It was well for the family that they had carried wood and water from their last camp at Bellevue, for there was neither wood nor water in sight.
The wagons were drawn up in a semicircle, the cow and horses placed inside, and the family gathered close together about their supper table, as if feeling the need of human contact in the vast loneliness that brooded about them.
They woke the next morning with the blaze of sunshine in their faces. It was a marvelous thing, this awakening on the silent unbroken surface of the plains, with the sun coming up like a great crimson hogshead over the flat rim of the earth, changing it from black to grey, from grey to pink, from pink to rose and blue and green and purple; and in all that great expanse, over which the eye could travel in every direction to the very limits of the horizon, to see no living creature but each other.
The day was hot and cloudless, and as the wagons bumped and crawled along through the grass something of the dread silence and loneliness of the prairies crept into their hearts, and a sort of awe came over them. The children found themselves dropping their voices and speaking low, as if they were in church; and Mr. and Mrs. Peniman avoided each other's eyes and spoke but seldom, as their gaze stared out over the interminable plains.
There were no trees in this land through which they were now traveling, and the only bird that gladdened their ears or eyes for many a long day to come were the little meadow-larks, which perched upon a swaying stalk or weed uttered its clear, gurgling melody.
One morning as they were jogging along, Lige, who sat beside Joe in the wagon, suddenly jogged his arm.
"Look, Joe," he cried, "what are all those little humps in the ground? See, there are thousands of them! Aren't they queer? Let's ask Father what they are."
His father heard and smiled. "Just watch," he said. "And Ruthie, thee and Sam and Paul should watch, too. Those are little houses, and some queer little fellows live in them."
"What lives in them?" asked Joe. At the same moment Sam, who was lying on the beds in the back of the wagon, stuck his head out of the rear curtains and gave a squeal of delight.
"Oh, I see!" he shouted. "Look at that queer little feller sittin' right up on the roof of his house! Come on out, Ruth, greatest sight you ever saw! Queerest little things, bigger'n gophers and not striped, just kind o' plain brown, with their arms folded across their chests. What in the world are they, Father?"