en her little sister does not need them," Hannah argued in
an injured tone.

"She did not buy them with your money," said the playroom girl. "You
would not have taken care of a cross baby four weeks, and missed a plum
picnic, and not played a leap, to earn pretty things for Dolly. You are
much too lazy."

"Now I shall not stay another minute!" springing from the stile in deep
chagrin. "You all can like Cordelia Running Bird if you want to, but I
shall not like her."

Hannah Straight Tree ran into the house, and those remaining turned
again to watch Cordelia. She had reached a sloping bluff, down which
the fence extended to the flats beside the river. She stood a moment on
the edge, then wrapped her clothes about her and sat down on the crust.
Presently she disappeared.

"She has slid down hill," observed the playroom girl. "She must be going
to the river."

"She should not. It will soon be dark, and she is all alone," said Emma
Two Bears, in a tone betraying some anxiety.

CHAPTER VI.

Cordelia Running Bid held her clothes about her with one hand, steering
with her feet, and reached the flats in safety. She arose and stood
still and looked toward the river to a space of open water on the near
side of a sandbar, half way over.

She took a few steps forward rather slowly, then her pace quickened more
and more, till she was running breathlessly, as if in fear of losing her
resolve to carry out some plan she was intent upon.

In rushing through a hollow lined with willow trees she slipped and
almost lost her footing, and in struggling to regain it she released her
hold upon a well-filled gingham bag which she had hid beneath her coat
and dropped it on the ground. She picked it up and hung it by the
draw-string on her arm, but with this interruption of her headlong
course there came a corresponding halt of purpose. So she turned aside
and walked a few yards down the hollow, where she found a log on which
to seat herself.

Presently she murmured in the passive monotone of a despairing Indian
girl: "Just like I have to stop and think before I do it. If I drown
the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings and the red dress and
the brown shoes and stockings, I can write to Hannah Straight Tree, for
she will not let me speak to her: 'Now you see I truly am not vain, for
I have put the Christmas clothes for Susie in my workbag, and a stone,
so it would sink, and I have drowned them in the airhole in