th sudden
animation, as a thought struck him, "Eaglenose will bring the
jumping-jack to the camp of Bounding Bull, and put it in the hands of
the skipping one, though his scalp should swing for it in the smoke of
her father's wigwam."

He stooped, took the little face between his hands, and kissed it on
both cheeks.

"Don't--don't leave me," said the child, beginning to whimper.

"The chief commands, and Eaglenose must obey," said the youth.

He gently unclasped the little hands, and silently glided into the
forest.

Meanwhile Moonlight, utterly forgetting amid her anxieties the
arrangement about Skipping Rabbit, sauntered back again through the camp
till she reached the opposite extremity, which lay nearest to the willow
swamp. The lines here were not guarded so carefully, because the nature
of the ground rendered that precaution less needful. She therefore
managed to pass the sentinels without much difficulty, and found, as she
had been told, that one of her father's horses was feeding near the
willow swamp. Its two fore-legs were fastened together to prevent it
straying, so that she caught it easily. Having provided herself with a
strong supple twig, she cut the hobbles, vaulted lightly on the horse's
back, and went off at a smart gallop.

Moonlight did not quite agree with her mother as to the effect of
disappointment on her lover. Although heaviness of heart might possibly
induce him to ride slowly, she thought it much more likely that
exasperation of spirit would urge him to ride with reckless fury.
Therefore she plied her switch vigorously, and, the light increasing as
she came to more open ground, she was able to speed swiftly over a wide
stretch of country, with which she had been familiar from childhood, in
the hope of intercepting the Blackfoot chief.

After a couple of hours' hard riding, she came to a narrow pass through
which she knew her lover must needs go if he wished to return home by
the same path that had led him to the camp of his enemy. Jumping
quickly from her steed, she went down on her knees and examined the
track. A sigh of relief escaped her, for it was evident that no one had
passed there that day towards the west. There was just a bare
possibility, however, that the chief had taken another route homeward,
but Moonlight tried hard to shut her eyes to that fact, and, being
sanguine of temperament she succeeded.

Retiring into a thicket, she tied her horse to a tree, and then