the Arkansas. His hand in my hot
hand! His strength about me, invisible, unbreakable, infinite. When a
man enters into that shielding Presence, nothing else matters.

I do not know how many miles we went down-stream, leaving no trail in
the shallow water or along its hard-baked edges. But by the time we
dropped that line I had begun to think coherently and to take note of
everything possible to me, bound as I was, face downward, on the pony's
back. It was when we had left the river that the hard riding began, and
a merciful unconsciousness, against which I fought, softened some
stretches of that long day's journey. We crossed the Santa Fe Trail and
were pushing eastward out of sight of it to the north. No stop, no word,
nothing but ride, ride, ride. Truly, I needed the Presence that went
with me on the way.

At sunset we stopped, and I was taken from my pony and thrown to the
ground. I managed, in spite of my bonds, to sit up and look about me.

We were on the top of Pawnee Rock. The heat of the day was spent and all
the radiant tints of evening were making the silent prairies unspeakably
beautiful. I do not know why I should have noted or remembered any of
this, save that the mind sometimes gathers impressions under strange
stress of suffering. I had had no food all day, and when our ponies
stopped to drink, the agony of thirst was maddening. My tongue was
swollen and my lips were cracked and bleeding. The leather thongs that
bound me cut deep now. But--only the men who lived it can know what all
this meant to the pioneer of the trail.

I have sat on the same spot at sunset many a time in these my sunset
years; have gazed in tranquil joy at the whole panorama of the heavens
that hang over the prairies in the opalescent splendor of the
after-sunset hour; have looked out over the earthly paradise of waving
grain, all glowing with the golden gleam of harvest, in the heart of the
rich Kansas wheat-lands--and somehow I'm glad of soul that I foreran
this day and--maybe--maybe I, too, helped somewhat to build the way--the
way that Esmond Clarenden had helped to clear a decade before and was
building then.

The six Indians gathered near me. One of them with unmerciful mercy
loosened my bonds a trifle and gave me a sup of water. They did not want
me to die too soon. Then they sat down to eat and drink. I did not shut
my eyes, nor turn my head. I defied their power to crush me, and the
very defiance gave me strength.

Th