The brown-eyed boy wound the lines around the whip-stock and took from a rack under the cover a long-barreled rifle. They had seen many roving bands of Indians on their journey, but had never been molested by them, but at the last settlement they had passed through they had heard horrifying accounts of the scalping and massacre of settlers and emigrants by the red men. On the old Overland Trail between Fort Laramie and the South Fork of the Platte there had occurred an Indian uprising a few days before, the terrifying news of which had reached them at their last stopping place. As Joe leaned forward with eyes fastened on the horizon he suddenly uttered a cry. "It’s a wagon," he shouted,—"an emigrant wagon—like ours!" From out of the cloud of dust that drifted across the prairie an object could now be discerned, a large object, with a white canvas cover. Joshua Peniman, who had never removed his intent gaze from the approaching cloud, echoed the cry. "It _is_ a wagon—an emigrant wagon!" Then as the dust drifted aside and he could see more clearly,—"and they are driving at a fearful pace!" For many weeks now the family had been traveling over the desolation of the prairies, for days at a time seeing no human creature but one another. For miles all about them lay the prairies, brown, dry, scorched by the hot summer sun, level as a floor, with never a tree, a shrub, a bush, a hill, or a mound to break the dreary monotony of the plains that stretched endlessly away all about them to the very horizon in every direction. It was therefore with the greater excitement and astonishment that the family saw a wagon drawn by two furiously plunging horses emerge from the cloud of dust that had concealed it, and come swaying and lurching across the plains. They had stopped their teams now, and the whole family were standing up looking backward. "Jerusalem! the folks in that wagon must be in a terrible hurry, whoever they are!" ejaculated Elijah, more commonly called "Lige" by his family. "They’ll tip their old schooner over if they don’t look out!" cried Sam. "Look at her tilt!" "Pretty risky driving, I should say," said Mrs. Peniman, shading her eyes with her hand. "Something must be the matter," cried Ruth, who, wakened by the talking, had come to the rear of the wagon. "I don’t believe anybody’d drive like that if they didn’t have to! Oh, Mother, do you suppose the Indians are after them?" "I think not, Ruthie, there does not appear to be any sign of any one after them. What does thee make of it, Joshua?" "I don’t know what to make of it," replied Joshua Peniman, leaping out of the wagon and keeping his gaze fixed on the approaching vehicle. "I never saw such driving. What can they be thinking of to drive their horses like that on such a day! The man must be drunk—or crazy! He’ll kill his team!"