etiquette to the wind, to take personal control--and the reins. No one ever doubted Priscilla's nerve, yet here sat Priscilla hanging on to the side-rail with both hands and staring backward, her head twisted half round, with all her wondering, startled eyes, for the objects that had stampeded the ponies were a brace of frowsy, blanketed Minneconjou braves, squatted on the bunch grass in the shade of the bluffs at the side of the road, in close conference with two men in khaki and campaign hats, one of them, though instantly the brim was jerked down over his eyes, she knew to be Blenke,--Blenke whose woe-begone, remorseful letters she had duly filed and docketed, but who, he declared, was too shame-stricken to show his face to her of all the world. What on earth was Blenke doing there in that out-of-the-way nook, and in confab with Indians? They were hidden from view by a wave of prairie almost as suddenly as they had been whirled into sight, and then Priscilla had to give her aid and attention to Mrs. Dwight, who was swaying in her seat. She grasped the reins with her strong, wiry hands, but the little devils were within an hundred yards of the brink and reckless of everything but the mad exhilaration of a runaway. She heard from somewhere a shout, "Pull your left rein _hard_!" and with both hands she tugged with sudden and startling result. The ponies almost instantly veered to the left; the light vehicle tipped slightly to the right, and with that Inez went toppling headforemost over the low, leathern mud guard, and Priscilla was alone. Still clinging to that left rein, she swung her discomfited steeds in broad, big circle, narrowly scraping yet safely missing the edge, and so, gradually, they found themselves galloping out once more over the prairie and away from the homeward road and back toward that narrow ravine whence two Indians were now lashing their finally captured ponies southward across the valley; and then, still circling, the pygmies discovering that they were heading westward once more and farther from home, their enthusiasm by degrees, therefore, became beautifully less. They slowed gradually down to a lunging canter, then to a shame-faced trot, and finally, with Priscilla in complete control of both reins, her own head and theirs, they were brought at a decorous gait back to the road and the point where their mistress had quit them--and the lady had disappeared.