Here Mr. Moody died; but his widow with her large family successfully maintained her cattle and sheep ranche till a rich gold mine was discovered upon her land. A sale was soon effected of both the mine and the ranche. In two weeks after the whole family, mother, sons, and daughters were _en route_ to California, where their long wanderings terminated. There they are now living and enjoying the rich fruits of their energy and enterprise, proving for once the falsity of the proverb that "a rolling stone gathers no moss." [Illustration: WAGON TRAIN ON THE PRAIRIE] The women of this family are types of a class--soldiers, scouts, laborers, nurses in the "Grand Army," whose mission it is to reclaim the waste places and conquer uncivilized man. If they fight, it is only for peace and safety. If they destroy, it is only to rebuild nobler structures in the interest of civilization. If they toil and bleed and suffer, it is only that they may rest on their arms, at last, surrounded by honorable and useful trophies, and look forward to ages of home-calm which have been secured for their posterity. CHAPTER VIII. HOMESTEAD-LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS AND ON THE PRAIRIE The first stage in pioneer-life is nomadic: a half-score of men, women, and children faring on day after day, living in the open air, encamping at night beside a spring or brook, under the canopy of the forest, it is only when they reach their place of destination, that the germ of a community fixes itself to the soil, and rises obedient to those laws of social and civil order which distinguish the European colonist from the Asiatic nomad. The experiences of camp life form the initial steps to the thorough backwoods education which a woman must at length acquire, to fit her for the duties and trials incident to all remote settlements. Riding, driving, or tramping on, now through stately groves, now over prairies which lose themselves in the horizon, now fording shallow streams, or poling themselves on rafts across rivers, skirting morasses or wallowing through them, and climbing mountains, as they breathe the fresh woodland air and catch glimpses of a thousand novel scenes and encounter the dangers or endure the hardships of this first stage in their pilgrimage, they learn those first hard lessons which stand them in such good stead when they have settled in their permanent abodes in the heart of the wilderness which it is the work of the pioneer to subdue.