kitchen with a happy song
on her lips and set about helping her mother prepare provisions for the
trip.

That afternoon, while the biggest and the youngest brothers divided the
cattle, putting those that were to be wintered into the wire pen, the
eldest shod four ponies, three for riding and one for a pack-horse. The
start was planned for the next day, and since the trip must be a
leisurely one in order that the animals should arrive in as good
condition as when they set out, a cow was included in the drove to
furnish milk during the two days or more that the big brothers would be
en route.

But the following morning all plans for the journey were upset. One of
the ponies tried its newly shod heels on the youngest brother with such
viciousness that he had to be carried into the house. The biggest
brother decided to remain at home and take care of him. So, while the
pack-horse was being loaded with blankets, food, and a coffee-pot, the
eldest brother and his mother discussed the situation and at last agreed
that the little girl would have to help in the drive.

It was the fall before the little girl's thirteenth birthday, and she
was wearing her hair in a braid and her dresses to her shoe-tops. That
summer, for the first time in her life, she had not gone barefoot. She
had also taken to riding a side-saddle with a red plush seat. When her
mother, therefore, suggested that the trip would be a hard one, that the
post was a rough place, and that, since the colonel's family had gone
to a new fort in Wyoming, there was no house on the reservation at which
she could stay overnight, the eldest brother pooh-poohed and declared
that the little girl was no baby and that very good accommodations could
be secured at a hotel near the barracks.

They started immediately after dinner, taking two dogs along, and
crossed the Vermillion to the West Fork. There the cattle were brought
to a stand and a camping-place was selected. They were still so near the
farm that the eldest brother, anxious to know how matters were at home,
induced the little girl to return to the farm-house for the night. She
did so, and joined him before sunrise next morning.

There was a worried look on her face as she came galloping up, and the
eldest brother, fearful that the youngest was worse, demanded the news.

"Everything's just as it was when we left," said the little girl, "only
mother's awfully scared about my going, because the Swede told her last