meet, and we chose that. I expect she'll be
there waiting, and as soon as the horses get cooled a little, and we
do, we'll go on."

"I'm hungry. I wish we had brought something to eat."

"I did. It's here in my blouse. I noticed at the dinner that you did
more serving than eating. There's water yonder, too; in that clump of
bushes must be a spring," and the prairie-wise lad was right.

The supper he produced was an indiscriminate mixture of meats and
sweets and, had Kitty not been so really in need of food she would
have disdained what she promptly pronounced "a mess." But she ate it
and felt rested by it; so that she began to remember things she had
scarcely noticed earlier in the day.

"Gaspar, Wahneenah must have known about this--this money being
offered for her and other Indians. She had taken everything out of her
wigwam. I thought she was terribly grave this morning, and she kept
looking at me all the time. Do you think she knew she was going to run
away as she was?"

"Course. She's known it some days."

"And didn't tell me!"

"She couldn't, because she loves you so. She wouldn't do a thing to
put you in danger. So I thought the matter over, and I tell you I've
just taken the business right out their hands. I was tired, any way.
I'm glad we came. I'm almost a man, Kit; and I won't be scolded by any
woman as Mercy has scolded me. And when I found Abel was getting
stingy, too, and claiming our horses for their keep, when they've
really just kept themselves out on the prairie, or anywhere it
happened, I--"

"Boy, you talk too fast. I--I don't feel as if I was glad. Except when
I remember Other Mother. They were horrid, horrid about her. I hate
them for that, though I love them for other things. I wonder what
Mother Mercy will say when we don't come home!"

"She'll have a chance to say a lot of things before we do, I guess.
Well, we'll be going. I wouldn't like to miss Wahneenah, and I don't
know but they close the Fort gates at night."

"Did she ride Chestnut?"

"Course. What a lot of questions you ask!"

The Sun Maid looked into the boy's face. It was too troubled for her
comfort, and she exclaimed:

"Gaspar Keith! There's more to be told than you've told me. What is it
you are keeping back?"

"I--I wonder if you can understand, if I do tell you?"

"I think I can understand a good many things. One is: you are making
me feel very unhappy."

"Well, then, I'm going to take Wahneenah to the Fort,