t, supposing that Frank and Jack would
follow her as soon as they crossed the field.

Olive stopped her horse finally. She was not looking about her, nor
thinking of anything in particular except her joy in Jack's safety. She
heard no sound.

Someone crept up behind her with the stealthiness possible only to an
Indian. Suddenly Olive felt her hands drawn behind her and she was
forcibly dragged from her horse.

Two or three times only she cried for help, but before she could do
more, a handkerchief was tied tightly about her lips and she was half
dragged and half carried to one of the very tents which she and Jack had
passed that morning on their way to the fateful round-up.

Old Laska sat stolidly smoking a pipe. "Ugh," she grunted, but her
small, beady eyes flashed like coals in the sunlight.

Although Olive was the last person she expected to see at such a moment,
she took the girl from Josef without a word, and held her so that she
could not get away. Josef disappeared immediately. He must have gone to
hide Olive's pony from sight.

Olive struggled, but she could make no outcry, and in a little while
Laska bound her so that she could scarcely move. The girl was a captive
inside the tent at the moment when Frank Kent and Jack passed it,
unheeding, on their return to Rainbow Lodge.

The Indian woman and her son had not thought to capture Olive at such a
time and place. But they had vowed to get hold of her by any means they
could. From the instant Josef discovered that Olive had come to the
round-up, he had not lost sight of her and when he found her alone, he
was ready.

All afternoon she lay in the tightly closed tent with Laska, neither one
of the women moving, Olive being in a stupor from terror and pain. By
and by, when the dusk fell, Josef appeared silently at the tent
entrance, leading Olive's pony and a horse for his mother. He bound
Olive to her horse, and the two women set off across the prairies, Laska
with her bundle across her back and two jugs of water swung over her
saddle.

Through all the long, cold night, Laska traveled across the barren
plains with her hand on Olive's bridle. At first there were shadowy
fences that marked the division of one ranch from another. These were
soon lost and the way lay through a trackless waste, unbroken by a trail
of man or animal. Laska had gone into the desert where there was no drop
of pure water.

In the morning the Indian woman rested, built a fire, unt