A pure soul draws back and is afraid on the threshold of love, but feeling that it will cross, it weakens. Lillian therefore was as if wearied by a dream; but when I understood all that, the breath in my breast was nearly stopped from joy. I know not whether it was an honorable feeling, but when in the morning I flew past her wagon and saw her, broken like a flower, I felt something akin to what a bird of prey feels, when it knows that the dove will not escape. And still I would not do an injustice to that dove for any treasure on earth, for with love I had in my heart at the same time an immense compassion. A wonderful thing however: notwithstanding my feeling for Lillian, the whole day passed for us as if in mutual offence, or at least in perplexity. I was racking my head to discover how I could be alone even for a moment with her, but could not discover. Fortunately Aunt Atkins came to my aid; she declared that the little one needed more exercise, that confinement in the stifling wagon was injuring her health. I fell upon the thought that she ought to ride on horseback, and ordered Simpson to saddle a horse for her; and though there were no side-saddles in the train, one of those Mexican saddles with a high pommel which women use everywhere on the frontier prairies, could serve her very well. I forbade Lillian to loiter behind far enough to drop out of view. To be lost in the open prairie was rather difficult, because people, whom I sent out for game, circled about a considerable distance in every direction. There was no danger from the Indians, for that part of the prairie, as far as the Winnebago, was visited by the Pawnees only during the great hunts, which had not begun yet. But the southern forest-tract abounded in wild beasts, not all of which were grass eating; wariness, therefore, was far from superfluous.