"I tried to get Tempest for you, but the Chief has ridden him away. I meant to go with you. But you'll have to go alone. Tell my darling Other Mother that I am here, and waiting. Tell her about Gaspar, and that he said he had found out she would be quite safe here. Why, so, I suppose, would you. I didn't think." "No, I shouldn't," returned the young Indian hastily. Then, noting her surprise, explained: "I'm a warrior, you see. That makes a difference." "It will be all right, though, I think. And if you cannot come back with Wahneenah, do hurry and send her by herself. Will you?" "Oh, I'll hurry!" answered the youth, evasively, and leaped to the Snowbird's back. The food he had stuffed within his shirt till a more convenient season, and with a cry that even to Kitty's trusting ears sounded in some way derisive, he was off out of sight along the lakeside. As the Snowbird disappeared, Kitty felt that the last link between herself and her friends had been severed, and for a moment the tears had sway. Then, ashamed of her own weakness and remembering her promise to Gaspar that she would be "just the sunniest kind of a girl, and true to her name," she brushed them away and entered the busy Fort, to proffer her services to the women in charge. These had already learned her story and had reprimanded her for running away from her protectors, the Smiths; but it was nobody's business to return her and, meanwhile, she was safe at the Fort until they should choose to call for her. "Well, there is always plenty of work in the world for the hands that will do it," said an officer's wife, with a kindly smile. "You seem too small to be of much practical use; but, however, if you want a task, there are some little fellows yonder who need amusing and comforting. Their mother has died of a fever, and their father is more of a student and preacher than a nurse. I guess his wife was the ruling spirit in the household, and now that she has left him, he is sadly unsettled. He doesn't know whether to go on and take up the claim he expected or not. He and you, and the oddly-named little sons, may all yet have to become wards of the Government." "I'm very sorry for him." "You well may be. Yet he's a gentle, blessed old man. No more fit to marry and bring that flock of youngsters out here into the wilderness than I am to command an army. She was much younger than he, and felt the necessity of doing something toward providing for their children and educating them. But the more I talk, the more I puzzle you. Run along and lend them a hand. The very smallest Littlejohn of the lot has filled his mouth with dirt, and is trying to squall it out. See if a drink of water won't mend matters." Kitty hastened to the child, and begged; "My dear, don't cry like that. You are disturbing the people." "Don't care. I ain't my dear; I'm Four." "You're what?" "Just Four. Four Littlejohns. What pretty hair you've got. May I pull it?"