A path took her to the Corinth road, leading back to town.  Dandelions glowed in patches amidst the wild grass by the way.  A stream golloped through a concrete culvert beneath the road.  She trudged in healthy weariness.

A man in a bumping Ford rattled up beside her, hailed, “Give you a lift, Mrs. Kennicott?”

“Thank you.  It’s awfully good of you, but I’m enjoying the walk.”

“Great day, by golly.  I seen some wheat that must of been five inches high.  Well, so long.”

She hadn’t the dimmest notion who he was, but his greeting warmed her.  This countryman gave her a companionship which she had never (whether by her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and commercial lords of the town.

Half a mile from town, in a hollow between hazelnut bushes and a brook, she discovered a gipsy encampment:  a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of pegged-out horses.  A broad-shouldered man was squatted on his heels, holding a frying-pan over a camp-fire.  He looked toward her.  He was Miles Bjornstam.

“Well, well, what you doing out here?” he roared.  “Come have a hunk o’ bacon.  Pete!  Hey, Pete!”

A tousled person came from behind the covered wagon.

“Pete, here’s the one honest-to-God lady in my bum town.  Come on, crawl in and set a couple minutes, Mrs. Kennicott.  I’m hiking off for all summer.”

The Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the wire fence, held the strands apart for her.  She unconsciously smiled at him as she went through.  Her skirt caught on a barb; he carefully freed it.

Beside this man in blue flannel shirt, baggy khaki trousers, uneven suspenders, and vile felt hat, she was small and exquisite.

The surly Pete set out an upturned bucket for her.  She lounged on it, her elbows on her knees.  “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Just starting off for the summer, horse-trading.”  Bjornstam chuckled.  His red mustache caught the sun.  “Regular hoboes and public benefactors we are.  Take a hike like this every once in a while.  Sharks on horses.  Buy ’em from farmers and sell ’em to others.  We’re honest—­frequently.  Great time.  Camp along the road.  I was wishing I had a chance to say good-by to you before I ducked out but——­Say, you better come along with us.”

“I’d like to.”

“While you’re playing mumblety-peg with Mrs. Lym Cass, Pete and me will be rambling across Dakota, through the Bad Lands, into the butte country, and when fall comes, we’ll be crossing over a pass of the Big Horn Mountains, maybe, and camp in a snow-storm, quarter of a mile right straight up above a lake.  Then in the morning we’ll lie snug in our blankets and look up through the pines at an eagle.  How’d it strike you?  Heh?  Eagle soaring and soaring all day—­big wide sky——­”

“Don’t!  Or I will go with you, and I’m afraid there might be some slight scandal.  Perhaps some day I’ll do it.  Good-by.”