e head woman of our tribe,
and her beadwork and dyed porcupine-quill work was the finest you ever
saw, Ruth Fielding. I was sorry to leave my war-bag with Dakota Joe. It
had in it many keepsakes my grandmother gave me before she passed to
the Land of the Spirits."

A demand had been made upon the proprietor of the Wild West Show for
Wonota's possessions, but the man had refused to give them up. The girl
had not brought away with her even the rifle she had used so
successfully in the show. But her pony, West Wind, was stabled in the
Red Mill barn. Indeed, Uncle Jabez had begun to hint that the animal was
"eating its head off." The miller could not help showing what Aunt
Alvirah called "his stingy streak" in spite of the fact that he truly
was interested in the Indian maid and liked her.

"That redskin gal," he confessed in private to Ruth, "is a pretty shrewd
and sensible gal. She got to telling me the other day how her folks
ground grist in a stone pan, or the like, using a hard-wood club to
pound it with. Right slow process of makin' flour or meal, I do allow.

"But what do you think she said when I put that up to her--about it's
being a slow job?" and the miller chuckled. "Why, she told me that all
her folks had was time, and they'd got to spend it somehow. They'd
better be grinding corn by hand than making war on their neighbors or
the whites, like they used to. She ain't so slow."

Ruth quite agreed with this. The Osage maiden was more than ordinarily
intelligent, and she began to take a deep interest in the development
of the story that Ruth was making for screen use.

"Am I to be that girl?" she asked doubtfully. "How can I play that I am
in love when I have never seen a man I cared for--in that way?"

"Can't you imagine admiring a nice young man?" asked Ruth in return.

"Not a white man like this one in your story," Wonota said soberly. "It
should be that he did more for himself--that he was more of a--a brave.
We Indians do not expect our men to be saved from disgrace by women.
Squaws are not counted of great value among the possessions of a chief."

"So you could not really respect such a man as I describe here if he
allowed a girl to help him?" Ruth asked reflectively, for Wonota's
criticism was giving her some thought.

"He should not be such a man--to need the help of a squaw," declared the
Indian maid confidently. "But, of course, it does not matter if only
palefaces are to see the picture."

But