And now when the doctors said he was almost well enough to be approached on matters of urgent business, she dared not. She had lost, perhaps, her influence. "Then what could _I_ possibly do?" asked Priscilla bluntly, and then came the explanation. The woman whom he most honored, respected, believed in, the woman who had been the devoted friend of her,--that was gone, with, alas, his heart buried by her side,--that woman, Mrs. Ray, if she would but speak with him, plead with him for her, his fond, but, ah, so cruelly misjudged wife, whose heart was failing her now, and at a time when for his sake as well as hers she needed all her strength. If Mrs. Ray could but see her way to do this, ah, with what gratitude and devotion would she, Inez, ever think of her--and all Minneconjou knew Mrs. Ray's love for her noble niece. Everyone said that if Miss Sanford but willed a thing and urged it upon her aunt it was a thing accomplished. Out of the goodness of her heart would not Miss Sanford strive for her, a heart-crushed, well-nigh hopeless wife, upon whom there had but recently dawned the knowledge that, that--could not Miss Sanford imagine? And in the midst of the gush of tears with which she closed came sudden distraction. They had been trundling easily, aimlessly over the smooth, hard prairie road, the well-trained, well-matched ponies ambling steadily along. They had given the cavalry herds and herd guards a wide berth, and the townward route, for Mrs. Dwight shunned, she said, the sight of almost any face but the sweet and sympathetic one beside her. They had turned southward, after rounding Castle Butte, a bold, jagged upheaval among the nearest foothills, and were winding slowly down this narrow and crooked ravine toward the broad Minneconjou bottom, when, as the ponies reached a fairly level bit of road, and were swiftly turning a point of bluff, they suddenly and violently shied to the right, almost upsetting the dainty vehicle, and nearly pitching its helpless freight headlong into the road. Then with the bits in their teeth, away they tore, full gallop down the next incline, the phaeton bounding after them, and so, mercifully as it happened, out upon the broad level of the valley, with the Minneconjou and its fringing line of cottonwoods barely five hundred yards across the bench. The pygmy tiger had been left at home; his ears would have been too active, and Mrs. Dwight, though accustomed to driving her usually gentle and tractable team, was utterly helpless now. She hung on desperately to the reins. But this was a new and delirious experience for the merry little scamps in harness. They were headed for home. There was a deep bend of the stream and a ford through the shallows, and an abrupt dip of four feet from the bench level, and the words of their fair, frail charioteer were stimulating rather than soothing, so away they went, and it was high time for Miss Sanford, if she wished to save their necks, to throw convention and