uridness. It was getting cold and the wind was dropping; and that was
not a favorable sign.

Pushing the cart through the softer places, dragging the jaded pony by
the head, they hurried on and at last plunged through a creek with the
trees just beyond. A few minutes later they tethered the pony to lee
of the cart, and set up their tent. While Blake was rummaging out
provisions, and Harding searching the bluff for dry sticks, they heard
a beat of hoofs and a man rode up, leading a second horse. He got down
and hobbled the horses before he turned to Blake.

"From the south? You're for Sweetwater?" he asked.

"Yes. How much farther is it?"

"You ought to make it in a day and a half," the stranger said. "I'll
ride in with you. My name's Gardner. I run a store and hotel at
Sweetwater, but I feel that I want to get out on the prairie now and
then, and as a horse was missing I went after him. A looker, isn't he?"

The man had a good-humored, sunburned face and an honest look, and he
gladly acquiesced in Blake's suggestion that he join them instead of
cooking a separate supper.

The prairie was now wrapped in inky gloom, and there was an impressive
stillness except for the occasional rustle of a leaf; but the stillness
was broken by a puff of icy wind which suddenly stirred the grass. The
harsh rustle it made was followed by a deafening crash, and a jagged
streak of lightning fell from the leaden clouds; then the air was
filled with the roar of driving hail. It swept the woods, rending
leaves and smashing twigs, while a constant blaze of lightning
flickered about the grass. Then the thunder died away and the hail
gave place to torrential rain, while the slender trees rocked in the
blast and small branches drove past the tent, where the men crouched
inside. After the rain ceased, suddenly, a fierce red light streamed
along the saturated grass from the huge sinking sun.

Harding, with Gardner's help, brought his pile of wood out of the tent,
and soon made a fire; and it was getting dark, though a band of
transcendental green still burned upon the prairie's western edge, when
they finished supper and, sitting round the fire, took out their pipes.
The hobbled horses were quietly grazing near them.

"That's undoubtedly a fine animal," Blake observed. "Is it yours?"

"No; it belongs to Clarke's Englishman."

"Who's he? It's a curious way to speak of a fellow."

"It fits him," laughed Gardner. "Guess he's