the wood.
The colonel made a movement of impatience. "Tell Mr. Forsyth to bring
them back at once," he said.
But here a feminine chorus of excuses and expostulations rose from
the carryall. "It's only Mrs. Lascelles going to show Friddy where the
squaws and children bathe," said Lady Runnybroke, "it's near the fort,
and they'll be there as quick as we shall."
"One moment, colonel," said Peter, with mortified concern. "It's another
folly of my sister's! pray let me take it upon myself to bring them
back."
"Very well, but see you don't linger, and," turning to Cassidy, as Peter
galloped away, he added, "you follow him."
Peter kept the figures of the two women in view, but presently saw
them disappear in the wood. He had no fear for their safety, but he was
indignant at this last untimely caprice of his sister. He knew the idea
had originated with her, and that the officers knew it, and yet she had
made Lady Elfrida bear an equal share of the blame. He reached the edge
of the copse, entered the first opening, but he had scarcely plunged
into its shadow and shut out the plain behind him before he felt his
arms and knees quickly seized from behind. So sudden and unexpected was
the attack that he first thought his horse had stumbled against a coil
of wild grapevine and was entangled, but the next moment he smelled the
rank characteristic odor and saw the brown limbs of the Indian who had
leaped on his crupper, while another rose at his horse's head. Then a
warning voice in his ear said in the native tongue:--
"If the great white medicine man calls to his fighting men, the
pale-faced girl and the squaw he calls his sister die! They are here, he
understands."
But Peter had neither struggled nor uttered a cry. At that touch, and
with the accents of that tongue in his ears, all his own Indian blood
seemed to leap and tingle through his veins. His eyes flashed; pinioned
as he was he drew himself erect and answered haughtily in his captor's
own speech:--
"Good! The great white medicine man obeys, for he and his sister have
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