out upon the broad level of the
valley, with the Minneconjou and its fringing line of cottonwoods barely
five hundred yards across the bench. The pygmy tiger had been left at
home; his ears would have been too active, and Mrs. Dwight, though
accustomed to driving her usually gentle and tractable team, was utterly
helpless now. She hung on desperately to the reins. But this was a new
and delirious experience for the merry little scamps in harness. They
were headed for home. There was a deep bend of the stream and a ford
through the shallows, and an abrupt dip of four feet from the bench
level, and the words of their fair, frail charioteer were stimulating
rather than soothing, so away they went, and it was high time for Miss
Sanford, if she wished to save their necks, to throw convention and
etiquette to the wind, to take personal control--and the reins.

No one ever doubted Priscilla's nerve, yet here sat Priscilla hanging on
to the side-rail with both hands and staring backward, her head twisted
half round, with all her wondering, startled eyes, for the objects that
had stampeded the ponies were a brace of frowsy, blanketed Minneconjou
braves, squatted on the bunch grass in the shade of the bluffs at the
side of the road, in close conference with two men in khaki and campaign
hats, one of them, though instantly the brim was jerked down over his
eyes, she knew to be Blenke,--Blenke whose woe-begone, remorseful
letters she had duly filed and docketed, but who, he declared, was too
shame-stricken to show his face to her of all the world. What on earth
was Blenke doing there in that out-of-the-way nook, and in confab with
Indians? They were hidden from view by a wave of prairie almost as
suddenly as they had been whirled into sight, and then Priscilla had to
give her aid and attention to Mrs. Dwight, who was swaying in her seat.
She grasped the reins with her strong, wiry hands, but the little devils
were within an hundred yards of the brink and reckless of everything but
the mad exhilaration of a runaway. She heard from somewhere a shout,
"Pull your left rein _hard_!" and with both hands she tugged with sudden
and startling result. The ponies almost instantly veered to the left;
the light vehicle tipped slightly to the right, and with that Inez went
toppling headforemost over the low, leathern mud guard, and Priscilla
was alone. Still clinging to that left rein, she swung her discomfited
steeds in broad, big circle, narro