After the cattleman settled himself upon the bench in the kitchen, the house fell into quiet once more; and it was not until midnight that the hush was broken. Then the biggest brother, having moved the curtains of the canopied bed and turned up the lamp, discovered what he felt to be the dreaded change in the little girl, and uttered a frightened exclamation.

Her face, so long flushed with fever, was blanched and wan. Her eyes were entirely closed, and their long lashes lay on her cheeks. Her arms were outspread and relaxed, her palms open. Her breathing was so faint that he had to bend his ear to her lips to hear it. He was certain that the end was near, and hastened to call his mother and summon his brothers and the doctor. They were joined in the sitting-room by the neighbor woman and the cattleman.

It was apparent to all that a change for the worse had taken place in the little girl. Yet the doctor, who hurried to her side, watch in hand, betrayed neither satisfaction nor alarm as he bent above her; and the group about him could only wait in suspense.

Suddenly there came a sigh from the pillow, and the little girl opened her eyes. For a week she had recognized no one. Now she looked about at the faces turned upon her, and a faint smile curved her lips. It brought a cry of joy from her mother. "Oh, pet lamb," she said, "the doctor's here, and he's going to make my baby well."

A shade passed over the little girl's face, and she glanced from her mother to the doctor. "I'm really not a baby," she said in a weak voice, but with something of the old spirit; "my mother jus' says that. I'll be seven in June."

The doctor nodded, and smiled back at her. His fingers were still at her wrist, and his face wore a worried expression. The cattleman leaned and whispered a question in his ear, and he replied out loud. "I can't tell," he said. "She may and she may not."

The little girl's eyes closed. The doctor poured out a stimulant, and put the glass to her mouth. When he lifted her head, she drank it, and her breath came in longer and heavier respirations. No one spoke.

All at once a sound of scratching at the front door, followed by whining, startled her so that she looked up once more, and her lips moved. "That's Luffree," she said. Her mother began to smooth her head tenderly, and it brought a new thought to the little girl. "'Monia'll give me curly hair," she added, and closed her eyes again.

The family watched her hopelessly, for to them the doctor's silence had only one meaning; but the cattleman, standing behind the eldest brother, could not bear the wordless waiting. He felt that if she would rouse and continue to speak, death would be delayed. So he called to her pleadingly.

"Little gal!" he said huskily; "little gal!" She stirred wearily, and her lids fluttered as if she were striving to lift them. "Little gal," he went on; "I want ye t' fight this out. Don't ye let no ol' typhoid git you. An' when ye git well, ye jus' come to see me, an' ye kin hev anything on th' whole ranch." She turned her face toward him. "Anything on th' whole ranch," he repeated, his voice breaking. She moved one hand till it found one of her mother's, then she lay very still.

The biggest brother dropped to his knees beside the bed and crouched there. The youngest brother began to weep, leaning against the eldest. The neighbor woman crept away toward the kitchen, her face buried in her apron. The cattleman turned his back. The mother clung prayerfully to the transparent hand. And so passed a long and despairing five minutes.

But at its end the doctor uttered an ejaculation of surprise and pleasure, and sprang to his feet. At the same time he raised a warning finger and motioned all toward the kitchen. They obeyed him and retreated, remaining together in troubled impatience until he came among them.

"I can't be absolutely certain," he said, his face alight with happiness, "but I believe you can all go to bed with safety. Things seem to have turned our way: her skin is soft and moist, her temperature is down, and, better than anything else, she's asleep."

As a full realization of the good news broke upon them, all save the biggest brother sat down to talk it gratefully over. But he dashed out of doors to voice his joy, and, as he bounded up and down the yard, half laughing and half crying, he caught up a muffled figure that was lurking in the rear of the kitchen and swung it high into the air.

* * * * *

DURING the weeks that followed, while the little girl was slowly fighting her way back to a sure hold on life, there often came into her mind, vaguely at first and then more clearly, the promise that the cattleman had made her the night they thought she was dying. "Ye kin hev anything on th' whole ranch," had been his exact words; and in the intervals when, having gratified an appetite that was alarming in its heartiness, she sat in the sun with the dogs about her, or drove with her mother in the new buckboard, she pondered them exultantly and with a confidence that was absolute.

However, it was not until she was so well that she was again saying pert things to the eldest brother, and so strong that she was once more tending the herd, that she determined to pay the cattleman a visit and remind him of his agreement. Aware that the family would oppose her acceptance of a gift from a neighbor, she made her preparations for the trip in secret, and quietly left the farm-house one Sunday afternoon, taking with her a bridle and a gunny feed-bag half filled with oats.

She had chosen a Sunday for several reasons: she was always relieved on that day of the task of herding, the youngest brother taking her place; her mother invariably spent it in writing long letters that traveled across land and sea to far-away England; and the eldest and biggest brothers puttered it away in the blacksmith-shop, where there were farm implements to mend, hoes to sharpen, and picket-ropes and tugs to splice. Usually it was the lonesomest day of the week to the little girl; but this Sunday proved to be an exception.

She was careful not to disturb the household as she set off, and when she passed the cattle, which were feeding in the river meadows, she crept round them as slyly as an Indian, so that the youngest brother, who was fashioning willow whistles, should not see her. Once having gained the straight road that led across the railroad track toward the cattleman's, she took off her hat and made faster progress.

But the way was long, and, still weak from her recent sickness, she was easily tired. When only two thirds of the distance was traveled it was so late that the night-blooming flowers were unfolding their chalices, as white and glimmering as the little girl's Sunday apron, to let the crape-winged moths drink their sweetness. Migrant birds were already speeding above her, to fly till dawn, and they veered from their course as they saw her hurrying along beneath them. Wild creatures that had been sleeping during the day came from their holes to seek food and timidly watched her hasten past. And all along, out of the tall, brittle grass, the busy lightning-bugs sprang up with their lanterns to help the dim stars light the way.

It was dusk on the plains before she looked in, through a tangle of corn and young cottonwoods, upon the low shanty, in front of which sat the cattleman in his shirt-sleeves, thoughtfully chewing a quid. The growl of a dog at his feet discovered her to him at the same moment, and, as he squinted in the half-light at her thin little form and cropped head, she seemed like some strange prairie fay coming, light-footed, out of the gloom to meet him.

"Hi thar!" he called, rising up as the little girl threaded the corn and cottonwoods. She was breathless with walking, and did not answer as she crossed the yard, shielding herself with the bridle and the feed-bag from the dog, bounding boisterously against her. "Wal, what on airth!" exclaimed the cattleman when she halted before him.

As she glanced up, he took on the forbidding height and glowering aspect of her first school-teacher. But she summoned heart. "How d' ye do?" she said, nodding at him cordially.

"What're ye doin' up here?" he demanded. "Ye lost? Come in! come in!"

"Oh, no," answered the little girl, following him into the shanty.

He lighted a lantern, and, turning it upon her, eyed her anxiously. She looked even thinner, paler, and more eerie than she had in the yard. "Sit down," he said, motioning her to a bench. But he remained standing, his hands shoved far into the top of his wide, yellow, goatskin "chaps," his quid rolling from side to side. "W'y, I thought you 's a spook," he laughed, "er a will-o'-th'-wisp—one. Want a drink er somethin' to eat? Got lots o' nice coffee. Guess y' 're petered."

"No, I'm not," she declared. And as he turned from the stove, where he had put the coffee on to boil, she got up and stepped toward him. "I—I—called to get somefing," she faltered, resuming, in her trepidation, a babyish pronunciation long since discarded for one more dignified.

"Ye did?" queried the cattleman.

"Yes," she continued. "You 'member the night I 'most died?" He acquiesced silently. "Well, you told me then that if I'd get well you'd give me anyfing on your ranch."

The cattleman started as if he had been stung, and, wheeling about, took out his quid and threw it on the flames, so that he might be better able to cope with the matter before him.

"And so," the little girl went on, "I fought I'd come to-day."

The cattleman rubbed his chin. "I see; I see," he said.

"I couldn't get here sooner," she explained, "'cause I didn't ride."

"Oh, ye didn't?" he said. Then, noting the bridle and bag, "What ye got them fer?" he asked.

"I didn't want to use yours," she replied.

"Mine?" The cattleman was puzzled.

"Yes: I brought this," she went on, holding up the bag, "to catch him wiv; and this," holding up the bridle, "to take him home wiv."

"Him?" questioned the cattleman, more puzzled than ever.

The little girl saw that she would have to make herself more clear. "Why, yes," she said. "You promised me anyfing I wanted if I'd get well; now I'm well, so I've come to—to—get Sultan."

The cattleman sat down, amazement and consternation succeeding each other on his face. Until now he had forgotten the compact made with her, and which he was in honor bound to keep. Recalling it, he realized that it meant the loss of his best horse.

He was silent for a while, thinking hard for a means of escape from his dilemma. When he spoke at last he was smiling good-naturedly. "Ye're right," he said, rubbing his hands briskly over the long hair of the breeches; "I did say that very thing. An' I'm a man o' my word. But it seems to me," and he leaned forward confidently, "thet ye ain't made exac'ly the best pick thet ye could." The little girl sat up with a new interest. "Now I've got sunthin' here," continued the cattleman, "thet'll jes make yer eyes pop." He got up, went to a box that, nailed against the wall above the stove, served him for a cupboard, and took out a long, slender package. "Ye've got more horses than ye can shake a stick at," he began again; "ponies an' plow teams an' buggy nags, but ye ain't got nuthin' like what I'm 'bout to show ye."

Slowly and impressively he began to undo the package, keeping one eye covertly on the little girl all the while. She was beside him, rigid with expectancy. When many thicknesses of thin brown paper had been unrolled, he stepped back, unwrapped a last cover, and, with a proud wave of his hand, revealed to her delighted gaze a big, thick, red-and-white candy cane.

"Now, what do ye think o' that?" he demanded.

An exclamation of wonder came from her parted lips. She moved nearer without answering.

"As I said," he went on, "y' 've got all kinds of horses; but when in yer life hev ye hed anything like this?" He laid it gently on the table, and folded his arms solemnly. "Thet came all the way from Yankton," he said, as if recounting the history of some famous work of art. "I bought it down thar of a feller, an' paid some little money fer it." He did not add that she was in his thoughts when he bought it. "Now I'm going out to hitch up an' take ye home," he continued. "While I'm gone, ye make up yer mind which ye want—" He started for the door, but paused half-way. "—which ye want," he repeated, lowering his voice, "Sultan—er thet beautiful cane?"

When he was gone the little girl stole closer to the table and gazed rapturously down. Never in her life, as the cattleman truly said, had she seen anything like it. No horse, on a prairie overrunning with horses, could compare with it. She put out her hand and touched its crooked head, almost reverently, with one small finger.

The cattleman harnessed a span of fat mules at the barn, and led them into their places on each side of a wagon tongue. All the while he talked out loud to himself, with occasional guffaws of hearty laughter and sharp commands to the team. Despite his merriment, however, he peered back at the shanty uneasily from time to time; so that it was a full quarter of an hour before the mules were hitched to the whiffletrees and ready for their journey. Then he climbed to the seat and circled toward the door.

She was not in sight when he brought up with a loud whoa, and getting down, the lines in one hand and a black-snake in the other, he advanced to the sill and looked in. "Any passengers goin' south?" he cried cheerily, cracking the whip.

"Me," answered a voice from behind the table, and the little girl, fagged but blissful, came forward smilingly, a long, brown-paper package clasped tightly to her breast.



X

"BADGY"

IT was the little girl who discovered that the badgers were encroaching upon the big wheat-field that stretched westward, across the prairie, from the farm-house to the sandy bank of the Vermillion. In bringing the cattle home from the meadows one night, along the cow-path that bordered the northern end of the grain, she allowed several to stray aside into the field, which was now faintly green with its new sprouting. And as she headed them out, riding her pony at full gallop, she saw a fine shorthorn suddenly pitch forward with a bellow and fall. She checked her horse and waited for the animal to rise again. But it could not—it had snapped a fore ankle in a freshly dug badger hole.

The shorthorn was a favorite and, as befitted her good blood, carried across her dewlap the string of silver sleigh-bells that in wintertime tinkled before the pung. So the news of her injury was received with sorrow at the farm-house; and when, later in the evening, the little girl's big brothers went down to the field to put the heifer out of her misery, they vowed that the last feeble jingle of her bells should be the death-knell of the badgers.

They found that the burrowing host, driven out of their former homes either by an unlooked-for seepage or the advent of a stronger animal, had been attracted to the field because the harrow had so recently broken and softened the fallow, and had dug so rapidly since the planting of a few weeks before, that the north end, perforated every three or four feet, would be utterly useless, that year at least, for either the harvester or the plow. Each family had dug two tunnels that slanted toward each other and met at the nest. And since the tunnels of one family often crossed those of another, the ground was treacherously unstable. The outlying, unplowed land also bore, mile upon mile, marks of the ravages of an army of badgers; but the north end of the wheat-field was the concentration camp.

The badgers had thrived in their new home, for on one side was a grassy rise where the eggs and young of the plover and prairie-chicken could be found; and, on the other, a gully led down to the sloughs that yielded succulent roots and crawling things. The little girl's big brothers saw that the animals were so abundant that shot, traps, or poison would not avail—only a thorough drowning-out would rid the grain-land of the pest.

The attack was planned for the following day. It would be timely, since four feet beneath the surface were the newly born, half-blind litters that could be wiped out by a flood. Some of the old badgers would, undoubtedly, escape the deluge and get past the dogs, but they would be driven away to hunt other ground for their tunneling.

The next afternoon, when the farm wagon, creaking under its load of water-barrels and attended by the dogs, was driven down to the badger holes in the field, the little girl went along. Drownings-out were exciting affairs, for the badgers always gave the pack a fine tussle before they were despatched; and she was allowed to attend them if she would promise to remain on the high seat of the wagon, out of harm's way.

When the team had been brought to a standstill on the cow-path, she watched the preparations for the drowning from her perch.

Two holes were found that slanted toward each other. One big brother, armed with two or three buckets of water, stationed himself at the hole nearer the wagon; and another, similarly armed, guarded the farther hole. The pack divided itself, half remaining at each outlet, and barked itself hoarse with anticipation.

At last all was in readiness, and, at a word, the water was poured—bucketful after bucketful—down the tunnels. Then a big brother sprang to the horses' heads to prevent their running when the fight began, another jumped into the wagon to refill the pails and hand them down, and the dogs, leaping excitedly, closed about the holes. The little girl watched breathlessly and clung fast to the seat.

For a moment there was no sign of anything. Suddenly from the nearer hole bounded a female, the refuse of her nest clinging to her dripping hair. Whirling and biting furiously on all sides, she growled in fear and rage as she defied the pack. There was a quick, fierce fight that was carried a rod before it ended; then, amid a din of yelping, the badger met a speedy death.

The little girl climbed down from the wagon, and ran to the hole out of which the badger had come. From her seat she had spied a small, gray bit of fur in the debris lying about it, and guessed what it was. She reached the hole none too soon; for the dogs, having been drawn off their prey, were coming back, whining and limping and licking their chops. She caught up the little, half-drowned thing and climbed hastily into the wagon again, as the pack, scenting it, pursued her and leaped against the wheels.

The baby badger came very near to going the way of superfluous kittens when the little girl's big brothers saw what she had, and was saved only through her pleading. She begged to keep and tame him, and promised to thwart any desire of his to burrow indiscriminately about the house and garden. So she was finally permitted to take him home, snugly wound up in her apron, and revive him with warm milk.

* * * * *

THE first time that he saw the world he viewed it from a subterranean standpoint, his birthplace being a round, soft, warm pocket far below the level of the growing wheat. True, his horizon was somewhat limited, since the pocket was of small dimensions. Nevertheless, it was wide to him; and he spent several days in surveying the top and sides of his home with his weak, little, blinking eyes before he ventured to crawl about. Then it was necessary for his mother to lift him from his cozy bed in the midst of his brothers and sisters and give him a sharp pinch on the neck with her teeth to make him start.

The pocket was reached by a tunnel that had been well begun and then abandoned by an industrious but timid pocket-gopher. This timidity and industry had been taken advantage of when the badgers began their colonization of the wheat-field, and the pocket and a second tunnel completed; so that the result was a comfortable residence and, finally, an ideal nursery. But in all probability he and his brothers and sisters did not realize how cozily Providence had placed them until that dreadful day.

It was when they were having their regular romp with their mother that the first indication of trouble came. His father, who had been sitting at the mouth of the tunnel gossiping with a neighboring fox, rushed down wildly to the little family, and fairly fell over them in an effort to escape by the second tunnel beyond. The fierce barking of the dogs was heard. Then the great flood of water swept down upon them from both tunnels, lifting them all in a struggling, suffocating mass to the top of the pocket.

His mother, the instinct of self-preservation overcoming her parental love, started madly for a tunnel, and, in swimming against the floating ruins of her nest, pushed him before her up the opening and into the full light of day. There, blinded by the sunlight and exhausted, he lost consciousness, and lay unnoticed, partly hidden beneath the feathers and grass that had made his bed, until the little girl saw him.

* * * * *

HE rewarded her for his first meal by turning on his back with his legs in the air and grunting contentedly. He was of a grizzled gray color, soft, fat, clumsy, short of limb and thick of tail, and displayed, in spite of his few weeks, a remarkably fine set of claws on his fore feet. These he alternately thrust out and drew in, as she petted him, and curled up his long, black-and-white nose. The little girl thought him the nicest pet she had ever had, and soon fell a willing slave to his wheedling grunts.

He was christened "Badgy," and spent the first month of his new life in a warmly padded soap-box in the farm-house kitchen. But by the end of that time he had outgrown the box, and, the weather being warmer, was given the empty potato-bin in the cellar. When he was big enough to run about, he spent his days out of doors. Early in the morning he was called from the bin by the little girl, who opened the cellar doors and watched him come awkwardly up the steps, ambitiously advancing two at a time and generally falling back one. After his breakfast of meat and bread and milk he enjoyed a frolic, which consisted of a long run in a circle about the little girl, while he grunted for joy and lack of breath. When he was completely worn out with play, he rolled over on his back and had a sleep in the sun.

Badgy learned to love the little girl; and it was found, after he had lived in the potato-bin for a while, that she was the only person he would follow or meet amicably; all others were saluted with a snarl and a lifting of the grizzled hair. So the household came to look upon him in the light of a worthy supplanter of the Indian dogs as a protector for her. He accompanied her everywhere over the prairie, keeping close to her bare feet and grunting good-naturedly at every swaying step. If they met a stranger, he sprang before her, his hair on end, his teeth showing, his claws working back and forth angrily. When a Sioux came near, he went into a perfect fit of rage; and not an Indian ever dared lay hands upon him.

It was this hatred for redskins that one night saved the herd from a stampede. Badgy had been playing about the sitting-room with the little girl, and trying his sharp claws on the new rag carpet, when he suddenly began to rush madly here and there, snapping his teeth furiously. A big brother grasped the musket that stood behind the door, thinking that he had gone mad. But the little girl knew the signs, and, shielding him, begged them to go out and look for the Indians she felt certain were near. Sure enough, beyond the tall cottonwoods that formed the wind-break to the north of the house were the figures of a dozen mounted men, silhouetted against the sky. They were moving cautiously in the direction of the wire cattle-pen; but as a big brother challenged them with a halloo and followed it with a musket shot, they wheeled and dashed away. The last glimpse of their ponies showed them apparently riderless; which proved to the little girl's big brothers that the marauders were from the reservation to the west.

The summer was at its full and the wheat-fields of the Vermillion River Valley were all but ready for the harvester before Badgy began to feel a yearning for his own kind and the freedom of the open prairie. Then he often deserted his little mistress when they were walking about in the afternoon, or sneaked away after his morning nap in the sun. The first time he disappeared she mourned disconsolately for him all day. But late in the afternoon, as she sat looking across the grain, waiting for him hopelessly, she forgot her loss in watching a most curious thing happening in the wheat. Away out in the broad, quiet field there was a small, agitated spot, as if a tiny whirlwind were tossing the heads about. The commotion was coming nearer and nearer every moment. Now it was a quarter of a mile away—now it was only a few rods—now it was almost on the edge. The little girl scrambled to her feet, half inclined to run, when out of the tall stalks rolled Badgy, growling at every step and wagging his tired head from side to side!

Often, after that, he did not come home until late at night, when she would hear him snarling and scratching at the cellar doors, and creep out to let him in. Her big brothers at last warned her that there would come a day when Badgy would go, never to return. So she fitted a collar to his neck and led him when she went out, and kept him tied the rest of the time. This restriction wore upon him and he grew noticeably thin.

One morning, after having been carefully locked in the cellar the night before, he did not respond to the little girl's call from the doors. She went down to the bin, half fearing to find him dead. He was not there. She ran about the cellar looking for him. He was nowhere to be found. She returned to the bin to search there again. As she looked in, she caught sight of a great heap of dirt in one corner. She jumped over the side and ran to it, divining at once what it meant. Sure enough, beyond the heap was a hole, freshly dug, that led upward—and out!

The little girl sat back on the heap of dirt and pathetically viewed the hole. It was not that he would not come back—she knew that he would. But he had made her break her promise that there was to be no burrowing. She resolved to say nothing about the hole, however; and, after closing it completely with a stone, started off on the prairie in search of him, his chain in her hand.

When she came back late, she found him in the bin and gave him a good scolding. He answered it with angry grunts, and to punish him she locked him up supperless. But it was probably no hardship, for he was an adept in foraging for frogs and water-snakes.

He was in his place next morning, and came scrambling to the cellar doors when she opened them. But the following morning he did not answer her call, and she discovered, on going into the bin, that there was a second big heap of dirt near the first. She plugged the hole, resolving, as before, to keep his misdeeds a secret.

For six weeks this alternate digging and plugging went on. Sometimes Badgy burrowed himself out in one night, sometimes he would not succeed in reaching the top by the time the little girl called him. And since he emerged under cover of the vacant coal-shed and kitchen that were built against the house as a lean-to, his depredations were not discovered by any of the other members of the family. Once, indeed, he was nearly caught, for he came out directly in front of the kitchen door. But judicious trampling by the little girl soon reduced the soft pile of dirt he had left at the opening to hard ground again.

One day the little girl's mother found that a spool of thread dropped on the north side of the room rolled to the south side. She pointed out the phenomenon to the little girl's big brothers. They declared that the south foundation must be giving way. An investigation from the outside led them into the shed, where they found the ground perforated with countless holes. Then they went into the cellar to examine further. There the phenomenon was explained and the culprit brought to light. Badgy had undermined the house!

The little girl waited in the garden for him that night, and answered his grunt of friendly recognition by cuffing him soundly on the ear. Then, relenting, she took him in her arms and wept over him. Inside, she knew, they were plotting to kill him. They had declared that he should not live another day. And, as she sobbed, her mind was searching out a plan to save him. Where could she hide him?

She sat with him held close in her lap for a while, watching his enemies within. Then she started on a long detour, with the new haystack as her destination. He kept close to her heels, snarling wearily. A few days before she had made a cave in the stack, which stood between the barn and the chicken-house. The cave was on the side nearest the coop, and she decided to conceal him in it and fasten him there by his chain. When she had found a stake-pin and a large stone, she led him in and drove the pin its full length to make sure that he should not get away. Then she went back to the house to secure his pardon from the family council gathered about the supper table.

She found it a hard task. Her big brothers urged Badgy's total uselessness as well as his growing love to burrow, forgetting how bravely he had always stood between his mistress and any real or fancied danger. The little girl cried bitterly as she begged for his life, and vainly offered the entire contents of her tin bank, now carefully hoarded for two years, to help repair the damage he had done. She was finally put to bed in an uncontrollable fit of grief.

When she was gone, the memory of her tear-stained face melted her brothers' wrath. They even laughed heartily over Badgy's disastrous industry; and at last, relenting, they decided that he should live, provided he could be kept out of further mischief. The little girl heard the good news early in the morning and was overjoyed. She declared that Badgy should be good for the rest of his days, and she spent the afternoon fixing up the new quarters in the cave.

For the first few nights Badgy was chained in order to wean him from the old to the new home, his chain being made so short that he could not dig far into the ground under the stack. This wore upon him so that he grew cross, thinner than ever before, and generally disheveled. The little girl saw that another week of such confinement would all but kill him; while if he were shut up in the cave unchained he would undermine the stack. She feared, however, to give him his entire freedom; so she set to work to puzzle out a scheme that would solve the problem.

At last she hit upon an idea that seemed practicable. She would tie up his fore feet so that he could not dig! Then he could go unchained in the cave, with only the door of it—the top of a big dry-goods box—to restrict his movements. Aided by her mother's scissors, some twine, and a piece of grain sacking, she put the idea into instant execution.

Badgy did not like the innovation at all. He squirmed about so when the little girl was tying up his feet that she made slow progress. And when she was done, he tried vainly to pull off his new stockings with his sharp teeth, grunting his disapproval at every tug. He worked himself into a perfect fury as he bit and tore, and finally rolled clumsily to the back of the cave, where he lay growling angrily.

Pleased with her success, the little girl left him. But she had failed to reckon with Badgy's nature, and her plan was doomed.

It was now early autumn,—the time when Nature tells the badgers that they must provide themselves with a winter retreat,—and Badgy could no more have kept from burrowing than he could have resisted eating a frog. So when the dark came on, he went to work, close to the door of the cave, burrowing with might and main, his long nose loosening the dirt for his fore feet to remove. He worked so fast that it was only a few minutes before his claws came though his stockings. Then he redoubled his efforts, and dug on, and on, and on.

Early in the morning, after having burrowed down for a time, then along a level, and, finally, on an upward slant, as instinct directed him to do, he came through the crust of the earth. He climbed out of his burrow and sat upon his haunches at its mouth to rest a moment. As he did so, he heard a sound above him and looked up to see what had caused it. Over his head were several perches on which sat a number of sleepy fowls. He was in the chicken-house!

He grunted in surprise, and at the sound one of the chickens uttered a long, low, warning note that awakened the others. As they moved on their perches, Badgy eyed them, twisting his head from side to side. The loose dirt clinging to his snout and breast fell off with his heavy breathing, and his stockings hung ragged and soiled about his front legs.

Suddenly there was another and a louder cry of danger from a chicken, following a slight noise near the door of the coop. Badgy looked that way to see what was coming, and through a hole in the sod wall made out the evil face of a mink, peering in. It came closer, and there were more cries from the chickens overhead, for they had recognized the approach of their mortal enemy. In a moment his long, shining body had come through the hole, and he had paused, crouching, to reconnoiter before making a spring.

Badgy watched him, his nose curling angrily, his claws working back and forth. Then, as the mink crept stealthily forward, measuring the distance to a pullet on a lower perch, the badger ambled toward him, snarling furiously, his teeth snapping and his eyes glowing red with hatred.

The fight was a fierce one, and the cries of the two animals as they twisted and bit aroused the whole barn-yard. The chickens set up a bedlam of noise, flying about from perch to perch and knocking one another off in their fright. But Badgy and the mink fought on, writhing in each other's hold, the mink striving to get a death-grip on Badgy's throat, while he tried as hard to rend the mink's body with his teeth and claws.

Suddenly, in the midst of the struggle, the door of the coop was thrown open and a man's figure appeared. The animals ceased fighting instantly, and the mink, letting go his hold, disappeared down the hole that Badgy had dug. But Badgy, surprised at the intrusion, only stared at the newcomer, and grunted a cross greeting as the light of a lantern was flashed upon him, sitting there crumpled and bloody.

* * * * *

NEXT morning, when the little girl went out to the haystack, she could not find Badgy. Instead, as she pulled aside the door that closed the entrance to the cave, a strange animal shot out and away before she could catch a glimpse of it. This puzzled her; when she went into the cave she found a great heap of dirt that troubled her still more. She saw that in spite of his stockings, Badgy had dug himself out. She hunted for the hole that she knew would tell her where he had come through to the surface again, but she could not find it.

She began to run here and there, calling him. There was no answering grunt. She thought of the potato-bin, and flew to the cellar to see if he had not returned to his old home, but he was not there.

That night he did not return, nor the next day, nor the next. No one could tell her where he had gone. For he had disappeared as completely as if the earth in which he had loved to dig had swallowed him up.

Whenever she spoke of him in the house among the family, there was an exchange of glances between her mother and the eldest brother. But she never saw it,—and it was just as well that she did not.



XI

A TRADE AND A TRICK

A THIN column of blue smoke was ascending into the quiet April air from a spot far out upon the prairie. Against the eastern sky, now faintly glowing with the coming dawn, it stood forth, uniting the gray heavens and the duller plains, as straight and clear as a signal-fire. It gave warning of an Indian camp.

The family at the farm-house, called from their breakfast by the baying of the dogs, gathered bareheaded about the kitchen door and watched the mounting pillar, striving to make out any crouching figures at its base. But no hint of the size of the redskin company could be gained; and, when the biggest brother had climbed from the lean-to to the ridge-pole of the roof and his mother had peered from the lesser height of the attic window, they could not even catch a glimpse of the top of a tepee, of a skulking wolf-dog, or of the shaggy coat of a grazing pony.

After her mother and the three big brothers had returned to the table, the little girl, whom the barking had called from a bowl of grits and skimmed milk and a wash-pan of kerosene in which her chilblained feet were soaking, struggled to the top of the rain-barrel at the corner of the house and anxiously eyed the rising smoke. Fresh in her mind was the murder of the Englishman at Crow Creek, whose full granaries and fat coops had long tempted roving thieves from the west; and the slaying of the Du Bois family on the James, just a few miles away. Many a winter's evening, about the sitting-room stove, and often in the twilight of summer days, sheltered by her mother's skirts, she had heard these stories, and that other, almost within her own memory, terrible and thrilling to frontier ears,—the massacre of the Little Big Horn.

The big brothers always laughed at her fright and at the idea of any possible danger; yet they taught her to know an Indian camp-fire, the trail of an Indian pony, and the print of moccasined feet, and told her, if she ever met any braves on the plains, to leave the herd to take care of itself and ride home on the run. So, remembering only their warnings and forgetting their confident boasting and how sure and awful was the punishment meted out from the forts to erring wards of the nation, her days were haunted by prowling savages that waited behind every hillock, ridge, and stack; and she cried aloud in her sleep at night when, on dream-rides, there was ever an ugly, leering face and a horrid, clutching hand at her stirrup.

But if the big brothers did not share her fear of the Indians, yet they guarded well the farm-house and barn when the Sioux passed in their pungs in winter or on fleet ponies during the summer months. And when, that morning, the fire marked the near-by camp, there was no scattering to the thawed fields where the plows stood upright in the furrows. The eldest brother busied himself in the handy sorghum patch; the youngest rounded up the cattle and sheep and drove them south just across the reservation road to the first bit of unturned prairie; and the biggest got out the muskets and loaded them, and leashed the worst-tempered dogs in the pack.

And so the morning passed. In the sorghum patch the eldest brother placidly dropped seed. Across the road the youngest lay on his back beside his herd pony. And, inside, by a window, the biggest sat and watched the smoke, now a wavering spiral in the light breeze that fanned the prairie; while their mother, knowing that the best way to receive an Indian is with corn-cakes and coffee, stood over the kitchen stove. But the little girl kept her sentinel place on the rain-barrel until the sun veered her shadow from the side of the house to the earth bank piled against it. Then she climbed down and, running to the sod barn, saddled, bridled, and mounted the swiftest horse in the stalls and careered back and forth between house and stable like an alert scout.

When noon came and the cow-horn summoned the family to the dinner-table, not a sign of an Indian, beyond the smoke, had been seen. So, by the end of the meal, it was decided that a visit should be paid the camp to see how many braves composed it, and why they did not move on. The biggest brother volunteered to make the ride, and, when he started off, the little girl, whose horse had been fretfully gnawing the clapboarding at the corner of the kitchen, also mounted and followed on behind, riding warily.

They skirted the corner of the freshly turned potato-field and wheeled into the reservation road behind the herd. But scarcely had they gotten half-way to the stony rise that bordered the eastern end of the potatoes, when they saw, coming over its brow and also mounted, an Indian. He was riding fast toward them, and they reined and stood still till he cantered up.

"Hullo," said the biggest brother, noting the fine army saddle and the leather bridle with its national monogram in brass as the redskin brought his horse to its haunches.

"Hullo," answered the Indian. His eyes had an anxious look in them as he glanced from one to the other.

"What you want?" The biggest brother nodded toward the smoke.

The Indian waited a moment, hitching his blanket impatiently as he tried to find an English word with which to reply. Then, failing, he suddenly slipped from his horse to the ground, threw himself flat upon his face, and began, with much writhing, to breathe heavily, as if in great pain.

"Somebody's sick," said the biggest brother, and, without waiting, he clapped his heels against his horse's sides and set off toward the camp. The little girl came after, cantering just in advance of the redskin, whom she watched stealthily from the corner of her eye.

A mile out to the east the trio halted for a moment on a low ridge and looked down a gentle slope upon the camp. It was pitched where the reservation road crossed a ravine, and at its center, beside a rivulet, was a fire of buffalo-chips from which the smoke steadily arose. About the fire, and before two tepees, sat a half-dozen braves, five in government blankets, with their black mops bound back, the sixth in flannel shirt, leather breeches tucked into high boots, and a broad felt hat over his long hair. South of the fire, in the ravine, several horses, closely hobbled, were cropping the new grass; and between them and the tepees, lying half under a light road wagon, was an animal stretched flat and covered with blankets.

"It's that horse," said the biggest brother. The Indian behind him grunted and rode ahead down the slope, and, at his approach, the circle about the camp-fire stood up.

As the face of the Indian wearing the wide hat was turned toward them, the little girl gave a joyful cry and whipped her horse with her rope reins. The army saddle and the monogrammed bridle were no longer a mystery, the camp was no longer to be feared,—for the unblanketed brave was the troop's scout from the reservation, the half-breed, Eagle Eye!

The next moment he was explaining how, returning from Sioux Falls, where for a fortnight he had been winning admiration for his military appearance, his feats on horseback, and his skill with the rifle, he had fallen in with the party of Indians, which was coming back from a trip beyond the Mississippi. After a long, hard ride together the day before, they had been forced to go into camp in the ravine because the blue-roan mare which one of them was driving had suddenly lain down and refused to rise. And she had remained stretched out since, and was breathing deep and painfully.

When the biggest brother rode over to where she lay, he saw at once that she was sorely stricken with pneumonia, and that only prompt attention would be of any use. Her great brown eyes were wide and starting with agony, her delicate nostrils were distended and dry, and her iron-gray sides were heaving.

"You've got to get her out o' here, Eagle Eye," said the biggest brother, as he and the little girl leaned over the panting animal; "she'll go in no time on this wet ground. Suppose we make a travee and haul her home."

The Indians received the offer, which Eagle Eye interpreted for them, with many signs of pleasure; and in a moment had taken down the cottonwood lodge-poles cut the previous day, and brought straps and ropes. But it was mid-afternoon before the rude litter was finished. Two poles were fastened to the hind axle of the wagon, the width of the wheels apart; across them other poles were roped after having been chopped into short lengths; and on top of these were laid some buffalo robes, blankets, and straw. Then the mare, too sick to resent handling, was half lifted and half rolled into place. When the journey to the farm-house was made, the tough Indian pony between the shafts was helped in the hauling by a plow team from the barn.

The travee was untied from the wagon at the stable, and the three big brothers helped the Indians to drag it into a roomy stall, the little girl looking on all the while sympathetically. Then her mother, the biggest brother, and Eagle Eye poulticed the throbbing chest, put compresses on the silky neck, and poured one hot drink after another down the reluctant throat of the blue mare.

They worked until midnight. But when the next day broke, chill and drizzily, the horse seemed worse instead of better, and the Indians, who had slept with their guns on their arms at the heads of their saddled ponies, prepared to go. They seemed so anxious to set off that the big brothers were suspicious that they had stolen the animal and were expecting pursuit. The fact that she had no saddle-marks on her mottled back, and that they had cumbered themselves with a wagon, bore out the belief. The eldest brother spoke his mind to Eagle Eye, but the half-breed only said that Black Cloud, who claimed to own her, wished to sell her to the brothers.

"I shouldn't wonder," sneered the eldest brother; "she'll be ready for the pigs by noon. I wouldn't take her as a gift,—and you can tell 'em so."

Eagle Eye turned to Black Cloud and repeated the answer. It was met with the look that had named him, and a mumbled threat that was lost on the white men.

The little girl had been standing by and had heard the conversation. She suddenly started for the house, and, when she came flying back a moment later, she had her tin savings-bank grasped tightly in one fist. Stopping in front of the scout, she held it out to him.

"Eagle Eye," she panted, "tell Black Cloud I'll give him all this for the sick horse—two whole dollars."

Again the half-breed turned to the glowering Indian. But this time the evil, dusky face lighted, and, after consulting with the other Indians, he took the bank from Eagle Eye and turned out and counted its contents.

"He thanks the white papoose," said Eagle Eye, returning the empty bank to the little girl, "and the pony is yours."

Happy over her trade, the little girl rushed away to the sick horse, while the eldest brother, enraged at her interference yet not daring to stop the bargain, mentally promised to give her a lesson later.

"If the mare lives," he said aside to the biggest brother, "you bet these thieves'll even things up."

The evening of things came sooner than he expected. For at sundown, after the Indians had departed, the swift horse ridden to their camp by the little girl was nowhere to be found!

But, angry as the farm-house felt over the theft, the big brothers knew that it would be worse than foolhardy to try to recapture their animal. And the trade seemed likely to be fair in the end, after all,—for at midnight the family saw that the blue mare was getting well!

* * * * *

SHRIEKS of laughter from behind the barn, following strange, rapid thumps upon the bare ground, led the three big brothers in that direction one May morning, and, on turning the corner, they found the little girl leaning convulsively against the old straw stack for support, while in front of her, blinded by a big, red handkerchief, and with a long bolster full of hay across her dappled withers, was the blue mare, making stiff, wild plunges into the air, with arched back and head held low. For the little girl was breaking her to ride!

It was the little girl who broke the horses on the farm to ride. She played with them as colts, and, with her light weight, mounted them long before they were old enough to carry any one heavier, and yet were too old to be sway-backed. She tried them first as they stood tied in their stalls, crawling carefully upon them from the manger. Later, she rode them at a walk up and down the reservation road.

She had learned the First Reader of the saddle on the St. Bernard's wide, slipping back. The pinto had been the Second, and she had then passed rapidly to the graduation class of frisky calves and lean, darting shoats. Now, for two years, all the horses sold at the reservation by the big brothers had been of her training, and the troopers vowed that no gentler, better mounts had ever been in the service. Her mother viewed the colt-breaking tremblingly, and the big brothers declared that the little girl would be buried some day with a broken neck. But the little girl said nothing, and continued her riding fearlessly, knowing that love, even with horses, makes all things easy,—except the breaking of the blue mare.

Thirteen hands stood the blue mare, sound, clean-limbed, and beautiful, and the markings of her sharp front teeth showed that she was but four. From velvet muzzle to sweeping tail, from mottled croup to fetlocks, she shone in the sunlight like corn-silk. Her mane was black and waved to her wide chest, and her heavy forelock hid an inwardly curving nose that proved an Arab strain. And when, after many spirited bouts with the hay bolster, the little girl finally won her over to a soft blanket and a stirruped girth, she showed the endurance and strength of a mustang, the speed of a racer, and the gait of a rocking-chair.

She was so tall that she could not be climbed upon, like a pony, from the upper side of sloping ground or from the stone pile on the carnelian bluff, and too skittish to allow a bare foot to be thrust behind her sleek elbows as a step to her back, so the little girl invented a new method of mounting. Her nose was coaxed to the ground by the offer of a choice wisp of grass, and, as her neck was lowered, the little girl carefully put one leg over her glossy crest and gave her a slap to start her,—when the blue mare raised her head and the little girl hedged along to her back, facing rearward. Then she slowly turned about!

Herding on the blue mare's back became a pleasure, not a despised duty, and long jaunts to the station, ten miles away, for mail or groceries, were welcomed. The eldest brother, too, had ceased to scold the little girl for the trade with Black Cloud or for the loss of the horse that was stolen. For the blue mare was worth two of the other.

The subject hardly ever came up in the farm-house any more; when it did, it only served to remind the little girl of a dread prophecy of the Swede, that, in good time, the swarthy brave would pass that way again!

The little girl always grew white at the bare thought. And often the dream of the leering face and the clutching hand would follow her by day. If she entered the barn, cruel eyes watched her from out dim corners; if she rode through the corn-field, now waist high, the leaves rustled a mysterious warning to her. "Run—run!" they whispered, and the little girl obeyed and sought the safety of the open prairie.

But there were hours of proud security, when, with the Swede boy as an audience, or, better still, with the colonel's son, she put the blue mare through her wonderful trick. This trick had been discovered accidentally by the little girl. One morning, when she was breaking the horse, she put one hand back playfully and pinched her on the croup to see if she would buck,—and, instead, she promptly lay down! Afterward, the same pinch brought her again to the ground, and the little girl found that it needed barely a touch to make the mare perform. But however delighted she was over her discovery, the little girl never mounted the prostrate horse, for she was afraid that she might roll upon her.

The days had passed, and it was now haying-time. But the mowers stood idle beneath their sheds, and the work-horses grazed contentedly with their heads to the south, for a rain was passing over the prairie. Inside the farm-house, the little girl, standing against the blurred panes, rebelled against the showers, and fretted for the blue mare and a gallop; the biggest brother, buried deep in a book, thanked Providence; while the eldest, remembering the uncovered cocks in the timothy meadow, cursed the storm.

Toward evening, the third day of the downpour, however, the clouds lifted. A new moon appeared, holding its chin up,—a promise of sunshine,—and the little girl ran happily to the barn, slipped a lariat into the blue mare's mouth, secured it with a thong under the jaw, and, bareback, started toward the sloughs beyond the reservation road to bring home the herd. When she was a mile away, the eldest brother followed her, for he wanted to see if the grass around the farthest slough would make good cutting. He rode the bald-faced pony, and across his pommel was slung his musket.

The little girl did not see him. Content with the blue mare beneath her, her mind busy, she rode on. And her voice, shrill, and broken by her cantering, floated back to the eldest brother in snatches:

"Scotland's burning! Scotland's burning! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! More water! More water!"

Then she disappeared over the ridge on her descent to the herd.

The eldest brother urged his horse a little to try to catch up with her. But she was going faster now, too, and when he reached the top of the ridge she was in the tall grass between him and the cattle, and he could just see her bobbing sailor hat and the flying tail of the blue mare.

Her song ceased as she neared the herd, for twilight was coming down and the meadow blades had taken up the same soft warnings that she had heard in the corn. Above her, homing birds called to each other, and bullfrogs croaked from the sloughs at her horse's feet. There flashed into her mind the night-and-day horror of the Indian's face and hand, and she began to whistle a little to rally heart as she rode beyond the cows to turn a stray.

But suddenly the sound died on her lips. For up from the earth rose the ugly, leering face, and out of the grass came the horrid, clutching hand! With a choking cry, the little girl struck her horse, but the next instant was flung down from her seat, and Black Cloud, rifle in hand, swung himself to her place.

He dared not fire for fear of sounding an alarm, and he dared not wait an instant to club with his gun-stock the little girl, lying stunned and half-dead with fear. Without a backward look, he drove the blue mare out of the meadow to the prairie and turned her toward the river.

But the eldest brother was scarcely a half-mile behind him. And, as the strange form came into view, going like the wind through the gathering gloom, he guessed what had happened. He whipped the bald-face wildly, following the blue mare. And a race for the Vermillion began!

But it was an uneven one. In a few leaps the mare had lengthened the distance between her and the bald-face. Discouraged, and anxious to know what had become of the little girl, the eldest brother resolved to stop. But as he did so, he raised his musket and sent a load of buckshot after the fleeting brave.

The Indian, safe from pursuit, answered it with a derisive whoop, and, turning his body around, still going swiftly, waved his rifle triumphantly aloft in his right hand and, looking back, leaned for an instant with the other on the blue mare's croup!

The horse obeyed the sign like a flash. As if the eldest brother's shot had found her heart, she stopped dead still and threw herself upon the ground,—and Black Cloud, his face for once almost white, lunged forward, struck his head with crushing force against a boulder on the river's edge, and lay as motionless as the rock itself!

* * * * *

EARLY that night, when the prairie lay still and sweet, and the new moon was swimming westward from cloud-island to cloud-island, the gray buffalo-wolves came up the Vermillion on their way to the sheep-pen of the Swede, and waked the drowsing valley with their howling. But the trembling ewes and their babies were not molested; for when the pack reached the river bank near the farthest slough, they halted to quarrel at a boulder—till the sun came up in the east again and glittered on a string of glass wampum lying beside the rock.



XII

THE PROFESSOR'S "FIND"

A NIMBUS of mystery clung to the professor the first two days of his stay. His arrival, late one afternoon, in the sewing-machine man's buggy, was as unexplained as it was unexpected; and when he was shown to the little girl's room, which she hospitably relinquished, he volunteered neither his name nor his place of residence. The following morning he left the house, carrying a small paper box and a black hand-bag, and crossed the fields to the prairie, where he ran about, his spare figure stooped, as if he were picking something, while his left hand held an instrument that flashed in the sun. On his return at noon, his box and bag were closed, and only a green stain on his fingers gave any suggestion of what he had been doing. He spent the remainder of the day quietly in his room.

The big brothers made various conjectures about him. The eldest declared that he was searching for minerals; the biggest thought him a government agent on a secret mission; while the youngest, to the terror of the little girl, who had not recovered from her adventure of a month before with Black Cloud, hinted at a dark purpose and openly asserted that it was dangerous to have the professor in the house. But, since their mother would not permit any questioning, their curiosity was not satisfied nor their fears allayed until the professor, unasked, revealed his identity.

Then it was ridiculously simple. He was a professor in the botanical department of an Eastern university, and had come West to obtain floral specimens. The paper box held his fresh finds; the bag, a telescope with which to distinguish plants not easily accessible, and a microscope to study those close at hand. In his trunk were heavy blank books filled with dried leaves, pressed blossoms, and scientific notes.

When the little girl heard that he taught in one of those colleges, remote and wonderful, of which she dreamed, her suspicions were straightway transformed into reverence. She listened eagerly to his every word, watched him, agape with interest, as he wrote at the sitting-room table, and hung at his heels, happy and fascinated, when he walked up and down, smoking a cigar, under the ash trees in the twilight.

On the other hand, the big brothers respected him less than ever. To them flower-hunting, as an occupation, seemed trivial and effeminate. Flowers, though they were well enough in their proper places,—the front garden or the grass,—were usually a nuisance that crept through the crops and choked their growth, until descended upon and tediously jerked up, one after another, by the roots. And a man who could give his entire time not only to the collection of nosegays but to the gathering of weeds, could not have the esteem of the big brothers. All three, whenever they spoke of him, raised their shoulders contemptuously, after the manner of "Frenchy."

It was not long, however, before their attitude changed. The professor was so gentle and courteous, yet so firm and convincing, and so full of knowledge concerning things about them of which they were entirely ignorant, that they soon came to view him seriously. The eldest and the youngest brothers even took turns at driving him on long trips in the buckboard, and the biggest loaned him a pair of rubber boots so that he could hunt in swamps and wet meadows for bristly buttercups and crowfoot.

After she found out that he was a professor, the little girl always accompanied him on his jaunts. Before that, the herd being in the care of the Swede boy, she spent the days either in skilfully outlining on a wide board, by means of a carpenter's pencil and an overturned milk-pan, cart-wheels for the box of the little red wagon, or in playing "Pilgrim's Progress," seated on an empty grain-sack which Bruno, snarling with delight, dragged by his teeth along the reservation road from the Slough of Despond to the gates of the Celestial City. She also helped her mother prepare for the coming Fourth of July celebration at the station.

But she gave up everything to go with the professor while he scoured the prairie to the north, east, and south, and burdened herself willingly with the lunch-bucket and his umbrella. From dawn till noon, for a whole fortnight, she trotted beside him, straining her eyes to catch sight of some plant he had not yet seen, and tearing here and there to pluck posies for his bouquet. When, however, there remained to be searched only a wide strip bordering the Vermillion, she remained at home.

The professor carried forward his work along the river enthusiastically, planning to finish by the eve of the celebration, so that he could accompany the family to the station on the morning of the Fourth, and there take the afternoon local going east. He tramped up and down the bluffs, finding many a rare shrub in high, sunny spots or low, sheltered nooks, and returning to the farm-house only when he was laden with spoil. But it was on his very last excursion that he discovered something really remarkable.

He visited a point far up the valley, where the banks were precipitous and came close together. At their base lay narrow reaches of sand between which, even at its lowest, the river hurried; and when it was swelled by heavy rains or melting snow, it rushed through boisterously and spat high to right and left against the walls.

The western side, with its southern exposure, was the greener. Box-elders belted its foot, growing at a sharp angle to the side. Above the elders an aspen thrust out its slender trunk, and, still higher, grass and weeds protruded. Where the cliff was of solid rock, trailing wild-bean drooped across and softened it. But the professor, after sweeping it carefully with his glass and finding no new specimens upon it, resolved not to waste his time and labor, and turned his attention opposite.

Though almost bare, for it faced the north, the eastern precipice still was promising. No trees interrupted its rise, and the stones that, midway, coincided with it were uncovered. Low down were scattered clumps of wild black currant and clusters of coral-berry. But above the stones, bending temptingly forward into plain view, was a cactus which the professor had long sought.

He determined to scale the wall and secure the plant. Dropping the paper box and the hand-bag, he toiled from the sand to a first narrow ledge, from there to the currant bushes, and thence higher, by relying for a foothold upon snake holes and crevices. Once having gained the flat stones, the climb was over. He had only to put out his hand and gather the cactus.

But its stalk remained unbroken. For his eye, traveling over the rock to which he was clinging, made out a figure and some letters cut deep into its red-gray surface. He looked at them with interest, then with mingled pleasure and doubt, and lastly with wonder. And he trembled as, with one hand, he finally drew a small blank-book from an inner coat pocket and began to copy. He realized at once that, though it did not relate to floral science, he had ended by making a most notable find.

Having finished, and put away his pencil and book, he studied the figure and letters carefully for a few moments, and then descended slowly to the sand. All thoughts of growing things had faded from his mind; in their stead came crowding others that pictured possible fame. He sat down to rest and think beside the box and the hand-bag, and stayed there, bowed over, his spectacles in his hands, his eyes roving thoughtfully, until the sun was so low that the little canyon was in gloom.

At suppertime he announced his discovery to the big brothers and their mother. They received the news with amazement. The week previous he had declared that the plains were once covered by a vast ocean, and had proved his assertion by showing them sea-shells at the top of the carnelian bluff. So they expressed their intention of visiting the cliffs, never doubting his second and almost incredible statement that, long before the Indians came to inhabit the surrounding country, it had been the home of a superior race of Latin origin.

The little girl was at the table and heard the professor's story; and she showed some agitation as she listened with downcast eyes. She knew more about the red-gray rock and its scribblings than she cared to tell before the big brothers, for she had spent one whole happy afternoon in the canyon with the colonel's son, watching him as he scrambled up the south bank, with the agility and sure-footedness of a goat, and hung for an hour in mid-air by one hand. So, while she ate her bread and smear-case, she made up her mind to follow the professor after the meal was over and unburden herself.

But no chance to see him alone was afforded her. He disappeared to pack his trunk while she was doing the dishes, and did not emerge again during the evening. She squatted under his window for a while in the dark, hoping that he would look out, and gave up her watch only when she heard him snoring. Then she, too, went to bed, where she lay turning and twisting until after midnight. Dropping off, at last, she dreamed that she and the colonel's son had been court-martialed by the professor and were to be shot at the celebration.

Breakfast was eaten at three o'clock next morning, and at sun-up the light wagon and the buckboard were ready for the drive to the station. Every one had been so busy since rising that the professor's discovery was not mentioned. In fact, the big brothers and their mother had forgotten it; the little girl thought of it many times, however, and hoped each moment that she could speak privately to the professor. And he, as he took his seat in the buckboard, remembered it and smiled contentedly, never suspecting that the youngest brother, riding beside him, had secretly planned to file at once a claim on the quarter-section that included the little canyon so that the red-gray rock should be lawfully his.

Arrived at the station, all became occupied with the celebration. While the big brothers took care of the horses, their mother and the little girl changed their dresses at the hotel. The professor hunted up the grand marshal, held a whispered conversation with him, and was assigned a place in the procession. For the scientist purposed that the day should be more than one of national commemoration to the townspeople: it should be one of local rejoicing.

This was the first public holiday ever observed at the station, for it was still very young. Two years before, when the railroad crept up to it and passed it, it consisted of a lonely box-car standing in the center of a broad, level tract flecked with anemones. The next week, thanks to a sudden boom, the box-car gave place to a board depot, with other pine structures springing up all about, and to long lines of white stakes that marked the avenues, streets, and alleys of a future city. Now it consisted of half a hundred houses and stores surrounded by as many shanties and dugouts.

The streets were gay with color. Everywhere festoons of red, white, and blue swung in the morning breeze, and flags flapped from improvised poles. Horses with ribbons braided into their manes and tails dashed about, carrying riders who were importantly arranging for the procession, and who wore broad sashes of tricolored bunting.

The crowds added further to the brightness of the scene. Soldiers in uniform, frontiersmen in red shirts and leather breeches, farmers and men of the town, dressed in their best, and Indians in every imaginable style of raiment, filled the saloons and shooting galleries, where they kept the glasses clinking and the bells a-jangle. Women and children, in light dresses and flower-trimmed hats, lined the scanty sidewalks and the store porches, with a fringe of squaws and Indian babies seated in the weeds beside the way or on the steps at their feet.

But at ten o'clock both men and women came into the open, for the procession had formed across the track in the rear of the depot and was advancing. Excitement was high. Crackers were popping on all sides, horses were prancing wildly, frightened by the unusual clatter, and people were laughing and shouting to one another as they craned to catch a first glimpse of the oncoming cortege.

A silence fell suddenly as the grand marshal rounded the depot, leading the way north to the grove where the exercises were to be held. Behind and flanking him rode his aides, and in their rear walked the band, a few in a prescribed dress of red caps, blue coats, and white trousers, others lacking in one or more details of it, but jauntily wearing substitutes in the shape of straw hats and store clothes. About them trailed a gang of small boys, an inevitable though uninvited part of every procession, and, after, rumbled heavy floats representing events in the history of America,—General and Mrs. Washington at Mount Vernon, Pocahontas rescuing Captain John Smith, Lincoln freeing the Slaves, and Columbus greeting the Redmen. Following was a company of cavalry from the reservation, with the colonel and his son at their head, and a band of Indians, naked but for their breech-cloths, and in war-plumes and paint, that whooped and brandished their bows and arrows as they bolted from side to side.

But the crowning feature of the parade came next. It was a hay-rack wound over every inch of its wide, open frame with the national colors, drawn by four white horses, and bearing the Goddess of Liberty, Columbia, Dakota, and a score of girls who represented the States and Territories, and who wore filmy white frocks, red garlands on their hair, blue girdles about their waists, and ribbons lettered in gilt across their breasts.

To the family, as to many, the passing of the rack was a proud moment, for the little girl rode upon it. Like her companions, she was hatless, and she shone out from among them as she stood directly behind the goddess, because her hair, a two years' growth—she was now nine and a half years old—rippled luxuriantly about her face.

Her place in the rack had been assigned her as a special honor. It was found, when the girls assembled to receive their garlands and colors, that there were not enough of them to represent fully the map of the United States. So the little girl, being the last to arrive, was given three ribbons bearing the names of California, Texas, and Minnesota.

As the hay-wagon rolled by the family, the compliment paid the little girl did not escape their eyes. The cattleman, too, observed it, and proudly expressed himself to the biggest brother. "Say!" he whispered, "don't she cover a lot o' terrytory!"

The little girl was aware of the attention she was attracting, and she kept a graceful poise, looking neither to one side nor the other. Each girl on the rack held something in her hands that suggested the wealth of the particular State she symbolized. So the little girl wore, just under her collar, the picture of a fat beef as an appropriate emblem of Texas, while in one hand she carried a gilded stone to recall California's riches, and, in the other, through the instigation of the grand marshal, who had once been jailed at St. Paul, she held aloft a wad of cotton batting to emphasize the annual snowfall of the rival State to the east.

The end of the procession consisted of decorated buggies—in which sat the orator of the day, a local poet, the school-teacher at the station, the minister, the professor, and a dozen prominent citizens—and a rabble of horribles and plug-uglies that rent the air with yells; as it went by, it bore the admiring crowd in its train. When the grand stand was reached, the people quickly filled the board benches which had been put up for them, while the principals in the festivities settled themselves picturesquely upon the platform.

It was after twelve o'clock, so the program opened at once. The professor, sitting well in the foreground, fidgeted inwardly and hoped that the train on which he was to depart would not arrive before he had had his opportunity. But he sat smiling, nevertheless, throughout the opening prayer by the minister, the address of the day and the reading of the Declaration of Independence by the orator, the verses of the poet, the teacher's song, and four band pieces. On his lap were two large squares of white pasteboard which he fingered nervously, and every two or three minutes he took note of the time.

When his turn came at last, it was with calm dignity, as becomes a scholar, that he rose and stepped forward to the edge of the stand, where the orator, in ringing tones, introduced him as "our distinguished guest." Then, amid a hush, partly of curiosity, the professor began his speech.

Up to this time the little girl had been but a mildly interested onlooker. She was seated, with the other States, just behind the row of prominent citizens, listening less to the exercises than to the buzz about her, and refraining from talking only when the band rendered a number. The colonel's son was down in front and facing her, so she divided her time, when she was silent, between him and her mother. In the excitement of the hour she had totally forgotten the professor.

But now, with him at the speaker's table, she suddenly recalled the evening before, her sleepless night, and her worry. And she quaked as she leaned forward to hear what he was saying, and bent her looks in fear upon the colonel's son.

The professor, having bowed to all sides and cleared his throat, launched into the subject of his discovery, prefacing it with a reference to the carnelian bluff.

"It shows by the deposit on its summit," he said, "that at one time, centuries ago, a boundless sea, that roared when the winds swept by or lapped and slept in a calm, covered the bosom of this prairie. Beneath the arrowheads and hatchets that mark it as a natural watch-tower of the redmen, lies, deep-hidden, a layer of sea-shells, proof that this plain was once an ocean bed."

He paused a moment at this point to allow the full significance of his words to impress itself upon the assemblage before him. Then he continued.

"But I have discovered the proof of a far greater marvel concerning this prairie-land of yours. A sea tumbled over it, as I have said; yes, but, more wonderful still, in ages past—I cannot say how many—a race, intellectually superior to the Indian, dwelt here. As borne out by the inerasable markings I have discovered, this race was undoubtedly a branch or part of a people that we have hitherto believed never visited the continent until Columbus's time."

The teacher, the poet, and the minister opened their eyes with interest as his statement fell upon their ears. But no thrill of surprise swept the crowd, and the professor, after a pause, coughed and went on.

"I intend to submit my discovery to the scientific world. As proof of it I have two drawings which I shall show you. They consist of copies of inscriptions found by me on the Vermillion. This is one of them."

He displayed the larger pasteboard square and a titter ran through the crowd. To her alarm, the little girl noticed that the colonel's son did not laugh. Instead, he opened his mouth and stared wildly. Another instant and the square was turned toward her. She gave a cry when she saw the figure drawn upon it.



"Notice," said the professor, "how large and Caesarean is the head. It is the crude outline of a man whose arms are outstretched as if in appeal to or in adoration of some god. The attitude is full of dignity and strength. It is unquestionably an ancient graffito."

He turned to the table and lifted the second square. "I have been working for years in scientific fields," he began once more, "accepting what small honors came my way, grateful that I have been able to name two new species of flowers. Now, I have chanced upon something in the boundless stretches of the plains that promises reward as well as fame. Heretofore, no scientific men, strictly speaking, have searched the prairies for archaeological traces. Hunters, travelers, soldiers, priests, and statesmen have gone across, their eyes bent on different phases of the country. And so it was for me, an humble student, to uncover the undreamed-of."

He turned once more to those behind him, holding up the second pasteboard. The little girl shrank in her seat as the three accusing letters, written large upon it, fell beneath her apprehensive gaze:



The professor looked hurriedly at his watch, seized his hat and the drawings, and made a parting bow. "I leave on the coming train," he said regretfully; "I see that it is now almost due. I promise you that I shall return in the near future. Until then, farewell."

The crowd parted respectfully to let him pass as he hastened down the steps of the grand stand and away. The little girl looked after him undecidedly. Then, a quartet having moved between her and the colonel's son, she cast aside the gilded rock and the cotton batting and threaded the assemblage on the run.

The two had the short, dusty road to themselves, and they traveled it rapidly. The professor, with a rod's start, kept well ahead of the little girl, and came into the depot on time, his hat in his hand. She, breathless, arrived a moment later, just as the engine slowed down.

The professor had heard no one behind him, for all noise had been drowned by his own rush. So, without looking back, he sprang toward the last coach and swung himself on by the rail of the farther steps, his drawings under one arm, his hands encumbered with the box and bag which he had picked up in the waiting-room. Suddenly a voice caused him to turn.

"Professor!" cried the little girl. She was puffing so hard that she could not continue.

"Bless my heart!" said the professor, descending to the lowest step and catching her by the hand.

"Oh, professor!" she cried again.

"Yes? Yes?" he said inquiringly. The train was starting and there was no time to be lost. She ran beside it for a few steps.

"I did that!" The little girl pointed at the pasteboard under his arm. She fell back. The cars were moving rapidly now, and she was too tired to pursue them.

"You!" gasped the professor, clapping one hand to the drawings; "you!"

"Well—well—not me, but a boy," she added chokingly.

The professor put his hands to his head, and the squares, escaping his arm, were blown from the steps and fluttered upon the graveled embankment. The little girl saw them fall and ran forward to secure them. He did not see her. He was sitting on the top step of the fast-receding train, his face covered as if to shut out a fearful sight, his coat-sleeves pressing his ears as if to deaden a shout of ridicule.

The little girl looked after him, holding the pasteboards in her hands. "I'm sorry," she said out loud, "that nobody made these a long time ago. But they couldn't, 'cause they're my 'nitials."

Then she walked back toward the grand stand, where the band, with small boys encircling it, was rendering the final number of the program,—a resounding "America."



XIII

A RACE AND A RESCUE

"WHAT'RE you doin' under there?" asked the biggest brother, looking beneath the canopied bed, where the little girl was lying on her back, her feet braced at right angles to the loose board slats above her.

There was no answer, but the broad counterpane of bright calico squares that, by its heaving, had betrayed her presence, became suddenly still.

"Because," continued the biggest brother, "I'm goin' to the station this afternoon with the blue mare and the buckboard. And if you ain't doin' nothing and want to go along, just slide out and meet me on the corn road."

He exchanged his gingham jumper for a coat at the elk antlers in the entry, and left the house. When his whistle was swallowed up by the barn, the little girl crept stealthily from her hiding-place, washed her feet, changed her apron, and, under cover of the kitchen, hurried eastward to the oat-field. Having gained it, she turned north, crouching low as she ran.

* * * * *

HAYTIME was over and harvest was close at hand. In the brief space between, the reapers were being put into shape for the cutting of the grain. That morning, while the biggest and the youngest brothers were repairing the broken rakes of a dropper, the eldest had sharpened the long saw-knife, aided by the little girl, whom he compelled to turn the squeaking grindstone. They had begun early, working under the tool-shed, and for hours the little girl had labored wearily at the winch-handle, with only an occasional rest. By eleven o'clock her arms were so tired that she could scarcely go on, and she became rebellious. Perhaps it was not only her fatigue, but the fact that "David Copperfield" had arrived the day before and was awaiting her temptingly in the sitting-room, that caused her, in a cross though not malicious moment, to give the circling handle such a whirl that the reaper blade was jerked violently forward; and, as it bounded and sang against the stone, it cut a gash in the eldest brother's hand.

The swallows nesting under the roof of the shed saw the little girl suddenly run toward the house, followed by the irate eldest brother, who carried a basin of water. The two disappeared into the entry, the little girl leading. When the eldest brother came out, still holding the basin, he looked angry and warm. For, with all his hunting, she had managed to escape him, and he was obliged to nurse his wrath and his hand unavenged.

The little girl had dived under the canopied bed, where she stayed, holding her breath, while the eldest brother looked for her high and low. When he went out, calling the youngest brother to take her place, she yet remained discreetly hidden. At dinner-time a plate of food and a glass of milk mysteriously made their appearance at the edge of the bed, so that she was able to stay in seclusion and wait for the storm to pass. But even "David Copperfield," which arrived with her meal, did not aid her in whiling away the hours. So the biggest brother's suggestion came as a welcome relief.

When the buckboard rolled along the corn road, the little girl stepped out of the field and climbed to the seat on the driver's side. Neither she nor the biggest brother spoke, but, as the blue mare jogged on, she took the reins from him and chirruped gaily to the horse, with an inward wish that, instead of being in the buckboard, she were free of it and on the blue mare's back. The mare made poor progress when she was hitched between shafts, since she was not a trotter, and reached her best gait under a blanket. But this was known to the little girl alone, for the big brothers never went faster than a canter, and would have punished her if they had guessed how rapidly, on each trip to the station, the horse was ridden.

The little girl usually started for town in the early afternoon, as the biggest brother had that day. In this way the local passed her, going east, when the trip was half over. As the engine came in sight, the little girl urged the mare to a slow gallop, and, as the cow-catcher got abreast, gave her a sharp cut that sent her forward beside the train. And so swift was the high-strung horse that she was never left behind until a long stretch of road had been covered. The little girl liked best, however, to start the race at the outer edge of the broad meadow that lay west of the station, because, by acquiring speed before the engine came on a line with her, she could ride up to the depot with the rear car.