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threw theranted that

the baby had fallen into the river at the place where they found the

cracker If he had done so, he would have been swept away instantly No

one could look at the river and doubt that--therefore no one did doubt

it That a squaw should find hi dohere he had fallen, two

hundred yards above the town and in the edge of the thick timber,

never entered their minds at all That she should pick hi, and should yield to the

teness of him just as Bud bad yielded, would have seemed to Alpine

still more unlikely; because no Indian had ever kidnapped a white child

in that neighborhood So rooves

established by precedent Marie went to Sacramento merely because that was the closest town of any

size, where she could wait for the news she dreaded to receive yet edy She did not

want to find Bud now She shrank froht of hiically she blareat heartache, and she

hoped never to see hiain or to hear his name spoken