“Which way is Monterey Centre?” she asked.

“Away off to the westward,” I answered.

“Is it far?”

“A long ways,” I said.

“Is it on this awful prairie?” she inquired.

“Yes,” said I, “I guess it is.  It’s farther away from timber than this I calculate.”

“My lord,” she burst out.  “I’ll simply die of the horrors!”

She looked over the trail toward Dubuque, and then slowly went into the house.

So, then, these two with all their strange actions were going to Monterey County!  They would be neighbors of mine, maybe; but probably not.  They looked like town people; and I knew already the distance that separated farmers from the dwellers in the towns—­a difference that as I read history, runs away back through all the past.  They were far removed from what I should be—­something that I realized more and more all through my life—­the difference between those who live on the farms and those who live on the farmers.

There was a two-seated covered carriage standing before the house, and across the road were two mover-wagons, with a nice camp-fire blazing, and half a dozen men and women and a lot of children about it cooking a meal of victuals.  I pulled over near them and turned my cows out, tied down head and foot so they could bait and not stray too far.  I noticed that their cows, which were driven after the wagon, had found too fast for them the pace set by the horse teams, had got very foot-sore, and were lying down and not feeding—­for I drove them up to see what was the matter with them.

2

Before starting-time in the morning, I had swapped two of my driving cows for four of their lame ones, and hauled up by the side of the road until I could break my new animals to the yoke and allow them to recuperate.  I am a cattleman by nature, and was more greedy for stock than anxious to make time—­maybe that’s another reason for being called Cow Vandemark.  The neighbors used to say that I laid the foundation of my present competence by trading one sound cow for two lame ones every few miles along the Ridge Road, coming into the state, and then feeding my stock on speculators’ grass in the summer and straw that my neighbors would otherwise have burned up in the winter.  What was a week’s time to me?  I had a lifetime in Iowa before me.

“Whose rig is that?” I asked, pointing to the carriage.

“Belongs to a man name of Gowdy,” the mover told me.  “Got a hell-slew of wuthless land in Monterey County an’ is going out to settle on it.”

“How do you know it’s worthless?” I inquired pretty sharply; for a man must stand up for his own place whether he’s ever seen it or not.

“They say so,” said he.

“Why?” I asked.

“Out in the middle of the Monterey Prairie,” he said.  “You can’t live in this country ’less you settle near the timber.”

“Instead of stopping at this farm,” I said, “I should think he’d have gone on to the next settlement.  Horses lame?”