t a right
angle, straight across the prairie; but now so fast they rode, and so
unerringly, that long before their deserted friends had ceased to
stare and wonder they had passed out of sight.

CHAPTER XIV.

ONCE MORE IN THE OLD HOME.

"We can rest a little now, Kit. We are so far away that nobody could
catch us if they tried. They won't try, any way, I guess. They'll
think we'll go back."

"Didn't the horses do finely, Gaspar! I never rode like that, I guess.
Where are we going? What did you mean about saving Wahneenah's life?
Where is she?"

"Don't ask so many questions. I've got to think. I've got to think
very hard. I'm the man of our family, you know, Sun Maid. Wahneenah
and you are my women."

"Oh! indeed!" said the girl, moving a little nearer her foster-brother
on the grassy hillock where they had slipped from their saddles, to
rest both themselves and the beasts.

"You see: we've all run away."

"Pooh! That's nothing. I've always been running away. Black Partridge
said I began life that way."

"You're about ten years old, Kit. You're big enough to be getting
womanly."

"Father Abel said I was. I can sew quite well. If I'm very, very good,
I'm to be let stitch a dickey all alone, two threads at a time, for
him. Mercy said so."

"Do you like stitching shirts for that old man?"

"No. I hate it."

"Poor little Sun Maid. You were made to be happy, and do nothing but
what you like all day long. Well, I'll be a man some day, and build a
cabin of my own for you and Wahneenah."

"That will be nice. Though I'll be of some use some way, even if I
don't like sewing. Where shall we go when we get rested, boy?"

"To the Fort."

"The--Fort! I thought it was all burned up."

"There is a new one on the same old ground. It is our real home, you
know. We will be refugees. When we meet Wahneenah, we'll go and claim
protection."

"Oh! Gaspar, where is she? I want her terribly. I am afraid something
will happen to her."

In his heart the lad was, also, greatly alarmed; but he felt it unwise
to show this. So he answered, airily:

"Oh! she's on, a piece. I pointed her the road, and told her where to
meet us. At the top of the sandhills, this side the Fort."

"The sandhills! That dreadful place. You must be getting a real
'brave,' Gaspar boy, if you don't mind going there again. I've heard
you talk--"

"I don't want to talk even now, Kit. But I had to have some spot we
both knew, where we could