She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. He rummaged under the pillow and found a Kleenex folded in four.

“It’s clean,” he said.

“I hope so!” she said, smiling through her tears.

Her smile vanished almost at once, though, and she began again to say that she was neither Indian nor white, but something in between and that, in the end, she was nothing at all.

The man didn’t know what to say. He reached out to turn down the heat, because it was warmer in the bed now. The mechanism that controlled the temperature was in a small saucer-shaped case. The case was just above the bed, on the edge of the baggage compartment, and it served as a night light as well.

“I have something to tell you,” he said.

He turned onto his side and drew up his knees.

“You say that you’re ‘something in between’ . . . Well, I don’t agree with you at all. I think you’re something new, something that’s beginning. You’re something that has never been seen before. And that’s it.”

The girl heaved a long sigh and was silent for a moment.

“Thank you,” she said at length. “Maybe I was a little zouave. Thank you very much.”

A little later, they fell asleep in each other’s arms and under the gentle warmth of the electric blanket. In the middle of the night the man woke up, and seeing the little light at the edge of the baggage compartment, he felt briefly as if a flying saucer was soaring silently above his head. It was absolutely idiotic . . . yet he fell asleep again and dreamed that La Grande Sauterelle was an extraterrestrial.

XXV. A Vagabond

XXV

A Vagabond

Someone was hitchhiking. A man. White hair. A knapsack on his back . . . No, not a knapsack: a big piece of canvas, rolled up.

Jack looked at the girl to see if she agreed. She nodded, and he stopped the Volks level with the hitchhiker.

“Howdy!” said the old man.

“Howdy!” said La Grande Sauterelle.

She was trying to put on a western drawl. Her imitation wasn’t very successful, because the old man asked, “You’re from the East, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“From Quebec,” said Jack.

“Je parle français,” said the old man, who had just a slight accent.

“You going far?” asked the girl, opening the door.

“To Oregon.”

“We’re going to Fort Hall,” said Jack. “It’s not very far, but you can come along if you want.”

“Thanks a lot. It’ll give my old pins a rest,” said the man.