tle girl obeyed and sought the safety of the open prairie.

But there were hours of proud security, when, with the Swede boy as an
audience, or, better still, with the colonel's son, she put the blue
mare through her wonderful trick. This trick had been discovered
accidentally by the little girl. One morning, when she was breaking the
horse, she put one hand back playfully and pinched her on the croup to
see if she would buck,--and, instead, she promptly lay down! Afterward,
the same pinch brought her again to the ground, and the little girl
found that it needed barely a touch to make the mare perform. But
however delighted she was over her discovery, the little girl never
mounted the prostrate horse, for she was afraid that she might roll upon
her.

The days had passed, and it was now haying-time. But the mowers stood
idle beneath their sheds, and the work-horses grazed contentedly with
their heads to the south, for a rain was passing over the prairie.
Inside the farm-house, the little girl, standing against the blurred
panes, rebelled against the showers, and fretted for the blue mare and a
gallop; the biggest brother, buried deep in a book, thanked Providence;
while the eldest, remembering the uncovered cocks in the timothy meadow,
cursed the storm.

Toward evening, the third day of the downpour, however, the clouds
lifted. A new moon appeared, holding its chin up,--a promise of
sunshine,--and the little girl ran happily to the barn, slipped a lariat
into the blue mare's mouth, secured it with a thong under the jaw, and,
bareback, started toward the sloughs beyond the reservation road to
bring home the herd. When she was a mile away, the eldest brother
followed her, for he wanted to see if the grass around the farthest
slough would make good cutting. He rode the bald-faced pony, and across
his pommel was slung his musket.

The little girl did not see him. Content with the blue mare beneath her,
her mind busy, she rode on. And her voice, shrill, and broken by her
cantering, floated back to the eldest brother in snatches:

"Scotland's burning! Scotland's burning!
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
More water! More water!"

Then she disappeared over the ridge on her descent to the herd.

The eldest brother urged his horse a little to try to catch up with her.
But she was going faster now, too, and when he reached the top of the
ridge she was in the tall grass between him and the cattle, an