The woman to whom he spoke next appeared at the wagon front and was aided to the ground.  Tall, slender, black clad, with thin, pale face, she seemed even more unsuited than her husband to the prospect which lay before them.  She stood for a moment alone, looking about her at the land which had long been shut off from view by the wagon tent, then turned and went close to the man, upon whom she evidently relied for the solution of life’s problems.  Immediately behind her there clambered down from the wagon, with many groanings and complaints, the goodly bulk of the black woman who had earlier given her advice.  “Set down yer, Mis’ Lizzie, in the shade,” she said, spreading a rug upon the ground upon the side of the wagon farthest from the sun.  “Set down an’ git a ress.  Gawd knows we all needs it—­this yer fo’saken kentry.  ‘Tain’ good as Mizzoury, let ’lone Kaintucky er Ole Vehginny—­no, mam!”

There was thus now established, by the chance of small things, the location of a home.  This wagon, with its occupants, had come far and journeyed vaguely, having no given point in view.  The meeting of this other vehicle, here in the middle of the untracked prairie, perhaps aided by the chance words of a tired negress, made the determining circumstances.  It was done.  It was decided.  There was a relief at once upon every countenance.  Now these persons were become citizens of this land.  Unwittingly, or at least tacitly, this was admitted when the leader of this little party advanced to the side of the buckboard and offered his hand.

“My name is Buford,” he said slowly and with grave courtesy.  “This is my wife; my niece, Miss Beauchamp.  Your name, sir, I don’t know, but we are very glad to meet you.”

“My name’s Poston,” said Sam, as he also now climbed down from his seat, seeing that the matter was clinched and that he had gained a family for his county—­“Sam Poston.  I run the livery barn.  I sure hope you’ll stop in here, for you won’t find no better country.  Do you allow you’ll move up to Ellisville and live there?”

“Well, I’ve started out to get some land,” said Buford, “and I presume that the first thing is to find that and get the entry made.  Then we’ll have to live on it till we can commute it.  I don’t know that it would suit us at Ellisville just yet.  It must be a rather hard town, from all I can learn, and hardly fit for ladies.”

“That’s so,” said Sam, “it ain’t just the quietest place in the world for women-folks.  Only five or six women in the place yet, outside the section boss’s wife and the help at the depot hotel.  Still,” he added apologetically, “folks soon gets used to the noise.  I don’t mind it no more at all.”

Buford smiled as he glanced quizzically at the faces of his “women-folks.”  At this moment Sam broke out with a loud exclamation.

“Say!” he cried.

“Yes, sir,” said Buford.

“I’ll tell you what!”