"What possessed you to bring this little thing along with you, stranger? It's bad enough for men, let alone wives and babies."
"That's so. But fact is, Meranda's got tol'able used to follering me about. When I fust went out to Indiana I left her to home in York, and she won't never be left behind sence. She's emigrated to Missouri with me, and two years ago to eastern Kansas, and now we're a-marching for the mines."
"Marching for the poor-house," growled Nat. "I'm a 'rolling stone' myself, but then I ain't a family man, and have a right to do as I please."
"Well, the fact is, things hain't prospered with us as they seem to with some people. We've had bad luck."
"And always will, I reckon," again muttered Nat, taking in at a shrewd glance the whole air of the man.
They had now reached the summit of the bluff, and at its foot, on the other side, along the edge of the stunted strip of wood which there freshened the eye, was drawn up the emigrant-train for a brief rest. The cattle were not unyoked, nor were there any fires kindled. The men were eating their cold bacon and hard bread, some lounging on the ground and some in their wagons. Only one woman was visible among the party of thirty or forty men, besides the two now trudging along by the last wagon. Nat did not resign the little girl until they came to the halting-place, when her father came and lifted her down.
"Won't you take a bite with us?" he asked, in return for Nat's civility.
"Obliged to you, stranger; but I've got a bit of dried buffalo in my pocket, and a biscuit."
Before dismounting and tying his horse to the low branches of a cottonwood, the hunter rode along the line of wagons to see if he knew any of the party. He had lived so long in that region that he was widely known, having a fame of his own which just suited his peculiar ambition, and which he would not have exchanged for that of General or Senator. So, although he was acquainted with none of the faces here, he was recognized by several, who greeted him heartily, and passed his name from lip to lip. The emigrants could not but feel braver and in better spirits when they heard that Nat Wolfe was among them.
As he lounged under a tree, against which he had carefully rested his rifle, cutting off bits of dried meat with the knife from his belt, he was surrounded by eager inquiries, asking after the route—with which they knew him to be familiar—about the water, the feed, the Indians, the streams, the storms, etc. While he talked, his eyes were constantly wandering to the little spot of shadow where the young girl was sitting, patiently feeding the little one, but seeming to eat nothing herself. She had thrown aside her bonnet to catch a breath of the light breeze springing up on the plains; her eyes were fixed afar off, on the heads of bison dotting the vast, monotonous desert, or the horizon, which ringed it in—except for the care of the child, she hardly took an interest in the scene more immediately about her. Whether it was the beauty of her face or its sad patience which touched him, Nat did not inquire of himself; he only wondered who she was and what she was doing in such a place. He could trace no resemblance between her and the thin, sun-burned, care-worn-looking woman by her side, the mother of the children, but evidently not of the young girl. They surely could not be sisters, for they were too unlike.