alized that she was taking great chances of
recapture; but without means of defense and of obtaining meat she felt
that she could never hope to reach safety. And so she turned her face
back toward the camp from which she had but just escaped.

She thought Malbihn dead, so terrific a blow had she dealt him, and she
hoped to find an opportunity after dark to enter the camp and search
his tent for the cartridge belt; but scarcely had she found a hiding
place in a great tree at the edge of the boma where she could watch
without danger of being discovered, when she saw the Swede emerge from
his tent, wiping blood from his face, and hurling a volley of oaths and
questions at his terrified followers.

Shortly after the entire camp set forth in search of her and when
Meriem was positive that all were gone she descended from her hiding
place and ran quickly across the clearing to Malbihn's tent. A hasty
survey of the interior revealed no ammunition; but in one corner was a
box in which were packed the Swede's personal belongings that he had
sent along by his headman to this westerly camp.

Meriem seized the receptacle as the possible container of extra
ammunition. Quickly she loosed the cords that held the canvas covering
about the box, and a moment later had raised the lid and was rummaging
through the heterogeneous accumulation of odds and ends within. There
were letters and papers and cuttings from old newspapers, and among
other things the photograph of a little girl upon the back of which was
pasted a cutting from a Paris daily--a cutting that she could not read,
yellowed and dimmed by age and handling--but something about the
photograph of the little girl which was also reproduced in the
newspaper cutting held her attention. Where had she seen that picture
before? And then, quite suddenly, it came to her that this was a
picture of herself as she had been years and years before.

Where had it been taken? How had it come into the possession of this
man? Why had it been reproduced in a newspaper? What was the story
that the faded type told of it?

Meriem was baffled by the puzzle that her search for ammunition had
revealed. She stood gazing at the faded photograph for a time and then
bethought herself of the ammunition for which she had come. Turning
again to the box she rummaged to the bottom and there in a corner she
came upon a little box of cartridges. A single glance assured her that
they were intended f