Part 8

Once Mrs. Peniman's calico apron caught fire, but she tore it off and trampled it under her feet.

At times it looked as if the wall of flame must leap the narrow boundary of burned-over ground and sweep down upon them, destroying them all in the roaring furnace that raced toward them.

The heat grew fiercer; the horses screamed and tugged at their halters, the cow bellowed pitifully, and the little pigs at the back of the wagon squealed as if the knife of the executioner were at their throats.

For a moment the flames seemed to fairly tower over them, hissing and crackling in its wrath.

_Would it leap the back-fire?_

The hearts of the pioneers almost stopped breathing. An agonized prayer went up from the hearts of the parents that they and their little ones might be spared.

Then the wall of flame flickered, fell--and swept on around them.

Their back-fire had saved them.

With cracked and parching lips they uttered prayers of thanksgiving, and worn out with the struggle let sacks and brooms drop from their nerveless hands and stood still.

They realized now for the first time the extent of their exhaustion. They felt the pain of their burned hands, their scorched faces, their parched and burning throats.

Daylight came before they were able to realize the fact that they were saved.

The broadening light revealed a sad and dismal prospect. If the prairie had seemed monotonous to them before in its sombre dress of grey, and brown, and green, it seemed desolate beyond all description now, covered as far as the eye could see with a pall of funereal blackness.

Suffering as they were with burns and thirst it was noon before the ground was cool enough so that they could drive over the still smoking prairies.

All the afternoon they drove, straining their eyes in every direction for the sight of a town, a house, a sign of shade and water.

As fast as possible they veered away from the burned district, and about sundown got out of the track of the fire and onto the brown dry prairies.

Back of them and far away to the south and east they could still see the devastating trail of the fire, but away to the north and west the wind had turned the direction of the flames and the prairie remained untouched by its fury.

It was a tremendous relief to escape from the scorched and blackened ground, the stifling smell of burned grass, the acrid smoke that made their eyes smart and water and their throats sting, and to drive out on the unscorched prairies, which, hot as they were, seemed cool in comparison.

It was nearing nightfall when they saw, not far away, a small column of smoke rising in the air. Joshua Peniman scanned it with eager eyes.

"It might be an Indian camp," said his wife anxiously.

"White men or red we must have water to-night," he said, and drove on.

As they drew nearer they saw a low, squat outline against a small rise in the ground, and from it rose a stove-pipe, from which the smoke they had seen was coming.

"What is it?" called Joe. "Is it an Indian's hut?"

"No, thank God," cried Joshua Peniman fervently; "no Indians live there. It must be a dugout, and if it is white people are living in it."

He clucked to the horses and drove eagerly forward.

As they approached the low, dark object they saw that it had a roof, and that the sides were dug back in the rise of ground behind it. They could also see that it had two windows in front, and a door, which was thrown open as they drew nearer, and a tall, raw-boned red-haired woman with a good-natured freckled face stood framed in the opening.

"Wal of all things!" she ejaculated, "if it ain't a bunch o' emigrants! Hello, mister, where'd you come from?"

"From Ohio," called out Joshua Peniman, and made all possible haste toward the dugout.

As the wagon drew up before the door she looked at its occupants, then laughed aloud.

"Fer th' land sakes," she cried; "what be ye? Air ye niggers or Mexicans or Portuguese, or what?"

"We're Americans--and white," said Mr. Peniman laughing, as he leaped from the wagon. "At least we were white once, and we hope to be again. We've just escaped with our lives from a terrible prairie fire, and are covered with its smoke and grime."

"Lord save us!" ejaculated the woman. "Was you in the track o' that fire? We been watchin' it all day. We was skeered it might ketch us, but the wind wa'n't in th' right direction. Them prairie fires is terrible things. We mighty nigh got burned out last fall."

"We used all the water we had fighting fire," Mr. Peniman continued, "and are all suffering from thirst. I wonder if you could let us have a little drinking water?"

"_Kin_ I? Wal I should say I could! Me an' Jim never turned a thirsty man or woman or horse or dog away from our place yit! Git out, git out, all of ye! We've got a good well and you can have all the water ye want to drink and wash up, too, and I will say you sure do need it."

The travelers came scrambling out of the wagon, and there were tears of relief and gratitude in Hannah Peniman's eyes.

"Jim," a husky-looking pioneer over six feet tall, with a good-humored sunburned face and a shock of tow-colored hair sticking up through a hole in his hat, came hurrying up at this moment, drawn from his work in his cornfield near by by the unwonted sight of a caravan of moving wagons before his door. As he came he cast a sharp, inquiring look at the company of sooty, grimy individuals gathered before his dugout.

"We aren't quite such desperate characters as we appear," saluted Joshua Peniman with his pleasant smile. "We have barely escaped with our lives from a prairie fire, had to use all the water we had, and have had no chance to wash. My name is Peniman--Joshua Peniman, a Quaker, from the Muskingum Valley in Ohio, and these are my wife and children."

"Glad t' meet ye, Mr. Peniman," said the pioneer, extending a hairy, work-worn hand. "So you was in the track o' that fire, was ye? Sa-ay, I wonder ye ever got out alive. It was sure a fire, all right. Me an' the old woman been watchin' it. Thought fer a spell it might come this way, but th' wind favored us. Glad ye got through all right. Ye sure have got a likely-lookin' family. My name's Ward--Jim Ward. B'en out here goin' on three years. Homesteaded a piece o' land back here that ye can't beat in the hull nation. Travelin' across country? Be'n pretty hot, ain't it? But that's what makes good corn. We're going to have a hummer of a crop this season. But come in, come in! Ye shore do look all tuckered out. Wife'll git ye chairs, an' I'll go out an' draw up some fresh water. I reckon ye must be dry."

When the thirst of the family had been satisfied they felt greatly refreshed, and for the first time began to look about them. Mrs. Ward saw the curious glances the young people were casting about the queer-looking underground house and burst into a good-natured laugh.

"I'll bet you folks ain't never seen a dugout before," she exclaimed jovially. "Well it's sure a queer way to live, but me an' Jim think it's a good way--to begin with. We ain't always goin' to live this way, but a dugout's safe from cyclones and blizzards and Indians, an' it's warm in winter an' cool in summer--an' what more does a pioneer want?"

"I see that it has great advantages," said Joshua Peniman gazing with interest about the dwelling. "Do you see how it is done, Hannah? You see they have chosen a place where there is a rise in the ground, and have dug back into the earth so that the house is protected on every side but the front. You have had to build up side walls, of course, where the earth slopes away, and a front wall, but that was all. I see how safe and sheltered it must be, both from weather and possible enemies."

"Yes, an' a feller has to think a heap about both o' them out here," said Jim Ward, standing with his hands in his pockets and his legs wide apart as the travelers admired his dwelling.

The excavation, which was about twenty by thirty feet square, was dug back into the bank of a piece of rolling ground on the prairie, and made into a chamber about nine feet high. The entire rear part of the dwelling was protected by the embankment, and a part of the sides, while a stout, thick wall of sods was built up on the sides and in front, in which was let a door and two windows. An ivy-vine was trained up over the window casements, clean white curtains shaded the spotless panes, which had broad sills, upon which were placed pots of geraniums in full bloom.

The floor was made of matched flooring, and was as white as hands could make it, with braided rag rugs spread before the shining stove and the red-covered table, upon which were a Bible, a vase of wild-flowers, and a shining lamp. In a corner of the room was a large double bed, made up with a spotless blue-and-white patchwork counterpane, and "shams," elaborately worked in red cotton, with "Good Night" on one pillow and "Good Morning" on the other. At the other end of the room was a shining cook-stove, with a tea-kettle steaming cozily upon it, and a row of packing cases, which had been placed one on top of another and cleverly converted into a kitchen cupboard.

"It's wonderfully clean and cozy and comfortable-looking," exclaimed Mrs. Peniman. "I wonder how you keep it so. I would not dream that a house just dug into the ground could be so attractive."

"Lots of 'em ain't," vouchsafed Jim Ward. "Some of the folks that come out here is content to live like pigs. But me an' Mary ain't. She always was a good housekeeper, an' she keeps this place so nice I sometimes almost forgit we live in a dugout."

"Now you quit talkin', Jim," put in "Mary," "and go an' draw up a tubful o' fresh water. I reckon these folks don't want nothin' so much in this world as a bath. I'll set a wash-tub out in th' back yard, an' when it comes dark ye can all take a bath. I sh'd think ye could begin now with th' little fellers."

One after another the Peniman family slipped out and took their turn in the tub in the back yard, and it was indeed a cleansed and changed family that gathered at last on the "front stoop," as Jim Ward facetiously called the hard, beaten place before the door.

When supper was over they sat on the "stoop" until the moon rose, listening eagerly to the many curious and interesting tales the pioneer homesteader and his wife had to tell.

"Has thee ever been troubled with Indians, friend Ward?" asked Joshua Peniman, a bit anxiously.

"No," answered the pioneer, "we ain't never had any trouble with 'em. A lot of the settlers has, but I've always figgered it was their own fault. We've been livin' out here three years now, an' we've never had a thing stolen or molested or a bit o' trouble ourselves."

"But why haven't you?" demanded Joe, "when the others have?"

"Because I've always figgered on treatin' the Indians like they was _human_. Some folks treats 'em worse'n dogs. Good land, this is their country, ain't it? They was here first! Us folks that comes in now is just takin' what they've owned for God knows how many years. Ain't it so?"

"Yes," said Joshua Peniman, "it is. I have always felt so. But we have so often been warned of danger----"

"An' there _is_ danger; don't ye ever forgit that. Some o' these here Indians is bad medicine. They're mad about havin' white settlers come in, an' they'll plug ye the fust chance they get. But I figger that Indians is jest like other folks. Some is bad an' some good--they're all just human. Me an' Mary has always thought if we treated them all right they'd treat us right. So fur it's worked all right."

During the long talk that Mr. Peniman had with Jim Ward after the women and children had retired to get ready for bed, he discussed land and locations, and when the family set forth the next morning it was with the firm intention of going to the northwestern part of Nebraska, where the land along the Niobrara was particularly recommended, and where there were still thousands of acres of government land to be homesteaded upon for the choice.

They bade their kind host and hostess a reluctant good-bye, and having promised that they would write them when they had arrived at their destination they started on, turning to wave their hands again and again to the last white people they were to see for many a long day.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE MINNE-TO-WAUK-PALA*

It was with the greatest reluctance that the travelers parted with Jim Ward and his good-natured wife. For many days they had seen no other human beings, and the relief of being with and talking with them was so great that it took a determined effort to leave the cheerful dugout and its occupants and turn their faces once more toward the uninhabited plains.

They had traveled but a few miles in the calm clear light of morning when they saw not a quarter of a mile ahead of them thirty or forty beautiful antelope. They were cantering across the prairie, their little white cotton tails shining in the sunshine, the light gleaming on their pretty dappled sides. They were playing and leaping, and their curious antics made the boys shout with laughter.

"Wonderful chance to get an antelope," said Lige with shining eyes; but Joe shook his head. "Could you shoot one of those beautiful creatures?" he asked. "I swear I couldn't."

The antelope seemed to have but little fear of them, and cantered along for some distance, stopping now and then to crop the grass. After a time they raced away toward the south, and were lost to view.

It was now well on in August. Even at the early hour at which they had started there was a scorching wind blowing, and as the day advanced the sun beat down on the prairies from a cloudless sky with an intensity that promised a day of intolerable heat.

The family dispensed with every garment possible, and sat under the canvas covers fairly parching with heat, while the hot wind seemed fairly to scorch the prairies, and to burn and shrivel their skins.

Many times during the day they had to stop the horses, and at last Joe conceived the idea of making pads for their heads from the prairie grass, which he kept wet with water, brought from the well of the hospitable Wards.

It was toward three o'clock in the afternoon, at the very hottest part of the day, that Mrs. Peniman looking out of the front of the wagon suddenly exclaimed aloud.

"Why," she cried, "look, look, Joshua, there is a lake before us!"

Mr. Peniman, who was half-dozing on his seat, started wide awake.

"A _lake_?" he cried. "A lake in this country? Where?"

"Why, see, over there," pointing ahead of them, "a beautiful blue lake! See how the water ripples in the sunshine?"

The children, roused from the dull stupor into which they had fallen, were all crowding to the front of the wagon to look out. Joe and Lige on the high seats of the two other wagons craned their necks to see. They all set up a great hurrahing, but Mr. Peniman, after one long look, said nothing.

Suddenly his wife, who had been gazing with steadfast gaze at the entrancing sight, caught his arm.

"Joshua"--she cried,--"that lake--it looks very strange to me! Could it be that--I have read--oh, could it be that there is no lake--that it is--that it is----"

He laid his hand over hers with a tender, sympathetic pressure.

"Yes, dear heart, I hate to dispel thy illusion, but there is no lake there. It is a mirage."

"A _mirage_? What's a mirage, Father?" asked Sam, his face reflecting his bitter disappointment.

"It is just an air-picture, my son, an optical illusion."

"You mean"--cried Joe, incredulously--"you mean that there is no lake there? Why, how can that be, Father? We can _see_ it; it is right there before our eyes----"

Mr. Peniman shook his head wearily.

"It is a trick of the plains," he said. "It almost seems that its only purpose is to torture and mislead thirsty travelers like ourselves."

"But if it isn't a lake," propounded Lige, "what is it? We see it, it is there before us----"

"But don't you notice, my boy, that the trees that appear to surround it are upside down?"

The whole family gazed fixedly at the supposed "lake."

Blue as the heavens, ruffled by the breath of early morning, surrounded by waving trees, it lay tantalizingly before their eyes.

"I have never seen a mirage before," said Mr. Peniman, "but I know that they are a common occurrence on the plains, and in all arid and desert country. They are due to a condition existing in the atmosphere, caused by the reflection of light. What we see over there is probably the reflection of the sky, and as the reflection surface is irregular and constantly varies its position the reflected image will be constantly varying, and is what gives it the appearance of a body of water ruffled by the wind."

For a time the mirage endured, tantalizing them with its beauty, then suddenly faded, the alluring vision disappeared, and its place was filled by the parched grass of the prairies.

It was a bitter disappointment, the more bitter because of the hope it had aroused in their breasts.

Toward evening they saw, outlined against the western sky, two emigrant wagons crawling along over the plains. But so great was the distance, so wide and expressionless the plains that they scarcely seemed to move forward, but to remain stationary against the brazen sky.

There was no sign of shade or water on all the great expanse as the sun went down, and having traveled until twilight had fallen they made their night camp on the dry, barren prairie, with stars and sky and grass their only company.

They had now been two months on the road, and both horses and individuals were feeling the strain.

The horses were stiff, thin and lame, the cow a mere bag of bones, and the children cross and fretful.

Mrs. Peniman had lost her round curves and pretty complexion, and her husband's beard had grown long, and he was so brown and sinewy that his friends in Ohio would scarcely have known him.

They were all heartily tired of the weary crawling and jolting of the wagons across the barren prairies, and rose with aching heads and dragging limbs and moved wearily about the business of getting under way again without enthusiasm.

The day came up, as do so many days upon the western prairies, with a cloudless sky, blue as amethyst, and a sun that rode triumphant in a blazing chariot from rim to rim of a blistering world.

At noon the teams were so exhausted that the travelers were obliged to stop and unhitch them, leading them into the shade of the wagons to relieve them for a while from the rays of the broiling sun.

As the hot afternoon sun climbed into the heavens the very prairies seemed to drowse and sleep. Over their heads a few buzzards flapped lazily, and before them the gauzy heat-waves rose from the ground shimmering and dancing while the slow, monotonous klop, klop, klop of the horses' feet was the only sound to be heard.

Inside the wagons David and Mary had fallen asleep, Ruth and Nina, with their heads upon their sun-browned arms, had passed away into dreamland, Sam read, Lige dozed, Joe was nodding over his book, and even Mr. Peniman was drowsing.

Only Mrs. Peniman, sitting upon the front seat of the wagon, with her chin in her hands, and her eyes fixed on the distant horizon, was awake.

Thoughts were too busy in the aching head under the faded sunbonnet to let her sleep.

No one--not the husband so close at her side, not the children about whom the chords of her heart were knit--knew what this journey into the wilderness was costing her.

The lonely little mound back there on the prairies was seldom out of her mind, and the homesick longing for her home and her mothers and sisters so far away in the East, was sometimes almost more than she could bear.

As the thoughts of her lost baby, and all that she had left behind back there in that sweet and verdant country crossed her mind, hot tears rushed into her eyes. She blinked them resolutely away. She thought at first as she looked up that it was the tears that blinded her. Then as she wiped them away she drew a little gasping breath and looked--and looked again. At first her heart gave a great leap, then sank down drearily as she thought of the experience of the previous afternoon.

With a determined effort she turned her head away. Then when the torture of suspense would be no longer borne, she looked back.

Away on the distant western horizon there was a bluish haze.

She laid her hand very gently on her husband's arm.

"Joshua," she whispered, "I hate to rouse thee, but--look off there to the west; what is it we see? Is it--is it another mirage? It looks as if there were trees there. I have been looking and looking, but I was afraid to speak. I hated to awaken your hopes--it is so hard----"

The weary man roused himself. With hands clasped above his eyes he gazed off over the prairies.

After a long interval he said, '"I think--I believe--it _does_ look like timber! Of course it is a long way off yet--but----"

His voice ceased, as he fixed his whole attention on the horizon.

Presently he spoke again, this time more decidedly.

"I believe there is a patch of timber over there. There must be a stream of some sort near. Don't wake the children, let them sleep; we will make for it as fast as we can."

Pushing the limping horses forward as fast as they were able to travel, the prairie schooners rolled on across the prairie, and the man and woman upon the wagon seat leaned forward and watched the horizon with straining eyes.

It was near evening when a breeze, bearing something fresh and fragrant on its breath, blew into the wagons and roused their drowsy occupants.

Joe woke with a start. His team was plodding along steadily, but his father's wagon was some distance in advance of it, while the Carroll wagon, with Lige nodding upon the driver's seat, was far in the rear.

He rubbed his eyes, caught up the lines and puckered his lips for a whistle. But the whistle was never uttered.

Instead there came from his chapped lips a startled exclamation.

Rubbing his eyes he looked and looked, and looked again. Then reaching behind him he grabbed Sam by one of his bare brown feet and shook it vigorously.

"Say, Sam, wake up here!" he shouted. "I want you to tell me if I'm crazy or if my eyes have gone bad or if I'm seeing another mirage! If I'm not plumb crazy there's a river over there, and trees----"

"Who said 'river'--who said 'trees'?" cried Sam, starting up; then he stopped short, staring ahead with an incredulous expression.

"Is it--it ain't--it can't be another mirage, can it?"

Joe gave a loud, joyous laugh and cracked his whip over the backs of the horses. He had had time to look again and he was satisfied.

"Mirage nothin'!" he exulted, "nary a mirage this time! Can't you smell it? Can't you taste it? Can't you feel the moisture in the air? You bet your life this isn't a mirage, it's the real thing, shade, water, grass, trees! And it ain't far off either!"

By this time the blur of bluish haze had developed into a tone of decided green, and there was no more doubt that trees and water were in sight. Mr. Peniman was stooping forward gazing intently.

"I was told that there was a river not far from here," he said to his wife, "and I think it should be in just about this location. It is called by the Indian name 'Minne-to-wauk-pala,' or Blue Waters."

"I don't care what it is called," said Mrs. Peniman, laughing joyously, "if it is only _there_. I don't think I could stand another shock like that mirage."

"You won't have to, my dear," said Mr. Peniman, his face lighting, "for, look, we can begin to see the trees and water now."

*CHAPTER XIV*

*THE NEW HOME*

No promised land of Paradise ever looked fairer to longing eyes than looked the scene that lay before the parched and weary travelers as they approached the Minne-to-wauk-pala or Blue Waters.