broke down and cried on my
shoulder. She sobbed out that I was the only man she had ever known. She
wished to God she were a man like me. The only way I could stop her was
to tell her that her face ought to be washed; when I said that to her,
she stopped her sitheing and soon began making herself pretty: and she
was quite gay on the road to my place, where I took them because I
couldn't think of anything else to do with them, though I knew that the
whole family, not counting Rowena, couldn't or wouldn't do enough work
to pay the board of their horse.

3

They hadn't more than got there and eaten a solid meal, than Surajah
asked me for tools so he could work on a patent mouse-trap he was
inventing, and when I came in from work that evening, he was explaining
it to Magnus Thorkelson, who had come over to borrow some sugar from me.
Magnus was pretending to listen, but he was asking his questions of
Rowena, who stood by more than half convinced that Surrager had finally
hit upon his great idea--which was a mouse-trap that would always be
baited, and with two compartments, one to catch the mice, and one to
hold them after they were caught. When they went into the second
compartment, they tripped a little lever which opened the door for a new
captive, and at the same time baited the trap again.

It seemed as if Magnus could not understand what Surajah said, but that
Rowena's speech was quite plain to him. After that, he came over every
evening and R