some little anxiety. She remembered that Dakota Joe, in
whose show Wonota had once worked, had tried his best to make trouble for
her and Mr. Hammond because of the Osage maiden; and this Bilby was
plainly a much shrewder person than the Westerner had been.

She and Helen aided Aunt Alvirah out to the car. It was a heavy, seven
passenger machine; but Helen could drive it as well as Tom himself.

"And Tommy-boy," she explained as she tucked the robe about Aunt Alvirah
before following Ruth into the front seat, "went to town to-day with
father."

"I hope he will really get down to work now," said Ruth softly, as Helen
began to manipulate the levers.

"Pooh!" exclaimed Helen carelessly. "Work was made for slaves. And Tom
had a hard time over in France. I tell dad he ought not to expect
Tommy-boy to really work for a long, long time to come."

"Do you think that is right, Helen?" admonished her chum. "Idleness was
never good for anybody."

"It isn't as though Tom was poor. He hasn't got to toil and delve in an
old office--"

"You know it isn't that," cried Ruth warmly. "But he should make good use
of his time. And your father needs him. He ought to be idle now, not
Tom."

"Grandmother Grunt!" laughed Helen. "You're twice as old as Aunt Alvirah
right now."

"After what we have been through--after what the world has been through
for five years--we all ought to be at work," said Ruth rather severely.
"And Tom is no exception."

"Why, I never knew you to be hard on Tommy-boy before!" pouted Tom's
sister.

"Perhaps I never had occasion to be hard on him before," Ruth answered.
"He is only one of many. Especially many of those who were over there in
France. They seem to be so unsettled and--and so careless for the
future."

"Regular female Simon Legree, you are, Ruthie Fielding."

"But when Tom first came back he was as eager as he could be to get to
business and to begin a business career. And lately, it seems to me, he's
had an awful slump in his ambition. I never saw the like."

"Oh, bother!" muttered Helen, and started the car.

The car shot ahead, and in five minutes they passed the country inn, but
saw nothing of either Wonota or the Indian chief. In a cove below the
river bank, however, Ruth caught a glimpse of a small motor-boat with two
men in it. And backed into a wood's path near the highway was a small
motor-car.

Was it the smart roadster Mr. Horatio Bilby had driven to the Red Mill?
Ruth could