personality, moved the form of her little, indomitable mother,
eight years old, and nine ere the great traverse was ended, a
necromancer and a law-giver, willing her way, and the way and the
willing always good and right.

Saxon saw Punch, the little, rough-coated Skye-terrier with the
honest eyes (who had plodded for weary months), gone lame and
abandoned; she saw Daisy, the chit of a child, hide Punch in the
wagon. She saw the savage old worried father discover the added
burden of the several pounds to the dying oxen. She saw his
wrath, as he held Punch by the scruff of the neck. And she saw
Daisy, between the muzzle of the long-barreled rifle and the
little dog. And she saw Daisy thereafter, through days of alkali
and heat, walking, stumbling, in the dust of the wagons, the
little sick dog, like a baby, in her arms.

But most vivid of all, Saxon saw the fight at Little Meadow--and
Daisy, dressed as for a gala day, in white, a ribbon sash about
her waist, ribbons and a round-comb in her hair, in her hands
small water-pails, step forth into the sunshine on the
flower-grown open ground from the wagon circle, wheels
interlocked, where the wounded screamed their delirium and
babbled of flowing fountains, and go on, through the sunshine and
the wonder-inhibition of the bullet-dealing Indians, a hundred
yards to the waterhole and back again.

Saxon kissed the little, red satin Spanish girdle passionately,
and wrapped it up in haste, with dewy eyes, abandoning the
mystery and godhead of mother and all the strange enigma of
living.