, as
was their wont; the occupants of the wagons slept, as was their wont;
and the diminutive Alfred was hiding his blushes behind clouds of dust
in the rear, as was not his wont at all. He had been severely shocked,
and he might have brooded over it all the afternoon, if a discovery had
not startled him to activity.

On a bare spot of the prairie he discerned the print of a hoof. It was
not that of one of the train's animals. Alfred knew this, because just
to one side of it, caught under a grass-blade so cunningly that only the
little scout's eyes could have discerned it at all, was a single blue
bead. Alfred rode out on the prairie to right and left, and found the
hoof-prints of about thirty ponies. He pushed his hat back and wrinkled
his brow, for the one thing he was looking for he could not find--the
two narrow furrows made by the ends of teepee-poles dragging along on
either side of the ponies. The absence of these indicated that the band
was composed entirely of bucks, and bucks were likely to mean mischief.

He pushed ahead of the whole party, his eyes fixed earnestly on the
ground. At the top of the hill he encountered the young Easterner. The
latter looked puzzled, in a half-humourous way.

"I left Miss Caldwell here a half-minute ago," he observed to Alfred,
"and I guess she's given me the slip. Scold her good for me when she
comes in--will you?" He grinned, with good-natured malice at the idea of
Alfred's scolding anyone.

Then Alfred surprised him.

The little man straightened suddenly in his saddle and uttered a fervent
curse. After a brief circle about the prairie, he returned to the young
man.

"You go back to th' wagons, and wake up Billy Knapp, and tell him
this--that I've gone scoutin' some, and I want him to _watch out_.
Understand? _Watch out!_"

"What?" began the Easterner, bewildered.

"I'm a-goin' to find her," said the little man, decidedly.

"You don't think there's any danger, do you?" asked the Easterner, in
anxious tones. "Can't I help you?"

"You do as I tell you," replied the little man, shortly, and rode away.

He followed Miss Caldwell's trail quite rapidly, for the trail was
fresh. As long as he looked intently for hoof-marks, nothing was to be
seen, the prairie was apparently virgin; but by glancing the eye forty
or fifty yards ahead, a faint line was discernible through the grasses.

Alfred came upon Miss Caldwell seated quietly on her horse in the very
centre of a prai