The movers' wagon was never absent from the boy's picture of that time and place.

Either the canvas-covered wagon was coming from the ford of Sycamore Creek, or disappearing over the hill beyond the town, or was passing in front of the boys as they stopped their play.

Being a boy, he could not know, nor would he care if he did know, that he was seeing one of God's miracles--the migration of a people, blind but instinctive as that of birds or buffalo, from old pastures into new ones.

All over the plains in those days, on a hundred roads like that which ran through Sycamore Ridge, men and women were moving from east to west, and, as often has happened since the beginning of time, when men have migrated, a great ethical principle was stirring in them.

The pioneers do not go to the wilderness always in lust of land, but sometimes they go to satisfy their souls.