. A man on horseback named Gowdy, with a
negro, came into Independence looking for her this morning after
searching everywhere along the road from some place west back to the
settlement. She is sixteen years old. There wouldn't be any other girl
traveling alone and without provision. Have you passed such a person?"

"No, I hain't," said I. The name "Genevieve" helped me a little in this
deceit.

"You haven't heard any of the people on the road speak of this wandering
girl, have you?" asked Elder Thorndyke.

"No," I answered; "and I guess if any of them had seen her they'd have
mentioned it, wouldn't they?"

"And you haven't seen any lone girl or woman at all, even at a
distance?" inquired Grandma Thorndyke.

"If she passed me," I said, turning and twisting to keep from telling an
outright lie, "it was while I was camped last night. I camped quite a
little ways from the track."

"She has wandered off upon the trackless prairie!" exclaimed Grandma
Thorndyke. "God help her!"

"He will protect her," said the elder piously.

"Maybe she met some one going west," I suggested, rather truthfully, I
thought, "that took her in. She may be going back west with some one."

"Mr. Gowdy told us back in Independence," returned Elder Thorndyke,
"that he had inquired of every outfit he met from the time she left him
clear back to that place; and he overtook the only two teams on that
whole stretch of road that were going east. It is hard to understand.
It's a mystery."

"Was he going on east?" I asked--and I thought I heard a stir in the bed
back of me as I waited for the answer.

"No," said the elder, "he is coming back this way, hunting high and low
for her. I have no doubt he will find her. She can not have reached a
point much farther east than this. She is sure to be found somewhere
between here and Independence--or within a short distance of here. There
is nothing dangerous in the weather, the wild animals, or anything, but
the bewilderment of being lost and the lack of food. God will not allow
her to be lost."

"I guess not," said I, thinking of the fate which led me to my last
night's camp, and of Gowdy's search having missed me as he rode by in
the night.

They drove on, leaving us standing by the roadside. Virginia crept
forward and peeked over the back of the seat after them until they
disappeared over a hillock. Then she began begging me to go where Gowdy
could not find us. He would soon come along, she said,