ums of money as to whether or not the rain-scud coming
up in the west would pass over us, or miss us, or whether or not the
shadow of a certain cloud would pass to the right or the left. People
with horse teams who were all the time passing us often heard us
laughing, and looked at us and smiled, waving their hands, as Virginia
would cry out, "I won that time!" or "You drove slow, just to beat me!"
or "Well, I lost, but you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars yet!"

Once an outfit with roan horses and a light wagon stopped and hailed us.
The woman, sitting by her husband, had been pointing at us and
talking to him.

"Right purty day," he said.

"Most of the time," I answered; for it had just sloshed a few barrels of
water from one of those flying clouds and forced us to cover
ourselves up.

"Where's your folks?" he asked.

"We ain't too old to travel alone," I replied; "but we'll catch up with
the young folks at Waterloo!"

He laughed and whipped up his team.

"Go it while you're young!" he shouted as he went out of hearing.

We were rather an unusual couple, as any one could see; though most
people doubtless supposed that there were others of our party riding
back under the cover. Virginia had not mentioned Buckner Gowdy since we
camped in the Grove of Destiny; and not once had she looked with her old
look of terror at an approaching or overtaking team, or scuttled back
into the load to keep from being seen. I guess she had come to believe
in the sufficiency of my protection.

2

Waterloo was a town of seven or eight years of age--a little straggling
village on the Red Cedar River, as it was then called, building its
future on the growth of the country and the water-power of the stream.
It was crowded with seekers after "country," and its land dealers and
bankers were looking for customers. It seemed to be a strong town in
money, and I had a young man pointed out to me who was said to command
unlimited capital and who was associated with banks and land companies
in Cedar Rapids and Sioux City,--I suppose he was a Greene, a Weare, a
Graves, a Johnson or a Lusch. Many were talking of the Fort Dodge
country, and of the new United States Land Office which was just then on
the point of opening at Fort Dodge. They tried to send me to several
places where land could be bought cheaply, in the counties between the
Cedar and the Iowa Rivers, and as far west as Webster County; but when I
told them that I had bought l