food," Jack pleaded, seeing Frieda's injured expression.
"She will get away, Jack," Frieda answered. "Then she may be lost on the
plains and starve and nobody will ever find her. She was so pretty and
so frightened that I am sure you would have been interested if you had
only seen her."
Jack heaved a deep sigh. "Come along, Jean," she insisted. "Frieda wants
us to look for the will-o-the-wisp, so look we must."
Frieda was not tempestuous like Jack and Jean, but, just the same, like
a great many other gentle people, she always had her way. "Little
Chinook," Jim used to call her, because "Chinook" is the Indian name for
a soft, west wind, that blows so quietly, so persistently, that it
carries everything before it. It even wafts all one's troubles away.
Jack, Jean and Frieda crawled down into the great canyon, among the giant
rocks, poking their noses into every opening, where they thought it
possible that anybody could be concealed. There was no sign of any one,
though Frieda called and called, assuring the runaway that the Indian
woman had gone back home.
"I am afraid she must have fallen and gotten hurt somehow, Jack," Frieda
suggested, when the three girls had explored for half an hour.
Jean turned resolutely upon the two sisters. "I am very sorry, Frieda
Ralston," she announced firmly, "but I decline to look for that tiresome
girl another minute. I will be fed. I don't see for the life of me, why
you are so worried over the fate of an unknown Indian maiden, when your
own devoted cousin is perishing before your eyes."
Frieda's cave was soon spread with the luncheon dishes and the girls sat
down Turkish fashion, with their long-delayed feast in front of them.
Frieda's face was half buried in a ham sandwich when Jean gave a sudden
exclamation of surprise. "Look, girls, there must have been an
earthquake or something around here. There is a hole in the rocks back
of Frieda's cave, nearly as large as this one. Funny we never noticed it
this morning!"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Frieda remarked indifferently. "I was
banging away there, trying to make my pantry larger, when a huge stone
fell out and rolled into the gorge. Lo and behold, there was another
cavern! I found some queer Indian relics in it. Come see."
Frieda led the way over to the new pit and dropped down on her knees in
front of it, with Jack and Jean on either side of her. "I was afraid to
go inside until you came," she said, "but it is qui
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