er sister than of her father. She realised that if she
mentioned the officer, she would have to admit their meetings. And such
a confession would undoubtedly result in an end to those meetings and,
perhaps, in severe blaming. Yet--it would also cut short the drive to
Clark's. And what might not be awaiting them on that journey? Still,
there were only two likely dangers: Indians and the interpreter. "But
Mr. Fraser says this upper side of the river's safe," she remembered. As
to Matthews, he would not be lingering beside the road to waylay them.
Her fears for her own safety were thus argued down.

There was yet her father's safety to consider. Well, her gallant new
friend would look to that. "He'll be across again this afternoon," she
thought, "and he'll watch the house careful. He couldn't do any more if
he knew about the pole." So, her conscience satisfied, she decided to
keep her own counsel. That decision cost her abundant grief and
penitence in the months to come.

While Marylyn was busy with her troublesome problem, a similar one was
running in Dallas' brain, where it called for calculation. Would
Matthews threaten the shack that day? It was scarcely probable. Night
offered the best hours for an attack. Therefore, the wagon must return
before night. But could Ben and Betty make Clark's and the return trip
before then? So far, they had never done it. The previous summer, the
drive was begun at dawn, when dawn was at three o'clock. "We'll just
have to hike along," she said aloud to Marylyn.

Into the coulee slid the wagon, its long tongue in the air, the loose
tugs hitting the mules in the hock. When the team had scrambled up the
farther side, Dallas put them to a trot by a flick of the black-snake.
Then she bent forward over the dashboard, her eyes fixed eagerly on that
distant brown blotch at the eastern ridge-top. But Marylyn, as they drew
away, looked regretfully backward--to where a clump of tall cottonwoods,
shaking their heart-shaped leaves in the wind, dappled a flower-studded
stretch below the coulee mouth.

Rod by rod the mules climbed the gently sloping prairie. The morning was
perfect, and belied, in its beauty, even a suggestion of lurking harm.
The air, crystal-clear and exhilarating, brought far things magically
near to the eye. On every hand shimmered the springing grass, now, a
pale emerald with the wind brushing it, again, in the still places, a
darker green, and yet again--under the ravine's fri