"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?"