“Ah, but I am,” returned Agnes, “and that’s for why you are better when I am along. You don’t draw so dour a face. It’s no worse that we are doing than your grandfather did, and no so bad, for did he not leave his country and come across the ocean to this land? But no, it wasn’t really his own country, Ireland, was it? for before that his father--or was it his grandfather?--fled from Scotland because he followed a Protestant king. Grandfather used to tell me about it all and the songs they sang. ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled’” she trolled out as she ran along, keeping step with her father’s long strides. “And how far do we have to go before we come to the Ohio?” she asked after a while. “Near two hundred miles,” he told her. “Let me see; we go ten miles to-day, which is nothing of a walk, and we spend the night in Carlisle, where you get another horse, and we go how far the next day?” “Twenty-five or thirty, I think we can count on.” “And that much every day?” “If the weather is good.” “Then in four or five days we shall go a hundred miles, and in a little over a week, say ten days, we shall get there. I wonder what it looks like.” “Not so very different from what you see now--a trifle wilder, mayhap. But I wouldn’t count on our making it in ten days; when we are crossing the mountains, it will be sore work, verra rough travelling.” “Oh!” Agnes was a little disappointed. She thought it might be quite different and that the trip would be made in short order, delays not having entered into her calculations. However she resumed the conversation cheerfully. “Now let us talk about what we are going to do when we get there.” “My first step will be to get my land.” “And then stake it out,” said Agnes, glad to display her knowledge of the necessary proceedings. “Yes.” “And next?” “Build a log-cabin.” “You’ll have to cut down the trees first and then have--what do they call it?--a log-rolling.” “Yes, that will come first.” Agnes was silent a moment, then she began again. “Father, I never thought to ask before, but where are we going to sleep nights after we leave Carlisle?” “We’ll make the towns along the way as far as we can, and when we pass beyond them, we may find a booth or so or maybe a cabin here and there, put up for the use of travellers like ourselves. When we reach the river, I may conclude to get a broad, as your grandfather Muirhead did.” “What is a broad?” “A broadhorn, they call it, is a flat-boat to be used in shallow water to carry a family’s belongings.” Agnes smiled; this was such an adventurous way of going. The boat, particularly, gave her a feeling of novelty. “I hope you will get a boat; it would be a diversion to travel that way, and then no one would have to walk, not even you, Donald.” She patted the horse affectionately. “Go on, father. Where do we get the boat?”