t you'd better do," replied her mother. "Come up
and sit down," she said to the Indian girl, but the little maiden Rose
had found on the plain did not seem to understand. She looked at the
chair which Mrs. Bunker pulled out from against the house, however, and
then, with another shy smile, sat down in it.

"Poor thing," said Mrs. Bunker. "Maybe she belongs to Red Feather, and
she may be lost. I wish she could talk to me, or that I could speak her
language. I wonder----"

But just then Rose came hurrying back, not only with Uncle Fred, but
with Daddy Bunker and Red Feather.

"What's all this I hear, about Rose going out in the fields and finding
a lost papoose?" asked Uncle Fred.

"Well, here she is!" replied Mother Bunker.

Before any one else could say or do anything, Red Feather sprang
forward, as well as he could on his lame foot, and, a moment later, had
clasped the Indian girl in his arms. She clung to him, and they talked
very fast in their own language.

Then Red Feather turned to Uncle Fred, and, motioning to Rose, said:

"She find lost papoose. Me glad!"

"So that's what he was trying to tell us!" exclaimed Uncle Fred. "Red
Feather lost his little girl (his papoose as he calls her, though she
isn't a baby), and he set out to find her. Then he hurt his foot and
couldn't walk very well, so he came here. And that's what he meant when
he tried to ask us if we had another--an Indian child--larger than Russ.
This girl is bigger than Russ."

"Oh, I'm so glad she's found her father!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunker.

And that is just what the Indian girl had done. Later they heard the
story, and it was just as Uncle Fred had said.

Red Feather and some other Indians, with their squaws, children, and
little papooses, had left their reservation and started out to see some
friends. On the way Sage Flower, which was the name of the Indian girl,
became lost. She wandered away from the camp.

Her father and some of the other Indians started out after her, but did
not find her. Then Red Feather, wandering about alone, hurt his foot,
and managed to get to the spring when Laddie and Russ were waiting at
it.

Red Feather tried to tell those at Three Star Ranch about his little
lost girl, but could not make himself understood. Then his foot became
so bad that he could not walk and he had to stay. And, all the while,
he was wondering what had happened to Sage Flower.

The little Indian girl wandered about the plains, sleepi