My first thought was that she was in danger of drowning, notwithstanding the littleness of the brook; and I ran to the point from which I had heard her plunge into the water, expecting to have to draw her out on the bank; but I found only a place where the grass was wallowed down as she had crawled out, and lying on the ground was the satchel she had been carrying.  Dark as it was I could see her trail through the grass as she had made her way on; and I followed it with her sachel in my hand, with some foolish notion of opening a conversation with her by giving it back to her.

A short distance farther, on the upland, were my four cows, tied head and foot so they could graze, lying down to rest; and staggering on toward them went the woman’s form, zigzagging in bewilderment.  She came all at once upon the dozing cows, which suddenly gathered themselves together in fright, hampered by their hobbling ropes, and one of them sent forth that dreadful bellow of a scared cow, worse than a lion’s roar.  The woman uttered another piercing cry, louder and shriller than any she had given yet; she turned and ran back to me, saw my dark form before her, and fell in a heap in the grass, helpless, unnerved, quivering, quite done for.

“Don’t be afraid,” said I; “I won’t let them hurt you—­I won’t let anything hurt you!”

I didn’t go very near her at first, and I did not touch her.  I stood there repeating that the wolves would not hurt her, that it was only a gentle cow which had made that awful noise, that I was only a boy on my way to my farm, and not afraid of wolves at all, or of anything else.  I kept repeating these simple words of reassurance over and over, standing maybe a rod from her; and from that distance stepping closer and closer until I stood over her, and found that she was moaning and catching her breath, her face in her arms, stretched out on the cold ground, wet and miserable, all alone on the boundless prairie except for a foolish boy who did not know what to do with her or with himself, but was repeating the promise that he would not let anything hurt her.  She has told me since that if I had touched her she would have died.  It was a long time before she said anything.

“The wolves!” she cried.  “The wolves!”

“They are gone,” I said.  “They are all gone—­and I’ve got a gun.”

“Oh!  Oh!” she cried:  “Keep them away!  Keep them away!”

She kept saying this over and over, sitting on the ground and staring out into the darkness, starting at every rustle of the wind, afraid of everything.  It was a long time before she uttered a word except exclamations of terror, and every once in a while she broke down in convulsive sobbings.  I thought there was something familiar in her voice; but I could not see well enough to recognize her features, though it was plain that she was a young girl.

“The wolves are gone,” I said; “I have scared them off.”

“Don’t let them come back,” she sobbed.  “Don’t let them come back!”