“For the reason that I was obliged to. Whirlwind—I have named him—paid no more attention to my commands for him to moderate his speed than if I had been a gad-fly. He fairly flew with me until he stumbled, back here. He seemed to lose courage or confidence then, and went slower.” “I wonder you did not fall,” said Mark. “I was afraid of prairie-dog town. These little fellows undermine the ground until it is hardly safe to ride over.” “And we, then, have been over a prairie-dog settlement?” questioned Lissa. “Yes, there is a large one here extending a mile on either side of the road. If you had come through here in daylight you would have seen them coming out of their little houses, and heard them bark.” “I think I did hear one. Have they a little piping voice?” “Yes, very likely you did hear them. You will often pass here and have plenty of chance to study them,” said Nathan. “Do they do any harm?” “No, except to undermine the ground and make it treacherous to travelers.” The remainder of their journey was uneventful, and before midnight the two sisters were united, and talking so animatedly that the night bid fair to be sleepless. “Come, Alice,” Mark said at last, “Lissa must be very tired and you are to have weeks and months together now to tell everything to one another. You don’t want to make her ill at the beginning.” “No, I do not. But it does seem glorious to have some one to talk to.” “As if we were not of any use in that line?” Alice made a pretty grimace. “You are away so much. And then it—it is different.” But Alice kissed her sister, and left her to spend the remainder of the balmy night in her new home. CHAPTER VII IN THE NEW HOME The next morning when Lissa awoke the sun was shining brightly in through one of the small windows of her adobe house and she had leisure to look about her, and to survey this new, and to her, novel style of architecture. The house was built of sod and mud, the roof being formed of poles of cotton-wood covered with sod, and brightly green with the upspringing grass. The inside of the house was lined by a strong paper, firmly stretched and fastened at the corners, and presented a smooth and cleanly looking wall. Through the windows Lissa could see the vast prairies level gray, dotted with small houses, similar in construction to this one to which her husband had brought her. There were but two large rooms in the house, and one bed-room. No second story, as the roof was low. A large cupboard stood in one corner of the kitchen and another in the bed-room. “That shall be my dressing-case,” said Lissa to herself; “in this other I will put up some hooks and a curtain, for a wardrobe.”