ith him.

"It's quite out of the question for you to undertake that climb. We'll
be back again in a few hours with the major and Miss Kinnaird," he
said.

Ida went up to him and touched his arm, and, for no very evident
reason, the color crept into her face when he looked at her
inquiringly.

"Can't the Indians find the way themselves?" she asked. "You are
scarcely fit to go."

Weston shook his head.

"I must manage it somehow," he said. "They have nothing to eat up
yonder, and the Indians might not find them until it's dark again."

He broke off for a moment with a forced smile.

"Try to reassure Mrs. Kinnaird, and then go to sleep as soon as you
can."

In another minute he had limped away, and Mrs. Kinnaird found the girl
looking down with a very curious expression at a little smear of blood
on a smooth white stone. There were further red spots on the shingle,
and they led forward in the direction in which the rescue party had
gone.

"Oh," she said, "he told me he had cut his foot, and he couldn't have
waited long enough to eat anything."

Then she gasped once or twice, for she was worn out to the verge of a
break-down, and Mrs. Kinnaird, who saw how white her face was growing,
slipped an arm about her and led her back toward the tent.

The afternoon passed very slowly with the little, anxious lady, and
every now and then she crept softly out of the tent and gazed
expectantly up the steep hillside. Still, each time she did it, there
was nothing that she could see except the long ranks of somber firs,
and the oppressive silence was broken only by the sound of the river.

Then she slipped back quietly into the tent where Ida lay in a
restless sleep. Now and then the girl moved a little, and once or
twice she murmured unintelligibly. It was very hot, for the sunrays
struck down upon the canvas between the firs, whose clogging,
honey-like sweetness was heavy in the air.

By and by, however, it grew a little cooler, as the shadow of the
great dark branches crept across the tent. Then they moved out upon
the dazzling river and slowly covered it. Mrs. Kinnaird, rising once
more in an agony of impatience, stumbled against one of the tent
supports. The crutch and ridge-poles rattled, and Ida opened her eyes.

"Oh," she said drowsily, "you needn't be anxious. He is quite sure to
bring them back."

She apparently tried to rouse herself, and, failing, went to sleep
again; but she left Mrs. Kinnaird a little c