"'It's a long lane that has no turn'—maybe I'm coming to the turn now. How's the young ones getting along, wife?"
"They're sound asleep, poor things, without supper."
"There's a fire ahead," spoke Elizabeth; "perhaps it's an Indian camp."
"Nothin' of the kind, Miss," answered a person who had been standing on the track, waiting for them to come up. "I run ahead and took a squint, while the teams waited; it's our campin' ground, and there's another lot of travelers in before us—a train most as large as our own. They'll be glad of our company, and we'll be glad of theirs. Hope you don't feel none the wuss from your scare to-day, Miss?"
"Oh no, not a bit the worse, thank you."
"I'd rather them blasted buffaloes had a' run down the hull train, than to have knocked the breath out of your purty body. I never felt more like a fool in my life, than I did when I saw the pickle you was in. I swore and cussed myself awfully for being such a fool as not to be able to do suthin'. You see I didn't have no hoss, and Nat Wolfe did—else he wouldn't a' got the start of me."
"I believe you, Joe," replied the young girl, laughing.
"I was so mad about it I wouldn't come forward when I hearn you were safe. I never was so put to my stumps before that I couldn't do suthin'. But ye see I'd fired both barrels of my gun and the hull load of my revolver to turn them pesky critters from the train, and when I see'd 'em making tracks for you, I was jest used up."
"It's all right now, Joe."