he might go down and bring the box from the wagon.

"Early this morning, before I woke you, I led the brown horse you
brought the mother up the mountain on out toward the trail; we'll find
him over the ridge, all packed ready, and when I ran back for my
horse, I left a letter written in charcoal on the hearth there in the
shed--Amalia will be sure to go there and find it, if I don't return
now--telling her what I'm after and that I'll only be gone a few days.
She's brave, and can get along without us." Larry did not reply at
once, and Harry continued.

"It will only take us a day and a half to reach it, and with your
help, a sling can be made of the canvas top of the wagon, and the two
animals can 'tote it' as the darkies down South say. I can walk back
up the trail, or even ride one of the horses. We'll take the tongue
and the reach from the wagon and make a sort of affair to hang to the
beasts, I know how it can be done. There may not be much of value in
the box, but then--there may be. I see Amalia wishes it of all things,
and that's enough for--us."

Thus it came that the two women were alone for five days. Madam
Manovska did not seem to heed the absence of the two men at first, and
waited in a contentment she had not shown before. It would seem that,
as Larry had said, there was saving in her hallucination, but Amalia
was troubled by it.

"Mother is so sure they will bring my father back," she thought. She
tried to forestall any such catastrophe as she feared by explaining
that they might not find her father or he might not return, even if he
got her message, not surely, for he had always done what he thought
his duty before anything else, and he might think it his duty to stay
where he could find something to do.

When Harry King did not return that night, Amalia did as he had
laughingly suggested to her, when he left, "You'll find a letter out
in the shed," was all he said. So she went up to the shed, and there
she lighted a torch, and kneeling on the stones of the wide hearth,
she read what he had written for her.

"To the Lady Amalia Manovska:

"Mr. Kildene will help me get your box. It will not be hard, for
the two of us, and after it is drawn out and loaded I can get up
with it myself and he can go on. I will soon be with you again,
never fear. Do not be afraid of Indians. If there were any danger,
I would not leave you. There is no way by which they would be
likely to reach you except