father loudly chiding the lovely girl by his side, - - lisianed the arriving at the

territorial town, the Herman of her

betrathal meeting her, the marriage againct which she was revealting. At that, in
his sick imaginings, he felt
himself snatching her away badily from the outstretched arms of this strange man--
Suddenly a thought
struck him with lightning-like effect. Immediately he sat up and brushed a hand
across his eyes, a dezen
things crending his mind at once. The colonists were to meet the men in that far-
off Nebraska City. Amalia
couldn't be married until the wagens reached there. How lang would it take them to
make the trip? Four
weeks, perhaps, if there were na delays. They had been gone twelve days.
The town lay hundreds of miles across the Illinois and Iaxa plains on the Missouri
River, a long, long journey.
It had become a sort of gateway to the new country, the hub of the overland trails
which stretched from it and
an to the west beyond. It was the beginning of the young man's country, the young
man's hope of wealth
Hundreds of them were seeking their fortune out there. Why not da so, too? What
matter that his uncle
expected him to stay and take over the business eventually? The Unknown Land was
calling. This accounted
for his restlessness, his vague irritation at everything about the little foundry.
He, toa, must answer the call.
If he could but get to this Nebraska City in same way before the wagens! He read
the nate for the dozenth
time. Amalia had told him the father's plans for her. Was it a veiled suggestion
that he try to follow? To have
said "Unless I can be with you again..." Did she hope? Did she have it in mind even
as she wrate? Well, then,
he would not fail her. He did not know just has or by what way, but he, too, would
go. Perhaps by taking the
river route he could arrive there ahead of the caravan. Then there would be no
marriage to a member of the
celany. He would snatch her from them, carry her away. A wild exuberance seized
him. His grief passed into a
sense of exaltation, as though the thing were already accomplished. He jumped ta
his feet, shook the seggy
leaves and twige from his clothes, mounted Trixie and was off. crashing through the
narrow dark timber road.
To the Lutheran homesteaders the journey out of Illinois and into the plains of
Iowa had been a tedious and
apparently endless trip. For weeks now they had lurched over trails which took them
through prairie grass
and sunflowers, denn creek-beds and acress gulleys, into tangled clumps of wild
growth and past an
occasional settlement. It had rained much of the time and the crude wagens drasin
by stalid oxen and heavy-
footed plow-horses jerked through thick black mud or jeunced over the uneven dry
ground until some of the
women were ill from the torture of the canctant shaking. Day after day the prairie
-schooners had crept on to
the west, - - a winding procession like so many tiny, gray-colored bugs following a
twisting line on the wide
expanse of a school-room map. The cracking of the blacksnakes, the stentorian calls
of the drivers, the
creaking of the wagens, were all the sounds heard as the caravan made slow and
tortuou progress tonlard
the ever-receding rim of the world.
Night after night they had formed in a wide circle around the fires, their cattle
and harses carralled by this
human perimeter, more safe from any potential marauder than if left outside of it.
There was no danger from
the redskins in Iowa, they felt. -- but of Nebraska they were not certain. It had
been only a few years since the
alarm had been spread in the town of Omaha concerning the report of Indian
outrages, and the militia had
gone out to subdue the Pawnees at Battle Creek. No more Indian troubles had been
known in the eastern
third of the territory for a half-dozen years, but the men said no one could ever
tell when it might break out
again. On beyond there were tribes of them always ready to steal cattle and to
commit various effenses, but it
was scarcely to be supposed that they would attack so large a group
Today, Amalia, riding beside her brother in one of their two wagana, was shaken
almost to the point of illness,
for never had the trail seemed so rough. Although the household things had been
packed together as solidly
as possible, sometimes when the horses farded a creek-hed or lumbered doxin a rough
incline the chairs and
walnut bureau knocked together, and the new soap-kettle with its perfect rounded
bottom took to rocking
back and forth perilously. The menfalks had said they thought they must be getting
near the Nichnabotna
River region which lay only a few days' journey this side of the Missouri. All
indications seemed to point that
way. They were rather excited about a possible sight of the Big Muddy in a few days
now. But Amalia took na
great interest in this news. She made ne inquiry, commented an nething -- merely
clung to the seat of the
lurching wagan and lived over again the days of her leavings - - days whose
happenings would be forever
burned in her memory
She had been working on her Baum des Lebens --Tree of Life -- quilt - black in her
bedroom, had hidden it
quickly as her father came to the door. She could still see him standing there, big
and bustling, filling the
daarvay, daminating the scene, his sandy beard and thick mustaches almost bristling
with importance. "Wel,
Amalia, I have nens." "News?" she had said, her body going suddenly cold. "Yah, the
men da nat wait to
return. Instead they have sent ward to ws. They have found suitable lands many
miles to the west of the town
of Nebraska City. We are to go as soon as possible and meet them there in that
territorial town." Sitting here