“It’s late June. Since we left Independence, Missouri, we’ve travelled between thirty and forty kilometres per day; we haven’t had any trouble, aside from the rivers to cross, the heat, dust, storms and mosquitoes. The guide knows the terrain will soon be getting rougher and that there are problems ahead, so he takes some time to talk with the emigrants; he explains what’s in store and he encourages everyone — men, women and children. He knows the emigrants aren’t heroes. They’re ordinary people. They were farmers, artisans, teachers and missionaries back in Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri. They’re not rich, but they had enough money to buy a covered wagon and oxen and all the supplies they needed for the journey. They’re not adventurers. What they’re looking for isn’t adventure, it’s . . . In fact, they don’t know exactly. They’ve heard there are vast fertile lands out west and they’ve decided to go there, that’s all. They think they’ll find a better life out there, on the Pacific coast. What they’re looking for, basically, is happiness.”

There was a long silence. Jack had gone back to reading their favourite book, stroking the cat who was purring in his lap, when suddenly he raised his head and gazed out, perplexed, at the countryside.

“Hey,” he said. “Are we on route 26?”

“No, we’re on 80,” said the girl quite calmly.

“No we aren’t! I just saw a sign that read 26 WEST. Didn’t you see it?”

“No.”

“So we’re on the wrong road,” he said.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. I really thought we were still on 80.”

“It’s my fault. I was the navigator. I should have been doing my job instead of telling you all those stories.”

“No, no, they were very interesting.”

“You’re just saying that.”

She winked at him.

“Just a sec, let me have a look at the maps,” he said.

Riffling through the literature they’d been given at the Nebraska border, he took out a state map to see where La Grande Sauterelle might have made the mistake that had taken them off highway 80 and onto 26.

It was in the town of Ogallala. That was the only place where the two roads met. From all indications that was where the mistake had been made.

However, there was something strange about the girl’s attitude: instead of slowing down, she was driving the Volks at one hundred kilometres an hour; and she was whistling “Un Canadien errant.”