hen they
are running loose among their unfenced pastures. There are no fences
in that part of the world any more than barns.

Immediately on going into camp the long train of pack mules and ponies
had been relieved of their burdens, and they and most of the
saddle-horses had been sent off, under the care of mounted herders, to
pick their dinners for themselves in the rich green grass of the valley.

Chiefs and warriors, however, never walk if they can help it, and so,
as some one of them might wish to go here or there at any moment,
several dozens of the freshest animals were kept on the spot between
the camp and the grove, tethered by long hide lariats, and compelled to
wait their turn for something to eat.

There was a warrior on guard at the "corral," as a matter of course,
but he hardly gave a glance to the pretty adopted daughter of Many
Bears as she tripped hurriedly past him.

It was his business to look out for the horses and not for giddy young
squaws who might find "talking leaves."

Rita could not have told him, if he had asked her, why it was that her
prizes were making her heart beat so fast, as she held them against it.

She was not frightened. She knew that very well. But she was glad to
be alone, without even the company of Ni-ha-be.

The bushes were very thick around the spot where she at last threw
herself upon the grass. She had never lived in any lodge where there
were doors to shut behind her, or if she had, all those houses and
their doors were alike forgotten; but she knew that her quick ears
would give her notice of any approaching footsteps.

There they lay now before her, the three magazines, and it seemed to
Rita as if they had come on purpose to see her, and were looking at her.

No two of them were alike.

They did not even belong to the same family. She could tell that by
their faces.

Slowly and half-timidly she turned the first leaf; it was the
cover-leaf of the nearest.

A sharp exclamation sprung to her lips.

"I have seen her! Oh, so long ago! It is me, Rita. I wore a dress
like that once. And the tall squaw behind her, with the robe that
drags on the ground, I remember her, too. How did they know she was my
mother?"

Rita's face had been growing very white, and now she covered it with
both her hands and began to cry. The picture was one of a fine-looking
lady and a little girl of, it might be, seven or eight years. Not Rita
and her mother, surely, for the