e Naki
set up a pasteboard target, which he nailed to the side of a big cedar
tree, at the edge of a slight embankment. Below it was nothing but
underbrush. No one was near. It seemed a perfectly safe place for the
rifle practice.

Mollie sat on the ground back of the eager sportsmen. Nothing could
induce her to handle a gun. "I suppose I am safe, back here," she
laughed, "so, I shall sit here and watch this famous shooting match.
Only, for goodness' sake, all of you be careful!"

Bab, Ruth and Grace were each to have ten shots at the target, Naki
showing them how to load and fire. Reginald Latham would keep the score.
The girl who hit the bull's eye the greatest number of times was to be
proclaimed champion.

Bab fired first. She hit the second ring from the center of the bull's
eye.

"Good for you!" Ruth cried, taking aim. But she missed the target
altogether. The shot from her rifle went down the hill.

Mollie thought she saw something stir. "Isn't this a dangerous business?"
she asked Reginald Latham.

"There is nothing in these woods to harm, Miss Mollie," he explained.
"Most of the birds have already flown away."

For an hour the girls fired at the target. Grace had grown tired and had
taken her seat by Mollie, but Ruth and Barbara were both enthusiastic
shots. Ruth's score stood two ahead of Bab's, who still had three more
shots to fire.

Suddenly Barbara raised her rifle. "No, don't show me, Naki," she
protested. "I think I can take aim myself." As Bab fired Mollie rose to
her feet with a cry. She had seen something brown and scarlet moving in
the underbrush on the hill below them.

Bab's shot had missed the target. But did they hear a low moan like the
sound of a wounded dove?

Barbara turned a livid white. "I have hit something!" she called to Ruth.
But Ruth was after Mollie, who was scrambling down the hill.

The whole party followed them, Barbara's knees trembling so that she
could hardly walk.

There were tears streaming from Mollie's eyes as she looked up at Bab.
The child's arms were around a little figure that had fallen in the
underbrush, a little figure in brown and scarlet, with a wreath of
scarlet autumn leaves in her hair.

"I have been afraid of this," said Naki, pushing the others aside.

"It's my little Indian girl!" Mollie explained. "She couldn't bear to
keep away from us, and at first I thought her the ghost of Lost Man's
Trail. I have seen her around our hut nearly every da