r my journey's end:

"Sold again
And got the tin,
And sucked another Dutchman in!"

It was in the latter part of March. There were snowdrifts in places
along the road, and when I reached a place about where Mt. Horeb now is,
I had to stop and lie up for three days for a snow-storm. I was ahead
of the stream of immigrants that poured over that road in the spring of
1855 in a steady tide.

As I made my start from Madison I saw Rucker and Alice standing at the
door of the tavern seemingly making sure that I was really getting out
of town. He dodged back into the house when I glanced at them; but she
walked out into the street and stopped me, as bold as brass.

"I'm waiting," said she. "Where shall I ride?" And she put one foot on
the hub and stepped up with the other into the wagon box.

"I'm just pulling out for Iowa," I said, my face as red as her hair, I
suppose.

"_We're_ just pulling out," said she.

"I've got to move on," said I; "be careful or you'll get your dress
muddy on the wheel."

She couldn't have expected me to take her, of course; but I thought she
looked kind of hurt. There seemed to be something like tears in her eyes
as she put her arms around my neck.

"Kiss your little step-sister good-by," she said. "She's been a better
friend of yours than you'll ever know--you big, nice, blundering
greenhorn!"

She laid her lips on mine. It was the first kiss I had ever had from any
one since I was a little boy; and as I half struggled against but
finally returned it, it thrilled me powerfully. Afterward I was
disgusted with myself for kissing this castaway; but as I drove on,
leaving her standing in the middle of the road looking after me, it
almost seemed as if I were leaving a friend. Perhaps she was, in her
way, the nearest thing to a friend I had then in the world--strange as
it seems. As for Rucker, he was rejoicing, of course, at having trimmed
neatly a dumb-head of a Dutch boy--a wrong to my poor mother, the very
thought of which even after all these years, makes my blood boil.

CHAPTER VI

I BECOME COW VANDEMARK

I was off with the spring rush of 1855 for the new lands of the West! I
kept thinking as I drove along of Lawyer Jackway's sarcastic toast,
"Sold again, and got the tin, and sucked another Dutchman in!" But after
all I couldn't keep myself from feeling pretty proud, as I watched the
play of my horses' ears as they seemed to take in each new westward view
as we