I. THE DUST IS STIRRED
DUST was piled in thick, velvety folds on the weeds and grass of the open Kansas prairie; it lay, a thin veil on the scrawny black horses and the sharp-boned cow picketed near a covered wagon; it showered to the ground in little clouds as Mrs. Wade, a tall, spare woman, moved about a camp-fire, preparing supper in a sizzling skillet, huge iron kettle and blackened coffee-pot.
Her husband, pale and gaunt, the shadow of death in his weary face and the droop of his body, sat leaning against one of the wagon wheels trying to quiet a wailing, emaciated year-old baby while little tow-headed Nellie, a vigorous child of seven, frolicked undaunted by the August heat.
“Does beat all how she kin do it,” thought Wade, listlessly.
“Ma,” she shouted suddenly, in her shrill, strident treble, “I see Martin comin'.”
The mother made no answer until the strapping, fourteen-year-old boy, tall and powerful for his age, had deposited his bucket of water at her side. As he drew the back of a tanned muscular hand across his dripping forehead she asked shortly:
“What kept you so long?”
“The creek's near dry. I had to follow it half a mile to find anything fit to drink. This ain't no time of year to start farmin',” he added, glum and sullen.
“I s'pose you know more'n your father and mother,” suggested Wade.
“I know who'll have to do all the work,” the boy retorted, bitterness and rebellion in his tone.