ression of
abject terror. His eyes stared wildly, his teeth were set, his
nostrils drawn and pinched. He was, his foster-mother saw, already on
the verge of a collapse.

She leaped from her horse, and caught the fainting boy in her arms
while she directed the Sun Maid:

"Jump down and tie the horses, as the Snake-Who-Leaps showed you, by
their long bridles. In any case, there is little fear but they will
stand. Then follow me."

"But what ails my Gaspar, Other Mother?" asked the child, as she
sprang from her saddle. "Did somebody hurt him when the guns fired?"

"No. Tie the horses. He will be right soon. It is the fright. Make
haste, make haste!"

"Yes, yes, I will. My dear old Feather-man taught Kitty everything.
Every single thing about my Snowbird. I can fasten her all tight so
she will never, never get away, unless I let her. I will tie Gaspar's,
too; and shall your Chestnut stay here with them two?"

But for once Wahneenah did not stop to hear her darling out. She had
seen the deftness with which the little girl's small fingers had
copied the instructions of her riding-master, and had wondered at it
many times. She trusted it now, knowing that the lad needed her first
care, and meaning to carry him through the passage into the cave, then
return for the other. She knew, also, that if the soldiers she had
seen following them should come upon the tethered horses, the fact of
their presence would betray her own. But from this possibility there
was no escape; and, had she known it, no need for such.

She had scarcely laid the unconscious boy down upon the floor of her
retreat when Kitty came flying down the tunnel, her task completed.

"So quick, papoose?"

"Yes. Every one is fastened to a pretty tree, and every one is glad.
Why did we ride so fast, Wahneenah? It 'most took Kitty's breath out
of her mouth. But I did like it till my Gaspar looked so queer. Is he
sick, Other Mother? Why doesn't he speak to me?"

"He is ill, in very fact, Girl-Child. Ill of terror. Young as he is,
he has seen fearful sights, and they have hurt his tender heart. But
he will soon be better; and when he is you must not talk to him of our
old home, or of our ride, or of anything except that we are making
another little festival here in our cave. One more cup of water,
papoose, but take care you do not slip when you dip it from the
spring. We will bathe his face and rub his hands, and by and by he
will awake and talk."

Then, lea