murder is abroad? Not a pale-face shall escape. She was safe
here, where your own chief, the Black Partridge, placed her. Hear me.
If harm befalls her, if by moonrise she is not restored to me, you
shall bear the punishment. You----"

By a gesture he stopped her. Now thoroughly frightened, the
mischievous boy put up his arms as if to ward off the coming threat.
Half credulous, and half doubtful that the Sun Maid was more than
mortal, he had made a test for himself. He had remembered the
Snowbird, fretting its high spirit out within the closed paddock, and
a daring notion had seized him. It was this:

"While the Woman-Who-Mourns gossips with her neighbors, I'll catch up
the papoose and carry her there. She'll come fast enough. She ran away
yesterday, and she played with me before the Spotted Adder's hut. She
trusts everybody. I'll have some fun, even if my father didn't let me
go with him to the camp yonder."

Among all nations boyhood is the same--plays the same wild pranks,
with equal disregard of consequences; and Osceolo would far rather
have had a good time than a good supper. He thought he was having a
perfectly fascinating good time when he bound a long blanket over the
Snowbird's back and then fastened Kitty Briscoe in the folds of the
blanket. He had laughed gayly as he clapped his hands and set the mare
free, and the little one riding her had laughed and clapped also. He
had watched them out of sight over the prairie, and had felt quite
proud of himself.

"If she is a spirit she'll come back safe; and if she's nothing but a
white man's baby--why, that's all she is. Only a squaw child at that,
though the silly women have made such ado. I wonder--will I ever see
her again? Well, I'll go around by Wahneenah's tepee, after a while,
and enjoy the worry. It's the smartest thing I've done yet; and she
did look cunning, too. She wasn't a bit afraid--she isn't afraid of
anything--which makes her better than most girl papooses, and she was
laughing as hard as I was when she went away."

With these thoughts, Osceolo had come back to the spot where Wahneenah
met him and demanded if he knew aught of her charge; and there was no
hilarity in his face now as he watched her enter her wigwam and drop
its curtains behind her. He suddenly remembered--many things; and at
thought of the Black Partridge's wrath he turned faint and sick.

But the test had been made and no regret could recall it.

Meanwhile, there came into his