“It’s just like living in a fairy-story, isn’t it, Gail?” Beverly said to me one evening, as we rounded a low hill and followed a deep little creek down to a shallow fording-place.  “All we want is a real princess and a real giant.  Look at these big trees all you can, for Jondo says pretty soon we won’t see trees at all.”

“Maybe we’ll have Indians instead of giants,” I suggested.  “When do you suppose we’ll begin to see the real bad Indians; not just Osages and Kaws and sneaky little Otoes and Pot’wat’mies like we’ve seen all our lives?”

“Sooner than we expect,” Beverly replied.  “Could Mat Nivers ever be a real princess, do you reckon?”

“I know she won’t,” I said, firmly, the vision of that fateful day at Fort Leavenworth coming back as I spoke—­the vision of level green prairies, with gray rocks and misty mountain peaks beyond.  And somewhere, between green prairies and misty peaks, a sweet child face with big dark eyes looking straight into mine.  I must have been a dreamer.  And in my young years I wondered often why things should be so real to me that nobody else could ever understand.

“I used to think long ago at the fort that I’d marry Mat some day,” Beverly said, reminiscently, as if he were looking across a lapse of years instead of days.

“So did I,” I declared.  “But I don’t want to now.  Maybe our princess will be at the end of the trail, Bev, a real princess.  Still, I love Mat just as if she were my sister,” I hastened to add.

“So do I,” Beverly responded, heartily.

A little grain of pity for her loss of prestige was mingling with our subconscious feeling of a need for her help in the day of the giant, if not in the reign of the princess.

We were trudging along behind our wagon toward the camping-place for the night, which lay beyond the crossing of the stream.  We had lived much out of doors at Fort Leavenworth, but the real out of doors of this journey was telling on us already in our sturdy, up-leaping strength, to match each new hardship.  We ate like wolves, slept like dead things, and forgot what it meant to be tired.  And as our muscles hardened our minds expanded.  We were no longer little children.  Youth had set its seal upon us on the day when our company had started out from Independence toward the great plains of the Middle West.  Little care had we for the responsibility and perils of such a journey; and because our thoughts were buoyant our bodies were vigorous.

Our camp that night was under wide-spreading elm-trees whose roots struck deep in the deep black loam.  After supper Mat and Beverly went down to fish in the muddy creek.  Fishing was Beverly’s sport and solace everywhere.  I was to follow them as soon as I had finished my little chores.  The men were scattered about the valley and the camp was deserted.  Something in the woodsy greenness of the quiet spot made it seem like home to me—­the log house among the elms and cottonwoods at the fort.  As I finished my task I wondered how a big, fine house such as I had seen in pictures would look nestled among these beautiful trees.  I wanted a home here some day, a real home.  It was such a pleasant place even in its loneliness.