searching
for her. I mention these things because, while they do not excuse some
things that happened, they do show that, as a boy who had lived the
uncontrolled and, by association, the evil life which I had lived, I was
put in a very hard place.

2

After a while Virginia looked back, and clutched my arm convulsively.

"There's a carriage overtaking us!" she whispered. "Don't stop! Help me
to climb back and cover myself up!"

She was quite out of sight when the carriage turned out to pass, drove
on ahead, and then halted partly across the road so as to show that the
occupants wanted word with me. I brought my wagon to a stop beside them.

"We are looking," said the man in the carriage, "for a young girl
traveling alone on foot over the prairie."

The man was clearly a preacher. He wore a tall beaver hat, though the
day was warm, and a suit of ministerial black. His collar stood out in
points on each side of his chin, and his throat rested on a heavy
stock-cravat which went twice around his neck and was tied in a stout
square knot under his chin on the second turn. Under this black choker
was a shirt of snowy white, as was his collar, while his coat and
trousers looked worn and threadbare. His face was smooth-shaven, and his
hair once black was now turning iron-gray. He was then about sixty
years old.

"A girl," said I deceitfully, "traveling afoot and alone on the prairie?
Going which way?"

The woman in the carriage now leaned forward and took part in the
conversation. She was Grandma Thorndyke, of whom I have formerly made
mention. Her hair was white, even then. I think she was a little older
than her husband; but if so she never admitted it. He was a slight small
man, but wiry and strong; while she was taller than he and very spare
and grave. She wore steel-bowed spectacles, and looked through you when
she spoke. I am sure that if she had ever done so awful a thing as to
have put on a man's clothes no one would have seen through her disguise
from her form, or even by her voice, which was a ringing tenor and was
always heard clear and strong carrying the soprano in the First
Congregational Church of Monterey Centre after Elder Thorndyke had
succeeded in getting it built.

"Her name is Royall," said Grandma Thorndyke--I may as well begin
calling her that now as ever--Royall. When last seen she was walking
eastward on this road, where she is subject to all sorts of dangers from
wild weather and wild beasts