say if he knew what I've promised Wana?" she said to
herself. Then she laughed a sudden, wilful laugh as she remembered that
she hadn't given him her letter.

But Seth was not quite free to go his way. Another interruption occurred
about half a mile from the farm, where the trail dipped so that he was
completely hidden from view. He overtook Wanaha. The Indian had been
walking steadily on, but, since the sound of his horse's hoofs reached
her, she had been waiting at the roadside.

He greeted her and would have passed on, but she stopped him, addressing
him in her soft, flowery, native tongue.

"It is of Rosebud," she said, her dark eyes looking solemnly up into his.
"My brother, the great chief, he love her, and in his love is danger for
her. I come. And I tell her these things. You love her. So, it is good.
You know Indian as no other knows, 'cep' my man. He learn this danger, and
he send me for warning. I tell her to-day. You I tell too, for you have
much knowledge and you watch. So."

"What danger? What is it?" Seth's questions came very sharply.

"I not know. It is so. My man he not know. He say only 'danger.' He say
Black Fox leave Reservation. So, watch. An' I tell you. You must speak no
word, or there danger for my man too, and for Wanaha. It is all."

Seth nodded.

"All right. I understand. You're a good squaw, Wanaha."

He passed on, for Wanaha waited for no questions. She had done what she
thought best. Had not Nevil seen the gravity of the matter? But of her own
accord she had gone further than her instructions. She had warned Seth,
whom Nevil had said must not be told. For once in her life Wanaha had
exercised her own judgment in defiance of her husband's.

The squaw passed down the deep prairie furrow while Seth held to the
trail. And the man's thoughts went back to the interview he had had with
Rosebud that morning. So it was Wanaha who had caused her to come to him.

CHAPTER XV

THE MOVEMENTS OF LITTLE BLACK FOX

The woodlands on the northern side of the great Reservations of Dakota
amount almost to a forest. From Beacon Crossing, after entering the Pine
Ridge Reservation, a man might travel the whole length of the Indian
territory without the slightest chance of discovery, even by the Indians
themselves; that is, provided he be a good woodsman. And this is what Seth
accomplished. He did it without any seeming care or unusual caution. But
then he was consummate in the necessary craf