Page 49 (1/1)

Molly ran to her side

"Your bones heap sick? Molly rub 'eerly

"O Molly, if you would!" replied Rhoda gratefully, and she wondered at the skill and gentleness of the Indian wo muscles with such rapidity and firered stiffly to her feet

"Molly," she said, "I want to wash my face"

Molly puckered up her own face in her effort to understand, and scratched her head

"Don't sabe that," she said

"Wash my face!" repeated Rhoda in astonishhed

"No! You no wash! No use! You just get cold--heap cold!"

"Molly!" called Kut-le's authoritative voice

Molly went flying toward the packs, from which she returned with a canteen and a tiny pitch-srinned at Rhoda

"Molly is possessed with the idea that anything as frail as you would be snuffed out like a candle by a drop of water You and I each possess a lone lorn tohich we must wash out ourselves till the end of the trip The squaws don't knohen a thing is clean"

Rhoda took the towel silently, and the young Indian, after waiting a irl to her difficult toilet When Rhoda had finished she picked up the field-glasses that Kut-le had left on her blankets and with her back to the Indians sat down on a rock to watch the desert

The sordid discomforts of the camp seemed to her unbearable She hated the blue haze of the desert below and beyond her She hated the very ponies that Alchise was leading up from water It was the fourth day since her abduction Rhoda could not understand why John and the New as yet of the skill of her abductors She was like an ignorant child placed in a neorld whose very ABC was closed to her After always having been cared for and protected, after never having known a hardship, the girl suddenly was thrust into an existence whose savage simplicity was sufficient to try the hardiestup his attempts to make conversation It was dusk when theycloud of mist enveloped them It became desperately cold and Rhoda shivered beneath her Navajo but Kut-le gave no heed to her He led on and on, the horses slipping, the cold growing every minute ure silhouetted against a flickering light Kut-le halted his party and rode forward; Rhoda saw the diure rise hastily and after a short time Kut-le called back