g right off your horse."

"And Fourth of July over too," said Mart from the wagon. He was putting
cartridges into the magazine of his Winchester. His common-sense told
him that those horsemen would not cross the river, but the notion of a
night attack pleased the imagination of young sixteen.

"It was the children," said Mrs. Clallam. "And nobody's getting me any
wood. How am I going to cook supper? Stir yourselves!"

They had carried water in the wagon, and father and son went for wood.
Some way down the hill they came upon a gully with some dead brush, and
climbed back with this. Supper was eaten on the ground, the horses were
watered, given grain, and turned loose to find what pickings they might
in the lean growth; and dusk had not turned to dark when the emigrants
were in their beds on the soft dust. The noise of the rapids dominated
the air with distant sonority, and the children slept at once, the boy
with his rifle along his blanket's edge. John Clallam lay till the moon
rose hard and brilliant, and then quietly, lest his wife should hear
from her bed by the wagon, went to look across the river. Where the
downward slope began he came upon her. She had been watching for some
time. They were the only objects in that bald moonlight. No shrub grew
anywhere that reached to the waist, and the two figures drew together on
the lonely hill. They stood hand in hand and motionless, except that the
man bent over the woman and kissed her. When she spoke of Iowa they had
left, he talked of the new region of their hopes, the country that lay
behind the void hills opposite, where it would not be a struggle to
live. He dwelt on the home they would make, and her mood followed his
at last, till husband and wife were building distant plans together. The
Dipper had swung low when he remarked that they were a couple of fools,
and they went back to their beds. Cold came over the ground, and their
musings turned to dreams. Next morning both were ashamed of their fears.

By four the wagon was on the move. Inside, Nancy's voice was heard
discussing with her mother whether the school-teacher where they were
going to live now would have a black dog with a white tail, that could
swim with a basket in his mouth. They crawled along the edge of the vast
descent, making slow progress, for at times the valley widened and they
receded far from the river, and then circuitously drew close again where
the slant sank abruptly. When the ferryman's c