k her sister's shoulder.

"Ellen! Ellen!" she whispered tensely. "Listen! Some one is calling!"

Ellen awakened out of a belated sleep, raised on her elbow and tossed
the long loose hair from her face.

Again came the unearthly: "Awh-hoo-oo-oo!" rising thin and high and
dying away on the falling inflection.

Ellen's face went paler as she listened. She lingered a moment, then
sprang out of bed. Slipping her hand beneath her pillow she drew forth
the revolver and started for the door. Jean crawled gently over the
sleeping Lollie and followed.

They stood on the porch in the freshness of the dawn searching the
familiar landscape for some sign of life. The storm had cleared away
and long scarf-like clouds streaked the intense blue above. Once out
in the open Jean's mind was cleared of its phantoms. But a sudden
shock went through her when, from just over the bank, the call came
again.

Almost immediately there appeared in the trail the strange, tottering
form of a man. He advanced haltingly as if spent from some long
struggle, his bare, black head sunk on his chest, his damp garments
clinging to him.

"Stop!" Ellen's voice rang out. "Tell me who you are and where you are
from!"

The man raised his head. At the sight of the two women standing in
their white robes, their loose hair floating about them, a spasm of
mortal terror crossed his dark face.

"_Kus-ta-ka_! _Kus-ta-ka_!" [1] he yelled, at the same time throwing
up his arms and turning to run weakly down the trail.

Ellen covered the staggering figure with her revolver, but Jean caught
her hand. "Don't, El! Be careful!" she cried breathlessly. "Can't
you see--it's our old friend! It's Swimming Wolf from Katleean!"

She sprang along the trail after him calling: "Wolf! Oh, Swimming
Wolf! Don't run away from us! Don't you know your friends?"

The man terrified by something, she knew not what, kept up his feeble
running gait. She overtook him and grasped his shirt. The big Indian
collapsed on the sand. His hand closed painfully over her arm while
his wild black eyes searched her face. At the touch his look gave
place to one of relief.

"Ugh! Little squaw with white feet!" he gasped. "Swimming Wolf think
you all the same dead--think all you people dead. Long time you have
no grub." He pinched her arm again as if to reassure himself that she
was flesh and blood and not the _kus-ta-ka_, the ghost he had thought
her. He continued: