"Manage it easy enough. Like fallin' off a log. My man could do you that good turn. She could be took along in our wagon as far as the Agency. Then, next time he comes by with his grist on his road to mill, he could fetch you the money. I'd do it, sure. I only wish I had an Indian to catch as handy as she is." Having given this advice, Mercy's guest sat down. There was a rush of small feet and the Sun Maid confronted them. Her blue eyes blazed with indignation, her face was white, and her hair, which the day's activity had loosed from its braid, streamed backward as if every fibre quivered with life. With heaving breast and clenched hands, she faced them all. "Oh, how dare you! How dare you! You are talking of my Wahneenah; of selling her, of selling her like a pig or a horse. Even you, Mrs. Jordan, though she nursed your little one till it got well, and only told you the truth: that if you'd look after it more and visit less it wouldn't have the croup so often. You didn't like to hear her say it, and you do not love her. But she is good, good, good! There is nobody so good as she is. And no harm shall come to her. I tell you. I say it. I, the Sun Maid, whom the Great Spirit sent to her out of the sky. I will go and tell her at once. She shall run away. She shall not be sold--never, never, never!" The women remained dumfounded where she left them, watching her skim the distance between cabin and wigwam, scarcely touching the earth with her bare feet in her haste to warn her friend of this new danger which threatened her and her race. For it was quite true, this matter that had been discussed. The Indians had given so much trouble in the sparsely settled country that the authorities had offered a price for their capture; and it was this price which money-loving Mercy coveted. Like a flash of a bird's wing, Kitty had darted into the lodge and out again, with an agony of fear upon her features; and then she saw Gaspar beckoning. As she reached him he motioned silence and drew her away into the shadow of the forest, that just there fringed the clearing behind the tepee. "But--Wahneenah's gone!" she whispered. "Don't worry. She's safe enough for the present. Listen to me. Do you remember the horse-racing last year?" "Course. I remember I got so excited over the horses, and so sorry for the boys that rode and didn't win. But what of that? Other Mother has gone!" "I tell you she's safe. Safer than you or me. Listen. Abel says _we_, too, will have to ride a race to-day! On Tempest and Snowbird. Even if we win, the money will belong to him; and if we lose--he's going to sell one of our horses to pay his loss. I heard him say it." "But they are ours!" "He's kept them all these years, he says. He claims the right to do with them as he chooses. Bad as that is, it isn't the worst. Though Wahneenah is safe, still she will not be always. You and I will have to ride this race--to save her life, or liberty!" "What do--you--mean?"