"Well?"

"The wagon's gone."

Clarence started. It was true. Not only their wagon, but the whole train
of oxen and teamsters had utterly disappeared, vanishing as completely
as if they had been caught up in a whirlwind or engulfed in the earth!
Even the low cloud of dust that usually marked their distant course by
day was nowhere to be seen. The long level plain stretched before them
to the setting sun, without a sign or trace of moving life or animation.
That great blue crystal bowl, filled with dust and fire by day, with
stars and darkness by night, which had always seemed to drop its rim
round them everywhere and shut them in, seemed to them now to have
been lifted to let the train pass out, and then closed down upon them
forever.




CHAPTER II


Their first sensation was one of purely animal freedom.

They looked at each other with sparkling eyes and long silent breaths.
But this spontaneous outburst of savage nature soon passed. Susy's
little hand presently reached forward and clutched Clarence's jacket.
The boy understood it, and said quickly,--

"They ain't gone far, and they'll stop as soon as they find us gone."