A Waif of the Plains

ion was one of pur

ntaneous outburst of savage nature soon passed. Susy's little hand presently reache

nd they'll stop as soon

racks being their unfailing guides; the keen, cool air of the plains, taking the place of

red a bit, are

n the wagon for hours without being looked after, and that their absence might not be noticed until the train stopped to encamp at dusk, two hours later. They wer

they ar

hat this seemingly flat and level plain was really undulatory, and that the vanished train had simply dipped below their view on some further slope even as it had once before. But they knew they were disappointed, and that disappointment revealed to them the fact that they had concealed it from each other. The girl wa

brusqueness. "So quit, now! They'll stop in a minit, and send

eat him violently with her little fists. "They ain't! They ain't! They ain't. You know it! How dare you?" Then, exhausted

a pale, determined face that

e me be,"

go away and leave y

in the secure depths of her sun-bon

-e-

but really to look at the

a'u

el

ke

opping her head over his shoulder. "Now," he said cheerfully, "you

rence had stumbled on for a few moments,

t y

ion apparently satisfied her. Presently she

and black spots floated across the horizon, and round wafers, like duplicates of the sun, glittered back from the dull surface of the plains. Then he resolved to look no more until he had counted fi

and mighty quick about it." He heard the command harshly repeated. He saw the look of irritation on Silsbee's dusty, bearded face, that followed his hurried glance into the empty wagon. He heard the query, "What's gone o' them limbs now?" handed from wagon to wagon. He heard a few oaths; Mrs. Silsbee's high rasping voice, abuse of himself, the hurri

a slight mound where he could rest awhile, and yet keep his watchful survey of the horizon. But on reaching it he found that it was only a tangle of taller mesquite grass, into which he sank with his burden. Nevertheless, if useless as a point of vantage, it offered a soft couch for Susy, who seemed to have fallen quite naturally into her usual afternoon sie

eam seemed to linger over his hiding-place, he even thought that it might serve as a guide to Silsbee and the other seekers, and was constrained to stagger to his feet, erect in its light. But it soon sank, and with it Clarence dropped back again to his crouching watch. Yet he knew that the daylight was sti