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Once when he sat down to chat�� he told us that in the immigrant car ahead there was a family from��across the water�� whose destination was the same as ours.
������They can��t any of them speak English�� except one little girl�� and all she can say is ��We go Black Hawk��Nebraska���� She��s not much older than you�� twelve or thirteen�� maybe�� and she��s as bright as a new dollar.Don��t you want to go ahead and see her�� Jimmy? She��s got the pretty brown eyes�� toor��
����This last remark made me bashful�� and I shook my head and settled down to��Jesse James.��Jake nodded at me approvingly and said you were likely to get diseases from foreigners.
����I do not remember crossing the Missouri River��or anything about the long day��s journey through Nebraska. Probably by that time I had crossed so many rivers that I was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was still��all day long�� Nebraska.
����I had been sleeping�� curled up in a red plush seat��for a long while when we reached Black Hawk. Jake roused me and took me by the hand. We stumbled down from the train to a wooden siding�� where men were running about with lanterns. I couldn��t see any town�� or even distant lights�� we were surrounded by utter darkness. The engine was panting heavily after its long run. In the red glow from the fire-box�� a group of people stood huddled together on the platform��encumbered by bundles and boxes. I knew this must be the immigrant family the conductor had told us about. The woman wore a fringed shawl tied over her head�� and she carried a little tin trunk in her arms��hugging it as ifit were a baby. There was an old man��tall and stooped. Two half-grown boys and a girlstood holding oilcloth bundles�� and a little girl clungto her mother��s skirts. Presently a man with a lantemapproached them and began to talk�� shouting andexclaiming. I pricked up my ears�� for it was positivelythe first time I had ever heard a foreign tongue.
����Another lantern came along. A bantering voice called out����Hello�� are you Mr. Burden��s folks? If you are�� it��s me you��re looking for. I��m Otto Fuchs.I��m Mr.Burden��s hired man�� and I��m to drive you out. Hello��Jimmy�� ain��t you scared to come so far west?
����I looked up with interest at the new face in the lantern-light. He might have stepped out of the pages of��Jesse James.�� He wore a sombrero hat�� with a wide leather band and a bright buckle�� and the ends of his moustache were twisted up stiffiy�� like little homs. He looked lively and ferocious�� I thought�� and as if he had a history. A long scar ran across one cheek and drew the comer of his mouth up in a sinister curl. The top ofhis left ear was gone�� and his skin was brown as an Indian��s. Surely this was the face of a desperado. As he walked about the platform in his high-heeled boots��
����looking for our trunks�� I saw that he was a rather slight
����man�� quick and wiry�� and light on his feet. He told us
����we had a long night drive ahead of us�� and had better be on the hike. He led us to a hitching-bar where two farm-wagons were tied�� and I saw the foreign family
����crowding into one of them. The other was for us. Jake got on the front seat with Otto Fuchs�� and I rode on the straw in the bottom of the wagon-box�� covered up with a buffalo hide. The immigrants rumbled offinto the empty darkness�� and we followed them.
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