he wood. He had no fear for their safety, but he was
indignant at this last untimely caprice of his sister. He knew the idea
had originated with her, and that the officers knew it, and yet she had
made Lady Elfrida bear an equal share of the blame. He reached the edge
of the copse, entered the first opening, but he had scarcely plunged
into its shadow and shut out the plain behind him before he felt his
arms and knees quickly seized from behind. So sudden and unexpected was
the attack that he first thought his horse had stumbled against a coil
of wild grapevine and was entangled, but the next moment he smelled the
rank characteristic odor and saw the brown limbs of the Indian who had
leaped on his crupper, while another rose at his horse's head. Then a
warning voice in his ear said in the native tongue:--

"If the great white medicine man calls to his fighting men, the
pale-faced girl and the squaw he calls his sister die! They are here, he
understands."

But Peter had neither struggled nor uttered a cry. At that touch, and
with the accents of that tongue in his ears, all his own Indian blood
seemed to leap and tingle through his veins. His eyes flashed; pinioned
as he was he drew himself erect and answered haughtily in his captor's
own speech:--

"Good! The great white medicine man obeys, for he and his sister have
no fear. But if the pale-face girl is not sent back to her people before
the sun sets, then the yellow jackets will swarm the woods, and they
will follow her trail to the death. My brother is wise; let the girl go.
I have spoken."

"My brother is very cunning too. He would call to his fighting men
through the lips of the pale-face girl."

"He will not. The great white medicine man does not lie to his red
brother. He will tell the pale-face girl to say to the chief of the
yellow jackets that he and his sister are with his brothers, and all is
peace. But the pale-face girl must not see the great white medicine man
in these bonds, nor as a captive! I have spoken."

The two Indians fell back. There was so much of force and dignity in the
man, so much of their own stoic calmness, that they at once mechanically
loosened the thongs of plaited deer hide with which they had bound him,
and side by side led him into the recesses of the wood.

*****

There was some astonishment, although little alarm at the fort, when
Lady Elfrida returned accompanied by the orderly who had followed Peter
to the wood, but with