The ground was
soaked, the footprints round the wagons filled with water, the ruts
brimming with it. There was a glow of low fires round the camp, for
the mosquitoes were bad and the brown smudge of smoldering buffalo
chips kept them away.
Susan gave the guest the seat of honor--her saddle spread with a
blanket--and herself sat on a pile of skins. The tent had been pitched
on a rise of ground and already the water was draining off. Through
the looped entrance they could see the regular lights of the fires,
spotted on the twilight like the lamps of huge, sedentary glow worms,
and the figures of men recumbent near where the slow smoke spirals
wound languidly up. Above the sweet, moist odor of the rain, the tang
of the burning dung rose, pungent and biting.
Here as the evening deepened they comfortably gossiped, their voices
dropping lower as the camp sunk to rest. They exchanged vows of the
friendship that was to be renewed in California, and then, drawing
closer together, watching the fires die down to sulky red sparks and
the sentinel's figure coming and going on its lonely beat, came to an
exchange of opinions on love and marriage.
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