"I smile at your simplicity in imagining that I ventured out, without
consulting you, for the Rocky Mountains. I frown to think that my wife
believes that I could go into danger with her, and only one right arm to
defend her. No! I went to-day to try you. I couldn't ask you within any
four-walled shelter. I wanted the wide expanse to be your only shield
before I could trust you. I wanted you to face the foe. Again I ask,
Shall we go? Answer from your own individuality, not mine."

"I will go."

It was the spirit that spoke; for neither heart nor flesh could have
braved the fancied dangers.

A week went by, and every moment of the time Saul was elate and busy,
providing for me in every possible way, devising comforts that exceeded
my imagination, remembering every idiosyncrasy that I had given
expression to in his hearing. Under the guard of the United States mail,
we left Fort Leavenworth. Meotona, the yellow savage, went with us. Oh,
the delight of those days! it comes to me now, and I almost forget that
I am alone on the Big Blue, and that those hours have gone down among
"the froth and rainbows" of the past, bearing with them a part of my
life. There were nights when I was afloat in the bark of my spirit, and
wandering up and on, until I met Half-Way Angels that bade me back to
Earth; and then I would wander away into dreams, watched by the stars
and Saul,--for in those first days he never wearied in his care. By
day I wandered through a garden of flowers untended by man, whose only
keepers were butterflies and birds. Indian faces and forms no longer
made me tremble. I grew to see beauty in them, as they dashed by the
train, intent on the hunt.