e two lines of open
water showed through the grass on the high spots where cattle and wheels
had passed, and I knew that in an hour the flood would run itself off
and wipe out even this trace. I felt a sense of triumph, and mingled
with this was a queer thrill that set my hands trembling at the
consciousness that the prairie had closed about me and this girl with
the milk-white neck and the fire in her hair who had asked me if I would
not even lie "for her."

We wound down the flooded swale, we left the Ridge Road quite out of
sight, we finally drew up out of the hollow and took to the ridges and
hog-backs making a new Ridge Road for ourselves. Nowhere in sight was
there the slightest trace of humanity or human settlement. We were
alone. Still bearing south I turned westwardly, after rolling up the
covers to let in the drying wind. I kept looking back to see if we were
followed; for now I was suddenly possessed of the impulse to hide, like
a thief making for cover with stolen goods. Virginia, wearied out with
the journey, the strain of her escape, and the nervous tension, was
lying on the couch, often asking me if I saw any one coming up
from behind.

The country was getting more rolling and broken as we made our way down
toward the Cedar River, or some large creek making into it--but, of
course, journeying without a map or chart I knew nothing about the lay
of the land or the watercourses. I knew, though, that I was getting into
the breaks of a stream. Finally, in the gathering dusk I saw ahead of me
the rounded crowns of trees; and pretty soon we entered one of those
beautiful groves of hardwood timber that were found at wide distances
along the larger prairie streams--I remember many of them and their
names, Buck Grove, Cole's Grove, Fifteen Mile Grove, Hickory Grove,
Crabapple Grove, Marble's Grove, but I never knew the name of this, the
shelter toward which we had been making. I drove in between scattered
burr oaks like those of the Wisconsin oak openings, and stopped my
cattle in an open space densely sheltered by thickets of crabapple, plum
and black-haw, and canopied by two spreading elms. Virginia started up,
ran to the front of the wagon and looked about.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"This is our hiding-place," I replied.

"But that man--won't he follow our tracks?"

"We didn't leave any tracks," I said.

"How could we come without leaving tracks?" she queried, standing close
to me and looking up into