Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/257

 buckboard, which pitched and twisted in bone-racking way over the little hummocks of bunch grass, wheeled traffic not being frequent enough over that road to wear them down. That was one disadvantage of a country that did not confine travellers to a marked and designated road. Every driver could choose his own road, shaping his course according to the judgment of his eye for smoothness.

This apparent smoothness of the prairie surface was most deceptive. A short distance away it seemed as if one could drive over it in comfort at a smart clip, that the roughness lay only a little way on every side. In that manner it seemed to lead the traveller on always, with the hope and expectation of coming into smooth country at last, yet never reaching it to his journey's end.'

Louise begged Maud to spare the horses, asking for pity where pity never had been bred. Maud laughed, in the unmerciful range way of disregarding the suffering of any creature that went on four legs, but when Louise complained that the terrific heat of the sun had given her an excruciating headache, which every twist and bump of the vehicle intensified, Maud slowed down.

Maud was sympathetic. She said she knew what a sun-pain on the prairie was; she used to get it when she rode the range. It would beat and sprangle in fiery prongs through the brain, threatening to blow the head to pieces, until the sun went down. Then it would ease away like heat going out of iron.

Louise said nothing about an ache of loneliness and