As Joe leaned forward with eyes fastened on the horizon he suddenly uttered a cry.
"It's a wagon," he shouted,—"an emigrant wagon—like ours!"
From out of the cloud of dust that drifted across the prairie an object could now be discerned, a large object, with a white canvas cover.
Joshua Peniman, who had never removed his intent gaze from the approaching cloud, echoed the cry.
"It is a wagon—an emigrant wagon!" Then as the dust drifted aside and he could see more clearly,—"and they are driving at a fearful pace!"
For many weeks now the family had been traveling over the desolation of the prairies, for days at a time seeing no human creature but one another. For miles all about them lay the prairies, brown, dry, scorched by the hot summer sun, level as a floor, with never a tree, a shrub, a bush, a hill, or a mound to break the dreary monotony of the plains that stretched endlessly away all about them to the very horizon in every direction.
It was therefore with the greater excitement and astonishment that the family saw a wagon drawn by two furiously plunging horses emerge from the cloud of dust that had concealed it, and come swaying and lurching across the plains.
They had stopped their teams now, and the whole family were standing up looking backward.
"Jerusalem! the folks in that wagon must be in a terrible hurry, whoever they are!" ejaculated Elijah, more commonly called "Lige" by his family.
"They'll tip their old schooner over if they don't look out!" cried Sam. "Look at her tilt!"