I drove in between scattered
burr oaks like those of the Wisconsin oak openings, and stopped my
cattle in an open space densely sheltered by thickets of crabapple, plum
and black-haw, and canopied by two spreading elms. Virginia started up,
ran to the front of the wagon and looked about.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"This is our hiding-place," I replied.
"But that man--won't he follow our tracks?"
"We didn't leave any tracks," I said.
"How could we come without leaving tracks?" she queried, standing close
to me and looking up into my face.
"Did you notice," said I, "that for miles we drove in the water--back
there on the prairie after the rain?"
"Yes."
"We drove in the water when we left the road, and we left no tracks. Not
even an Indian could track us. We can't be tracked. We've lost
Gowdy--forever."
I thought at first that she was going to throw her arms about my neck;
but instead she took both my hands and pressed them in a long clasp. It
was the first time she had touched me, or shown emotion toward
me--emotion of the sort for which I was now eagerly longing. I did not
return her pressure. I merely let her hold my hands until she dropped
them. I wanted to do a dozen things, but there is nothing stronger than
the unbroken barriers of a boy's modesty--barriers strong as steel,
which once broken down become as though they never were; while a woman
even in her virgin innocence, is always offering unconscious invitation,
always revealing ways of seeming approach, always giving to the stalled
boy, arguments against his bashfulness--arguments which may prove absurd
or not when he acts upon them.
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