e
evil, dusky face lighted, and, after consulting with the other Indians,
he took the bank from Eagle Eye and turned out and counted its contents.

"He thanks the white papoose," said Eagle Eye, returning the empty bank
to the little girl, "and the pony is yours."

Happy over her trade, the little girl rushed away to the sick horse,
while the eldest brother, enraged at her interference yet not daring to
stop the bargain, mentally promised to give her a lesson later.

"If the mare lives," he said aside to the biggest brother, "you bet
these thieves'll even things up."

The evening of things came sooner than he expected. For at sundown,
after the Indians had departed, the swift horse ridden to their camp by
the little girl was nowhere to be found!

But, angry as the farm-house felt over the theft, the big brothers knew
that it would be worse than foolhardy to try to recapture their animal.
And the trade seemed likely to be fair in the end, after all,--for at
midnight the family saw that the blue mare was getting well!

* * * * *

SHRIEKS of laughter from behind the barn, following strange, rapid
thumps upon the bare ground, led the three big brothers in that
direction one May morning, and, on turning the corner, they found the
little girl leaning convulsively against the old straw stack for
support, while in front of her, blinded by a big, red handkerchief, and
with a long bolster full of hay across her dappled withers, was the blue
mare, making stiff, wild plunges into the air, with arched back and head
held low. For the little girl was breaking her to ride!

It was the little girl who broke the horses on the farm to ride. She
played with them as colts, and, with her light weight, mounted them long
before they were old enough to carry any one heavier, and yet were too
old to be sway-backed. She tried them first as they stood tied in their
stalls, crawling carefully upon them from the manger. Later, she rode
them at a walk up and down the reservation road.

She had learned the First Reader of the saddle on the St. Bernard's
wide, slipping back. The pinto had been the Second, and she had then
passed rapidly to the graduation class of frisky calves and lean,
darting shoats. Now, for two years, all the horses sold at the
reservation by the big brothers had been of her training, and the
troopers vowed that no gentler, better mounts had ever been in the
service. Her mother viewed the co