"That's whatever! How can it help it? It's goin' to be a division point on the road. It's goin' to have all the cattle-shippin' trade. After a while it'll have all the farmin' trade. It's goin' to be the town, all right, don't you neglect that. They's fifteen thousand head of cattle in around here now. Town's got two hotels, good livery stable — that's mine — half a dozen stores, nigh on to a dozen saloons, an' two barber-shops. Yes, sir, Ellisville is the place!"
"Which way are you bound, sir?" asked the stranger, still sitting, apparently in thought, with his chin resting on his hand.
"Well, you see, they's another town goin' up below here about twenty mile — old man Plum's town, Plum Centre. I run the mail an' carry folk acrost from Ellisville to that place. This here is just about halfway acrost. Ellisville's about twenty or twenty-five mile north of here."
Sam spoke lucidly enough, but really he was much consumed with curiosity, for he had seen, behind the driver of the wagon, a face outlined in the shade. He wondered how many "women-folk" the new mover had along, this being ever a vital question at that day. The tall man on the wagon seat turned his face slowly back toward the interior of the wagon.
"What do you think, Lizzie?" he asked.
"Dear me, William," came reply from the darkness in a somewhat complaining voice, "how can I tell? It all seems alike to me. You can judge better than I."
"What do you say, niece?"
The person last addressed rested a hand upon the questioner's shoulder and lightly climbed out upon the seat by his side, stooping as she passed under the low bow of the cover frame. She stood upright, a tall and gracious figure, upon the wagon floor in front of the seat, and shaded her eyes as she looked about her. Her presence caused Sam to instinctively straighten up and tug at his open coat. He took off his hat with a memory of other days, and said his "Good-mornin'" as the schoolboy does to his teacher — superior, revered, and awesome.
Yet this new character upon this bare little scene was not of a sort to terrify. Tall she was and shapely, comely with all the grace of youth and health, not yet tanned too brown by the searing prairie winds, and showing still the faint purity of the complexion of the South. There was no slouch in her erect and self-respecting carriage, no shiftiness in her eye, no awkwardness in her speech. To Sam it was instantaneously evident that here was a new species of being, one of which he had but the vaguest notions through any experiences of his own. His chief impression was that he was at once grown small, dusty, and much unshaven. He flushed as he shifted and twisted on the buckboard seat.
The girl looked about her for a moment in silence, shading her eyes still with her curved hand.
"It is much alike, all this country that we have seen since we left the last farms. Uncle William," she said, "but it doesn't seem dreary to me. I should think — "
But what she would have thought was broken into by a sudden exclamation from farther back in the wagon. A large black face appeared at the aperture under the front wagon bow, and the owner of it spoke with a certain oracular vigour.
"Fo' Gawd, Mass' William, less jess stop right yer! I 'clare, I'se jess wore to a plum frazzle, a-travelin' an' a-travelin'! Ef we gwine settle, why, less settle, thass all I say!"
The driver of the wagon sat silent for a moment, his leg still hanging over the end of the seat, his chin in the hand of the arm which rested upon his other leg, propped up on the dashboard of the wagon. At length, quietly, and with no comment, he unbuckled the reins and threw them out and down upon the ground on either side of the wagon.
"Whoa, boys," he called to the horses, which were too weary to note that they were no longer asked to go farther on. Then the driver got deliberately down. He was a tall man, of good bearing, in his shoulders but little of the stoop of the farmer, and on his hands not any convincing proof that he was personally acquainted with continuous bodily toil. His face was thin, aquiline, proud; his hair dark, his eyes gray. He might have been a planter, a rancher, a man of leisure or a man of affairs, as it might happen that one met him at the one locality or the other. One might have called him a gentleman, another only a "pilgrim." To Sam he was a "mover," and that was all. His own duty as proselyter was obvious. Each new settlement was at war with all others, population being the first need.
"We'll turn out here," said the man, striking his heel upon the ground with significant gesture, as was an unconscious custom among the men who chose out land for themselves in a new region. "We'll stop here for a bite to eat, and I reckon we won't go any farther west. How is this country around here for water?"
"Sure," said Sam, "excuse me. I've got a jug along with me. I nearly always carry some water along, because they ain't but one creek, and they ain't no wells. — Have a drink, miss?" And he politely pulled out the wooden stopper of a jug and offered it with a hand which jumped in spite of himself.
"Thank you, sir," said the girl, and her uncle added his courteous thanks also. "What I meant to ask, sir, however," he continued, "is what is the prospect of getting water in this part of the country in case we should like to settle in here?"
"Oh, that?" said Sam. "Why, say, you couldn't very well hit it much better. Less'n a mile farther down this trail to the south you come to the Sinks of the White Woman Creek. They's most always some water in that creek, and you can git it there any place by diggin' ten or twenty feet.
"That's good," said the stranger. "That's mighty good." He turned to the wagon side and called out to his wife. "Come, Lizzie," he said, "get out, dear, and take a rest. We'll have a bite to eat, and then we'll talk this all over."
The woman to whom he spoke next appeared at the wagon front and was aided to the ground. Tall, slender, black clad, with thin, pale face, she seemed even more unsuited than her husband to the prospect which lay before them. She stood for a moment alone, looking about her at the land which had long been shut off from view by the wagon tent, then turned and went close to the man, upon whom she evidently relied for the solution of life's problems. Immediately behind her there clambered down from the wagon, with many groanings and complaints, the goodly bulk of the black woman who had earlier given her advice. "Set down yer, Mis' Lizzie, in the shade," she said, spreading a rug upon the ground upon the side of the wagon farthest from the sun. "Set down an' git a ress. Gawd knows we all needs it — this yer fo'saken kentry. 'Tain' good as Mizzoury, let 'lone Kaintucky er Ole Vehginny — no, mam!"
There was thus now established, by the chance of small things, the location of a home. This wagon, with its occupants, had come far and journeyed vaguely, having no given point in view. The meeting of this other vehicle, here in the middle of the untracked prairie, perhaps aided by the chance words of a tired negress, made the determining circumstances. It was done. It was decided. There was a relief at once upon every countenance. Now these persons were become citizens of this land. Unwittingly, or at least tacitly, this was admitted when the leader of this little party advanced to the side of the buckboard and offered his hand.
"My name is Buford," he said slowly and with grave courtesy. "This is my wife; my niece, Miss Beauchamp. Your name, sir, I don't know, but we are very glad to meet you."
"My name's Poston," said Sam, as he also now climbed down from his seat, seeing that the matter was clinched and that he had gained a family for his county — "Sam Poston. I run the livery barn. I sure hope you'll stop in here, for you won't find no better country. Do you allow you'll move up to Ellisville and live there?"
"Well, I've started out to get some land," said Buford, "and I presume that the first thing is to find that and get the entry made. Then we'll have to live on it till we can commute it. I don't know that it would suit us at Ellisville just yet. It must be a rather hard town, from all I can learn, and hardly fit for ladies."
"That's so," said Sam, "it ain't just the quietest place in the world for women-folks. Only five or six women in the place yet, outside the section boss's wife and the help at the depot hotel. Still," he added apologetically, "folks soon gets used to the noise. I don't mind it no more at all."
Buford smiled as he glanced quizzically at the faces of his "women-folks." At this moment Sam broke out