We may have to drive -- no , as I 'm a living , wiggler-haunted human being , here 's firm bottom . Hurrah , Phil , we 're all right ! '' In a few minutes we were past the creek and bowling merrily on our way . We had a beautiful camping ground that night -- a fairylike little slope of white poplars with a blue lake at its foot . When the sun went down a milk-white mist hung over the prairie , with a young moon kissing it . We boiled some slices of our jumping deer and ate them in the open around a cheery camp-fire . Then we sought our humble couches , where we slept the sleep of just people who had been driving over the prairie all day . Once in the night I wakened . It was very dark . The unearthly stillness of a great prairie was all around me . In that vast silence Kate 's soft breathing at my side seemed an intrusion of sound where no sound should be . `` Philippa Blair , can you believe it 's yourself ? '' I said mentally . `` Here you are , lying on a brush bed on a western prairie in the middle of the night , at least twenty miles from any human being except another frail creature of your own sex . Yet you 're not even frightened . You are very comfy and composed , and you 're going right to sleep again . '' And right to sleep again I went . * * * * * Our fifth day began ominously . We had made an early start and had driven about six miles when the calamity occurred . Kate turned a corner too sharply , to avoid a big boulder ; there was a heart-breaking sound .
`` The tongue of the wagon is broken , '' cried Kate XXXXX dismay .
about around as at from in of on past with