ted to stay there with my girl. The blood rose to my head
as I went quietly forward until I could see Virginia.

She was alone! She had taken a blanket from the wagon and spread it on
the ground upon the grass under a spreading elm, and scattered about on
it were articles of clothing which she had taken from her satchel--that
satchel to which the poor child had clung so tightly while she had come
to my camp across the prairie on the Ridge Road that night--which now
seemed so long ago. There was a dress on which she had been sewing; for
the needle was stuck in the blanket with the thread still in the
garment; but she was not working. She had in her lap as she sat
cross-legged on the blanket, a little wax doll to which she was babbling
and talking as little girls do. She had taken off its dress, and was
carefully wiping its face, telling it to shut its eyes, saying that
mama wouldn't hurt it, asking it if she wasn't a bad mama to keep it
shut up all the time in that dark satchel, asking it if it wasn't afraid
in the dark, assuring it that mama wouldn't let anybody hurt it--and all
this in the sweetest sort of baby-talk. And then she put its dress on,
gently smoothed its hair, held it for a while against her bosom as she
swayed from side to side telling it to go to sleep, hummed gently a
cradle song, and put it back in the satchel as a mother might put her
sleeping baby in its cradle. I crept silently away.

It was dark when I returned to camp, and she had supper ready and was
anxiously awaiting me. She ran to me and took my hand affectionately.

"What kept you so long?" she asked earnestly. "I have been anxious. I
thought something must have happened to you!"

And as we approached the fire, she looked in my face, and cried out in
astonishment.

"Something has happened to you. You are as white as a sheet. What is it?
Are you sick? What shall I do if you get sick!"

"No," I said, "I am not sick. I am all right--now."

"But something has happened," she insisted. "You are weak as well as
pale. Let me do something for you. What was it?"

"A snake," I said, for an excuse. "A rattlesnake. It struck at me and
missed. It almost struck me. I'll be all right now."

The longer I live the surer I am that I told her very nearly the truth.

That night we sat up late and talked. She was only a dear little child,
now, with a bit of the mother in her. She was really affectionate to me,
more so than ever before, and sometimes I tu