hich one could
get through. Moreover, a couple of Indians stationed at
the narrow track could easily keep two hundred foe-men
at bay. Dorothy realised that she was now as effectually
a prisoner as if she had been hidden away in an impregnable
fortress.

The party descended a gentle slope, and there, in a
saucer-shaped piece of low-lying ground fringed with
saskatoon and choke-cherry trees, they pitched their
camp.

For the first three days Dorothy was almost inclined to
give way to the depression of spirits which her surroundings
and the enforced inaction naturally encouraged. Though
the Red folk were not actually unkind to her, still,
their ways were not such as commended themselves to a
well-brought-up white girl. Fortunately, the Falling Star
was well disposed to her, and did all she could to make
Dorothy feel her captivity as little as possible. The
two would sit together in a shady place on the edge of
the great cliff for hours, gazing out upon the magnificent
prospect that outspread itself far beneath them, and the
Indian girl, to try and woo the spirit of her white sister
from communing too much within itself, would tell her many
of the quaint, beautiful legends of the Indian Long Ago.

On the third day, just as Dorothy was beginning to wonder
if it were not possible to steal out of the wigwam one
night when Falling Star slept soundly, and, by evading
the sentries--who might also chance to be asleep--make
her way out through the narrow pass and so back to freedom,
there was an arrival in camp that exceedingly astonished
her. She was sitting some little distance back from the
edge of the great cliff with Falling Star near at hand,
when some one behind her spoke.

"Ah, Mam'selle," said the voice, "it ees ze good
how-do-you-do I will be wish you."

Dorothy turned, and to her surprise Bastien Lagrange
stood before her.

Despite the jauntiness of his speech, and the evident
desire he evinced to appear perfectly at his ease, Dorothy
at once detected an under-current of shame-facedness and
apprehension in Bastien's manner. His presence urged that
he was no longer a prisoner with Poundmaker's band. What
did it portend?

In her eagerness to learn something of her father, Pasmore,
and the others, Dorothy sprang to her feet and ran towards
Lagrange. But that gentleman gave her such a significant
look of warning that she stopped short. He glanced
meaningly at the Indian woman, Falling Star. Dorothy
understo