asiveness. "Thou hast not the strength."

She yielded passively and clung piteously to the younger woman, her feet
lagging.

"She was so glad and joyous all day. I should not have let her go out of
my sight," the foster mother moaned. "And it was only such a little
while. Heaven and the blessed Mother send her back safely."

"I think they will find her. Paspah is good on a trail. If they stop for
the night and build a fire that will surely betray them."

She led Pani carefully along, though quite a procession followed.

"Let her be quiet now," said the younger squaw. "You can hear nothing
more from her, and she needs rest. Go your ways."

Pani was too much exhausted and too dazed to oppose anything. Once or
twice she started feebly and said she must go home, but dropped back
again on the pine needle couch covered with a blanket. Between waking
and sleep strange dreams came to her that made her start and cry out,
and Wenonah soothed her as one would a child.

All the next day they waited. The town was stirred with the event, and
the sympathy was universal. The pretty Jeanne Angelot, who had been left
so mysteriously, had awakened romantic interest anew. A few years ago
this would have been a common incident, but why one should want to carry
off a girl of no special value,--though a ransom would be raised readily
enough if such a thing could save her.

On the second day the company returned home. No trace of any marauding
party had been found. There had been no fires kindled, no signs of any
struggle, and no Indian trails in the circuit they had made. The party
might have had a canoe on Little river and paddled out to Lake St.
Clair; if so, they were beyond reach.

The tidings utterly crushed Pani. For a fortnight she lay in Wenonah's
cabin, paying no attention to anything and would have refused sustenance
if Wenonah had not fed her as a child. Then one day she seemed to wake
as out of a trance.

"They have not found her--my little one?" she said.

Wenonah shook her head.

"Some evil spirit of the woods has taken her."

"Can you listen and think, Pani?" and she chafed the cold hand she held.
"I have had many strange thoughts and Touchas, you know, has seen
visions. The white man has changed everything and driven away the
children of the air who used to run to and fro in the times of our
fathers. In her youth she called them, but the Church has it they are
demons, and to look at the future is a wicked thing.