uestion at that day. The tall man
on the wagon seat turned his face slowly back toward the interior of
the wagon.

"What do you think, Lizzie?" he asked.

"Dear me, William," came reply from the darkness in a somewhat
complaining voice, "how can I tell? It all seems alike to me. You can
judge better than I."

"What do you say, niece?"

The person last addressed rested a hand upon the questioner's shoulder
and lightly climbed out upon the seat by his side, stooping as she
passed under the low bow of the cover frame. She stood upright, a tall
and gracious figure, upon the wagon floor in front of the seat, and
shaded her eyes as she looked about her. Her presence caused Sam to
instinctively straighten up and tug at his open coat. He took off his
hat with a memory of other days, and said his "Good-mornin'" as the
schoolboy does to his teacher--superior, revered, and awesome.

Yet this new character upon this bare little scene was not of a sort to
terrify. Tall she was and shapely, comely with all the grace of youth
and health, not yet tanned too brown by the searing prairie winds, and
showing still the faint purity of the complexion of the South. There
was no slouch in her erect and self-respecting carriage, no shiftiness
in her eye, no awkwardness in her speech. To Sam it was
instantaneously evident that here was a new species of being, one of
which he had but the vaguest notions through any experiences of his
own. His chief impression was that he was at once grown small, dusty,
and much unshaven. He flushed as he shifted and twisted on the
buckboard seat.

The girl looked about her for a moment in silence, shading her eyes
still with her curved hand.

"It is much alike, all this country that we have seen since we left the
last farms. Uncle William," she said, "but it doesn't seem dreary to
me. I should think--"

But what she would have thought was broken into by a sudden exclamation
from farther back in the wagon. A large black face appeared at the
aperture under the front wagon bow, and the owner of it spoke with a
certain oracular vigour.

"Fo' Gawd, Mass' William, less jess stop right yer! I 'clare, I'se
jess wore to a plum frazzle, a-travelin' an' _a-travelin'_! Ef we
gwine settle, why, less _settle_, thass all I say!"

The driver of the wagon sat silent for a moment, his leg still hanging
over the end of the seat, his chin in the hand of the arm which rested
upon his other leg, propped up o