They rode rapidly on, staying for nothing, crossed Bluff Creek, and reached the Arkansas River that night. They waited there for an hour to allow their ponies to graze, and themselves to eat and smoke. They rode on again until daylight the next morning, when the sand hills of the Beaver came in sight. There they halted for breakfast, and shared with the now relatively calm girl their dried buffalo meat, and bread made of ground-roots. That evening they arrived at their village on the Canadian, more than two hundred and fifty miles from the Oxhide. Kate was turned over to the squaws, who treated her with the kindness innate in all women, because she was only a little girl. Had she been a young woman, that monster Jealousy, which makes his home even in the rude tepee of the savage, would have made her lot entirely different. She was allotted to the lodge of an old squaw, the old chief White Wolf's fifth wife, whose duty was to guard her and see that she did not attempt to escape. The savages, as Buffalo Bill had suggested, simply wanted to keep her until the Government should offer a ransom for the little captive, so it behooved them not to abuse her. As the days rolled on in their weary length, the white captive became more reconciled to her fate. She had never given up the hope that the officers at Fort Harker would soon send out the troops to seek her, and that she would be restored to her dear Errolstrath home and her parents. At the same time, as she was a most excellent horsewoman, she always thought that if the worst came to the worst, she would make her escape and again ride the long distance she had ridden in coming to the village. When she had regained her self-control on her dreadful journey, she had looked around her and had taken such observations as she could of the lay of the country, the timber, and the general aspect of the trail. Even then, in all the terrible excitement of her capture, she thought of escaping at the first opportunity that offered itself. She indelibly imprinted every tree, rock, and ford on her mind, so that the long ride over the trail to the village was like a photograph on her brain to be taken out of its storehouse whenever required.