The cloud-burst had flooded the swales, and across the hollows ran broad sheets of racing water.  I had crossed two or three of these, wondering whether I should be able to ford the next real watercourse, when we came to a broad bottom down the middle of which ran a swift shallow stream which rose over the young grass.  For a few rods the road ran directly down this casual river of flood water, and as I looked back it all at once came into my mind that I might follow this flood and leave no track; so instead of swinging back into the road I took instantly the important resolution to leave the Ridge Road.  By voice and whip I turned my cattle down the stream to the south, and for a mile I drove in water half-hub deep.

Looking back I saw that I left no trace except where two lines of open water showed through the grass on the high spots where cattle and wheels had passed, and I knew that in an hour the flood would run itself off and wipe out even this trace.  I felt a sense of triumph, and mingled with this was a queer thrill that set my hands trembling at the consciousness that the prairie had closed about me and this girl with the milk-white neck and the fire in her hair who had asked me if I would not even lie “for her.”

We wound down the flooded swale, we left the Ridge Road quite out of sight, we finally drew up out of the hollow and took to the ridges and hog-backs making a new Ridge Road for ourselves.  Nowhere in sight was there the slightest trace of humanity or human settlement.  We were alone.  Still bearing south I turned westwardly, after rolling up the covers to let in the drying wind.  I kept looking back to see if we were followed; for now I was suddenly possessed of the impulse to hide, like a thief making for cover with stolen goods.  Virginia, wearied out with the journey, the strain of her escape, and the nervous tension, was lying on the couch, often asking me if I saw any one coming up from behind.

The country was getting more rolling and broken as we made our way down toward the Cedar River, or some large creek making into it—­but, of course, journeying without a map or chart I knew nothing about the lay of the land or the watercourses.  I knew, though, that I was getting into the breaks of a stream.  Finally, in the gathering dusk I saw ahead of me the rounded crowns of trees; and pretty soon we entered one of those beautiful groves of hardwood timber that were found at wide distances along the larger prairie streams—­I remember many of them and their names, Buck Grove, Cole’s Grove, Fifteen Mile Grove, Hickory Grove, Crabapple Grove, Marble’s Grove, but I never knew the name of this, the shelter toward which we had been making.  I drove in between scattered burr oaks like those of the Wisconsin oak openings, and stopped my cattle in an open space densely sheltered by thickets of crabapple, plum and black-haw, and canopied by two spreading elms.  Virginia started up, ran to the front of the wagon and looked about.