“Wh—wh—why, my good Lord, woman,” began the man as he recovered his breath. “What’s happened to you? Where in the world did you drop from?” “Where is my husband? What have you done to him?” I demanded hotly. “Well, now. Let me see.” He scratched his head perplexedly. “Seems like I recall a man askin’ for a bucket o’ water something like a half hour back. Might he be your man now? I was so plum frantic with this here pesky calf, that I didn’t pay no attention to the man.” “But who were you going to shoot?” I persisted. “I could hear you swearing clear over to the railroad.” “Sho, now. Is that so? ’Scuse me. I’m plum bad about swearin’. Wife, she’s after me all the time, too,” he apologised. “Now, the wife’s right set on her posies, and this here —— calf—’scuse me, seems like I just can’t stop cussin’—got in and trompled ’em all down, and while I was a trying my darndest to get him out, I’ll be damned if he didn’t bust through into the vegetables and cavort all over them.” Meanwhile, the innocent cause of the commotion had taken advantage of the lull in the storm to make his escape from the garden. “You didn’t get in the slough, did ye?” continued the farmer, eyeing my skirt. “Didn’t ye see all them fences? We had so much trouble with the stock gettin’ in the —— hole—’scuse me, beats the devil how those words will come apopping out—that we fenced her all in. But what gets me is how ye come to get past that bull ’thout being gored to death. He’s turrible dangerous. That’s why we got all them high fences about. Kill’t two men, he did, ’fore I got him. Bought him cheap, but the wife just raises a hell of a row—’scuse me—at keepin’ him.” I asked for water, for my thirst was intense, and after drinking deep from the dripping dipper and washing off the worst of the blood and dirt, I followed the farmer to the main road, where he pointed out a short cut to the railroad. There I found Dan rushing frantically about, for having found the wheel with the hatchet gone, he felt sure I had been kidnapped. It seems that he had gone to the house, found the farmer chasing the calf, secured the water, then thinking it would be difficult to carry the kettle through the fences, tried another route and got on the wrong road. Before he could find the right path and return, I was in the slough. We slept that night in a tumble-down shed—or rather, Dan did. Each time I dropped to sleep, I could feel myself sinking in the slough, and would wake up with a start. Next day we rode a good deal and covered a long stretch of territory. The country was flat and uninteresting and my strained muscles occupied most of my attention as I tried to confine the rebellious wheel to the smoother stretches. At noon we pitched camp near the railroad track and had the meal well under way when a passenger train pulled out of a station a mile or two ahead and thundered toward us. “Look,” exclaimed Dan. “What’s the matter there? The train is going to stop.”