ever speak to her or to any one,
something which would make her different to me, in a strange, intimate,
unspeakable way, whether I ever saw her again or not. Oh, the lost
enchantment of youth, which makes an idol of a discarded pair of
corsets, and locates a dream land about the combings of a woman's hair;
and lives a century of bliss in a day of embarrassed silence!

It must have been three o'clock, for the rooster of the half-dozen fowls
which I had traded for had just crowed, when Virginia called to me from
the wagon.

"That man," said she in a scared voice, "is hunting for me."

"Yes," said I, only guessing whom she meant.

"If he takes me I shall kill myself!"

"He will never take you from me," I said.

"What can you do?"

"I have had a thousand fights," I said; "and I have never been whipped!"

I afterward thought of one or two cases in which bigger boys had bested
me, though I had never cried "Enough!" and it seemed to me that it was
not quite honest to leave her thinking such a thing of me when it was
not quite so. And it looked a little like bragging; but it appeared to
quiet her, and I let it go. From the mention she had made back there at
Dyersville of men who could fight, using pistol or knife, she apparently
was accustomed to men who carried and used weapons; but, thought I, I
had never owned, much less carried, any weapons except my two hard
fists. Queer enough to say I never thought of the strangeness of a boy's
making his way into a new land with a strange girl suddenly thrown on
his hands as a new and precious piece of baggage to be secreted,
smuggled, cared for and defended.

CHAPTER IX

THE GROVE OF DESTINY

When I had got up in the morning and rounded up my cows I started a fire
and began whistling. I was not in the habit of whistling much; but I
wanted her to wake up and dress so I could get the makings of the
breakfast out of the wagon. After I had the fire going and had whistled
all the tunes I knew--_Lorena, The Gipsy's Warning, I'd Offer Thee This
Hand of Mine,_ and _Joe Bowers_, I tapped on the side of the wagon, and
said "Virginia!"

She gave a scream, and almost at once I heard her voice calling in
terror from the back of the wagon; and on running around to the place I
found that she had stuck her head out of the opening of the wagon cover
and was calling for help and protection.

"Don't be afraid," said I. "There's nobody here but me."

"Somebody called me 'Virginia,'"