Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy might lend valuable assistance, now pranced forward with energetic barks, and the cows and calves deeming themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother every now and then diving ineffectually after Diana with a plunge and a snort. A stampede had set in among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried with vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear and distinct against the horizon just four miles in a bee-line from where she sat shedding her ineffectual tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and also a puppy, and therefore endowed with a double dose of original foolishness, was likewise a dog, and consequently amenable to the highest inspirations of a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of puppy worried and distracted the animals to her heart’s content, she suddenly felt bound to exhibit some of the better sides of her nature, among which remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master. Seeing that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana turned her back resolutely upon the delights of snapping at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to the ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the grass. After an apologetic wriggle Diana sat down and looked at Olive. Now no philosopher or other mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a tired puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of her woe caught sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she burst into a laugh in the midst of her tears, whereupon the latter sprang merrily up and licked her face. Thus comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that she didn’t know where the saddle was. She had neglected to mark its position in any way when going on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle. The grass was in its greatest summer height, and there was neither bush nor tree anywhere for miles around. There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to give individuality to one spot more than another, all was the relentless rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea where one billow was exactly like a hundred others.