e cover, her left foot
over the side as it might be in case of a person who was ready to jump
out to escape the danger of a runaway, an overturn, or some other peril.

Gowdy did not recognize me, or if he did he did not speak to me. He got
out of the carriage and went first into the store, coming out presently
with some packages in his hand which he tossed to the darky, and then he
joined the crowd of men in front of the saloon across the way. Soon I
saw him go into the gin-mill, the crowd following him, and the noise of
voices grew louder. I had had enough experience with such things to know
pretty well what was going on; the stink of spilled drinks, and
profanity and indecency--there was nothing in them to toll me in from
the flowery prairie.

As I passed the carriage Virginia nodded to me; and looking at her I saw
that she was pale and tremulous, with a look in her eyes like that of a
crazy man I once knew who imagined that he was being followed by enemies
who meant to kill him. There is no word for it but a hunted look.

She came to my wagon, pretty soon, and surprised me by touching my arm
as I was about to start on so as to make a few more miles before
camping. I had got my team straightened out, and ready to start, when I
felt her hand on my arm, and on turning saw her standing close to me,
and speaking almost in a whisper.

"Do you know any one," she asked, "good people--along the road
ahead--people we'll overtake--that would be friends to a girl that
needs help?"

"Be friends," I blundered, "be friends? How be friends?"

"Give her work," she said; "take her in; take care of her. This girl
needs friends--other girls--women--some one to take the place of a
mother and sisters. Yes, and she needs friends to take the place of a
father and brothers. A girl needs friends--friends all the time--as you
were to me back there in the night."

I wondered if she meant herself; and after thinking over it for two or
three days I made up my mind that she did; and then I was provoked at
myself for not understanding: but what could I have done or said if I
had understood? I remembered, though, how she had skithered[7] back to
the carriage as she saw Pinck Johnson coming out of the saloon with Buck
Gowdy; and had then clambered out again and gone into the little hotel
where they seemed to have decided to stay all night; while I went on
over roads which were getting more and more miry as I went west. I had
only been able to