One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now old enough to run with her on her expeditions, had been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to look for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after the manner of prairie cows. Olive found the truant and the “little stranger,” along with half a dozen young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards, when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations that something was annoying him under the flap of his saddle. In fact he was constantly trying to bite Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little. Accordingly she resolved to take off the saddle and make an inspection. She dismounted, undid the girths, and lifted off the heavy Mexican saddle. Rebel, who had always hitherto regarded this proceeding as indicating immediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed than he took a base advantage of Olive, and kicking up his heels bounded away from her. She set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing names. Rebel listened to her honeyed words with his ears flat on his neck, and as soon as she came near, again kicked up his heels and bounded off.
Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy might lend valuable assistance, now pranced forward with energetic barks, and the cows and calves deeming themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother every now and then diving ineffectually after Diana with a plunge and a snort. A stampede had set in among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried with vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear and distinct against the horizon just four miles in a bee-line from where she sat shedding her ineffectual tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and also a puppy, and therefore endowed with a double dose of original foolishness, was likewise a dog, and consequently amenable to the highest inspirations of a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of puppy worried and distracted the animals to her heart’s content, she suddenly felt bound to exhibit some of the better sides of her nature, among which remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master. Seeing that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana turned her back resolutely upon the delights of snapping at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to the ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the grass. After an apologetic wriggle Diana sat down and looked at Olive. Now no philosopher or other mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a tired puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of her woe caught sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she burst into a laugh in the midst of her tears, whereupon the latter sprang merrily up and licked her face. Thus comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that she didn’t know where the saddle was. She had neglected to mark its position in any way when going on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle. The grass was in its greatest summer height, and there was neither bush nor tree anywhere for miles around. There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to give individuality to one spot more than another, all was the relentless rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea where one billow was exactly like a hundred others.
Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for tribulation, for the saddle was new and expensive, and moreover it belonged to the Community. She would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any sort of disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss her and pet her and say, “Never mind, darling, don’t grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.” But a community-saddle was quite another matter, and Olive shrank from the ordeal of community-anger at the loss of its saddle, and community-contempt for her carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie without putting the reins over her arm. She perceived now that anyone but a fool would have taken that simple precaution against disaster. “I’m not fit to live on the prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My education is no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help me?”
This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who was wallowing blissfully in the grass and thus refreshing herself after her scamper. Olive began to walk aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on the saddle, and Diana began to do likewise, but with far more system. Diana’s researches were speedily crowned with success, and she soon sat down to an uninterrupted gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle. Becoming at length aware of the disappearance of Diana, Olive called to her, and the puppy reared a mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards away. Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle and also the depredations of Diana’s sharp teeth upon the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup leather most ineffectually and then said:
“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that her efforts had been badly rewarded, made no suggestions.
Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle was considerably worse than before. The thing was very heavy. Mexican saddles are built on wood, large, strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier in proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive put it on her shoulders and began to see stars, she then tried her head and found that position still worse. She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and found she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried, which was the most useless effort she had made. What was she to do? If she were to leave the saddle and walk home she would never be able to find it again. There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By this time the cattle were distant specks moving solemnly homewards, with Rebel decorously following in the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until Rebel and the cattle, by their arrival without her, should have given the alarm, which would bring Ezra and the rest of the Community to the rescue, somewhere about the middle of the night, she supposed. It would be humiliating, but she thought it would be better than abandoning the saddle which she could not possibly carry. She sat down to wait with what patience she could for rescue and humiliation. There was nothing to expect along that weary stretch of grassy sea, and yet Olive kept looking and looking away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant west and holding a slanting course which would carry him past Perfection City some mile or so to the north. She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of course he saw her instantly, although he was a couple of miles away, and equally of course he at once turned his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive had not the slightest hesitation in calling this unknown horseman up to her aid, although she had not the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was a cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a horse would be able to give her and her saddle effectual assistance. The man galloped steadily on and soon took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt, riding boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it. He slowed up a little as he came near and seemed to be very intently looking at Olive.
“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began Olive.
“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can be of use,” said the man, taking off his big hat.
They both stopped short and looked hard at each other, for their speech had mutually revealed the fact that they were a lady and a gentleman, a most uncommon encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the last bit of cultivated land.
“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?” asked the man, jumping off his horse and mechanically slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as Olive noted with some self-reproach. She told him what had happened, and she saw a smile creep round his mouth and light up his blue eyes.