camp, are
getting ready for an attack upon us, or some other near-by settlement.
I must go out and stop it,--find out their grievance and right it if I
can. If not--Well, I must make peace. I may be gone for several days,
and I may be back before morning. You must make yourselves comfortable
somewhere. Ask Doctor Littlejohn. If he is too absorbed in his
studies, then talk with One, his eldest son. He is a fine fellow, and
knows everything about this village. Good-by."

"But, child alive! You ain't going alone, single-handed, to face five
hundred bloody Indians! You must be crazy!"

"Oh, no, I'm not. It is all right. I am not afraid. There isn't an
Indian living who would harm a hair of my head, if he knew me; and
almost all in Illinois do know me, either by sight or reputation. I am
very happy with them and shall have a pleasant visit; that is, after I
have dissuaded them from this proposed attack."

"Kit, you couldn't do it. 'Tain't in nature. A young girl, alone,
pretty as you are--You _sha'n't_ do it,--not with my consent; not
while I'm alive and can set a horse or handle a gun. No, sirree. If
you go, I go, and that's the long and short of it."

"No, dear Father Abel; you must not go; indeed you must not. It would
ruin everything. It makes me very sad to have these constant broils
and ill-feelings coming up between my white-faced and red-faced
friends; yet the Lord permits it, and I try to be patient. But I tell
you again, and you must believe it, that I am as safe out yonder in
that camp of savages as I am here, this minute, with you. I am the Sun
Maid, the Unafraid, the Daughter of Peace, the Snowflake. They have as
many names for me as I am years old, I fancy. Each name means some
noble thing they think they see in my character, and so I try to
live up to it. It's hard work, though, because I'm--well, I'm so
quick-tempered and full of faults. But I suppose if God didn't mean me
to do this work, be a sort of peacemaker, He wouldn't have made me
just as I am or put me in just this place. That's what the Doctor
says, and so I do the best I can. After all, it's a great honor, I
think, to be let to serve people in this way, and so--Good-by,
good-by!"

The Snowbird sprang forward at a word and, by experience trained to
shun the sloughs and mud-holes, skimmed lightly across the prairie and
out of sight. The Smiths stood and watched its disappearance, and the
erect white figure upon its back, till both became a spec