I could discover no trail, and the darkness thickened rapidly while I picked my way across dry gullies, formed by the drainage of the prairie above, rotten tree-trunks, stumps, and spots of thicket.  As I approached the shanty, a faint gleam through one of its two small windows showed that it was inhabited.  In the rear, a space of a quarter of an acre, inclosed by a huge worm-fence, was evidently the vegetable patch, at one corner of which a small stable, roofed and buttressed with corn-fodder, leaned against the hill.  I drew rein in front of the building, and was about to hail its inmates, when I observed the figure of a man issue from the stable.  Even in the gloom, there was something forlorn and dispiriting in his walk.  He approached with a slow, dragging step, apparently unaware of my presence.

“Good evening, friend!” I said.

He stopped, stood still for half a minute, and finally responded,—­

“Who air you?”

The tone of his voice, querulous and lamenting, rather implied, “Why don’t you let me alone?”

“I am a traveller,” I answered, “bound from Peoria to Bloomington, and have lost my way.  It is dark, as you know, and likely to rain, and I don’t see how I can get any farther to-night.”

Another pause.  Then he said, slowly, as if speaking to himself,—­

“There a’n’t no other place nearer ’n four or five mile.”

“Then I hope you will let me stay here.”

The answer, to my surprise, was a deep sigh.

“I am used to roughing it,” I urged; “and besides, I will pay for any trouble I may give you.”

“It a’n’t that,” said he; then added, hesitatingly,—­“fact is, we’re lonesome people here,—­don’t often see strangers; yit I s’pose you can’t go no furder;—­well, I’ll talk to my wife.”

Therewith he entered the shanty, leaving me a little disconcerted with so uncertain, not to say suspicious, a reception.  I heard the sound of voices—­one of them unmistakable in its nasal shrillness—­in what seemed to be a harsh debate, and distinguished the words, “I didn’t bring it on,” followed with, “Tell him, then, if you like, and let him stay,”—­which seemed to settle the matter.  The door presently opened, and the man said,—­

“I guess we’ll have t’ accommodate you.  Give me your things, an’ then I’ll put your horse up.”

I unstrapped my valise, took off the saddle, and, having seen Peck to his fodder-tent, where I left him with some ears of corn in an old basket, returned to the shanty.  It was a rude specimen of the article,—­a single room of some thirty by fifteen feet, with a large fireplace of sticks and clay at one end, while a half-partition of unplaned planks set on end formed a sort of recess for the bed at the other.  A good fire on the hearth, however, made it seem tolerably cheerful, contrasted with the dismal gloom outside.  The furniture consisted of a table, two or three chairs, a broad bench, and a kitchen-dresser of boards.  Some golden ears of seed-corn, a few sides of bacon, and ropes of onions hung from the rafters.