“I want to know you as well as I love you,” he said.  “I suppose it will be like studying law—­one never gets through with it.”

“I’ve found myself a rather abstruse subject—­as bad as Coke, of which Abe used to talk so much with my father,” she declared.  “I shall be glad if it doesn’t discourage you.”

“The mystery of woman can not be solved by intellectual processes,” the young man remarked.  “Observation is the only help and mine has been mostly telescopic.  We have managed to keep ourselves separated by a great distance even when we were near each other.  It has been like looking at a star with a very limited parallax.  It’s a joy to be able to see you with the naked eye.”

“You will have little to look at on this holiday but me and the prairies,” said Bim.

“I think the prairies will be neglected.  I shall wear my cavalry uniform and try to get a pair of the best horses in Chicago for the trip.”

“Then you would have to get mine.  I have a handsome pair of black young horses from Ohio—­real high steppers.  It is to be my party.  You will have to take what comes and make the best of it.”

The day of their journey arrived—­a warm, bright, cloudless day in September 1841.  The long story of those years of separation was told as they rode along.  Biggs had been killed in a drunken brawl at Alton.  Davis had gone to the far West—­a thoroughly discredited man.  Henry Brimstead had got his new plow on the market and was prospering beyond all his hopes.  Eli had become a merchant of unusual ability and vision.  His square dealing and good sense had done much to break down prejudice against the Jews in the democracy of the West.  Agents of the store were traveling in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana selling its goods to country dealers.  They carried with them the progressive and enlightened spirit of the city and the news.  Everywhere they insisted upon a high standard of honesty in business.  A man who had no respect for his contract was struck off the list.  They spread the every-day religion of the counting room.  They were a welcome, unifying and civilizing force in the middle country.  Samson Traylor was getting wealth and a reputation for good sense.  He had made the plan on which the business had developed.  He had proved himself a wise and far-seeing man.  Sarah’s friends had been out in Springfield for a visit.  They had invested money in the business.  Her brother had decided to bring his family West and settle in Sangamon County.

The lovers stopped in a grove at noon and fed their horses and Harry, who had a bundle of Joe’s lucifer matches in his pocket—­a gift from Samson—­built a fire and made a broach of green sticks on which he broiled beef steak.

A letter from Harry to Sarah Traylor tells of the beauty of the day—­of blue bells and scarlet lilies in the meadow grass, of the whistling quail, of pigeons and wild geese flying across the sky and of his great joy in seeing again the vast sunlit reaches of the level, virgin lands.