ment and pleading. "Look here, Laska,"
she said at last, "we are not going to allow the Indian girl to come
back to you. Any one could look at you both and see that she is not your
own child, and if you try to get her away from us or to molest her in
any way, I shall make it my business to find out who sends you money for
her and you shall have neither the money nor the girl."

Laska made no further objection, but neither Jean, nor Jack, nor Frank
Kent liked the expression of her face, as she watched them leave her
cabin. She made a sign of some kind in the air and mumbled a curious
Indian incantation that had a menacing sound.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ESCAPE FROM THE DANCE.

"IT is all settled, Laura dear," Mrs. Simpson announced comfortably as
the automobile drew up in front of her ranch-house door. "The Indian
girl is to stay with us and be your maid, as your mother says you are
accustomed to having some one to look after you, and Mrs. Merton tells
me she has taught this Olilie how to behave about a house. She seems to
have made quite a pet of her. I haven't talked it over with Jean and
Jack yet, but I am sure it would be most unwise for them to attempt to
keep the Indian girl at their ranch. They have Aunt Ellen and Zack to do
their work, and indeed they ought to have some one to look after them,
instead of undertaking to care for some one else." Mrs. Simpson nodded
emphatically. She was fond of giving advice, a little more fond than
Jean and Jack were of receiving it.

The ranch girls said nothing, but Frank broke in to the conversation,
unexpectedly. "Oh, I say, Mrs. Simpson," he remarked thoughtfully.
"Don't you know, this Olilie, or Olive as you sometimes call her, don't
strike me in the least as belonging to the servant class. Of course we
look at these things differently in England from what you do out West,
but this girl is so gentle and refined, it seems to me she ought to have
a real chance."

Jack smiled gratefully, with her head turned away. "I think so too," she
murmured to herself. "I only wish we knew how to manage it."

The house party was to have a dance at the ranch house that evening.
Jean and Jack and Frieda had never had any real dancing lessons, but the
two older girls were accustomed to going to the informal parties at the
other ranch houses. They knew how to dance the waltz, two-step and
quadrille, and it never occurred to them that Laura would try to
introduce the new style dances