Thus Meta learned how an Indian woman may pass unchallenged from one part of the country to another, clothed in the freedom of her poverty. In this way the nation acknowledges a part of its ancient indebtedness to her people. No word had come from Henniker, though he had said that he should get his discharge in October. Meta's resolve was taken. The Bannock women encouraged her, and she saw how simple it would be to copy their dress and slip away with them as far as their roads lay together; and thence, having gained practice in her part and become accustomed to its disguises, to go on alone to Custer, where her chief, her beautiful trumpeter, was sounding his last calls. She was wise in this resolution--to see her husband, at whatever cost, before the time of his freedom should come; but she was late in carrying it out. Long before, she had turned over fruitlessly in her mind every means of getting money for this journey besides the obvious way of asking Father Meadows for her own. She had guessed that her friends were suspicious of Henniker's good faith, and believed that if they should come to know of her intention of running away to follow him they would prevent her for her own good,--which was quite the case. That was the point Father Meadows made with his wife, when she argued that Meta, being a married woman now, ought to learn the purchasing power of money and its limitations by experimenting with a little of her own. "We shall do wrong if we keep her a child now," she said. "But if she has money, she'll lay it by till she gets enough to slip off to her soldier with. There's that much Injun about her; she'll follow to heel like a dog." Father Meadows could not have spoken in this way of Meta a year ago. She had lost caste with him, also. "Don't, father," the mother said, with a hurt look. "She'll not follow far with ten dollars in her pocket; but that much I want to try her with. She's like a child about shopping. She'll take anything at all, if it looks right and the man persuades her. And those Jew clerks will charge whatever they think they can get." Mrs. Meadows had her way, and the trial sum was given to Meta one day, and the next day she and the child were missing.