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breathlessly.
    "Drive," he replied, laconically.
    Before she realized it, Lucinda was piloting a prairie-schooner. The oxen went along as well for her as for Logan. But what would she do when he left the wagon to handle the cattle?
    "It's easy," said Logan--"much easier than driving a team."
    "But suppose they do something," protested Lucinda.
    "Yell 'whoa' when you want them to stop, 'gee' when you want to go to the right, 'haw' to the left, and when you start up--a crack of the whip and 'gidap,'" replied Logan, with suppressed mirth.
    "It's not so funny," said Lucinda petulantly. "It looks too easy. They do go right along--but it's straight road. What if a herd of buffalo or band of Indians broke out of the woods..."
    "That sure wouldn't be funny. But the buffalo are gone, Lucinda, and we put the Apaches on the reservation. Reminds me of Matazel."
    "Who was he?" asked Lucinda, a little fearfully.
    "Young Apache buck. Said to be one of old Geronimo's sons. He sure didn't favour that ugly old devil. Matazel looks a noble red man if ever an Indian gave reason for such a fool idea. Lucinda, the Navajo braves caught your fancy. Matazel would have done that and more. He had grey eyes--the most wonderful eyes! Wild, bright, fierce! I'll never forget the look in them when he tapped me on the breast and said: 'Matazel live--get even!'"
    "My word! Logan, whatever did you do to incur his hatred?"
    "Huh. I did a lot. I was one of General Crook's scouts. Crook sent me out with some soldiers to round up Matazel and his braves. I trailed them across the mesa and cornered them. We had a skirmish. Nobody killed. We captured Matazel and sent him back to the reservation with the rest of Jeronimo's outfit. They'll break out some day."
    "Won't that be bad for the settlers?"
    "I reckon it will. But no danger for us. We are a long way from the Cibeque."
    The wind increased until it began to blow the dust. This, added to the cold, induced Lucinda to crawl back over the eat and wrap herself in the blankets. Lucinda propped herself against the packs and gazed out, thinking wearily of the women who had crossed the plains in caravans.
    What incredible hardship and privation they must have endured! The dim, dark forest, with its threshing foliage, the open range with its flying dust, the lowering sky, the slow steady roll of wheels, the dry permeating pitchy odour that filled her nostrils-=these held Lucinda's senses until she fell asleep.
    When she awakened, Logan informed her that the lake was in sight. Cramped and stiff, Lucinda crawled back on the seat with Logan. Grey pastures fringed by pine led to a wide sheet of water, dark as the clouds. She saw fences running tip to cabins on the shore. The west side of the lake sheered up in a bold bronze bluff, while the road ran along the east shore, a ragged, rocky slope, desolate and uninviting to Lucinda's gaze.
    "Will these settlers want to take us in?" she asked.
    "Sure. We'll eat with them, but we'll' sleep same as last night. They're crowded in those log shacks. You'll be more comfortable in the wagon."
    "I'd like that better," said Lucinda, with a sense of relief.
    Lucinda found herself welcomed by Holbert and his womenfolk. If she had not been so cold and hungry and miserable, she might have regarded that poor cabin and its plain inmates in some such way as she had the long day and the hard country. But she realized that what counted were protection and nourishment, and the kind hearts that furnished them. Holbert's wife, two daughters, and a sister lived there with him. She gathered that one of the daughters was married and lived in an adjoining cabin. They seemed to take Lucinda's advent as a matter of course. The married daughter was younger than Lucinda and had a baby. None of them had been to Flagg since spring--six months--and they were hungry for the news that was easy for Lucinda to furnish.
    Presently the son-in-law came in, accompanied by a grey-furred, wild-looking dog. He at once joined