Helen and Jennie drove over to the mill to get Ruth that afternoon, and they planned to take Aunt Alvirah out with them. She had lost her fear of the automobile and had even begun to hint to the miller that she wished he would buy a small car.
"Land o' Goshen!" grumbled Uncle Jabez, "what next? I s'pose you'd want to learn to run the dratted thing, Alvirah Boggs?"
"Well, Jabez Potter, I don't see why not?" she had confessed. "Other women learns."
"Huh! You with one foot in the grave and the other on the gas, eh?" he snorted.
However, Aunt Alvirah did not go out in Helen's car on this afternoon. While the girls were waiting for her to be made ready, Helen looked back, up the road, down which she and Jennie had just come.
"What's this?" she wanted to know. "A runaway horse?"
Jennie stood up to look over the back of the car. She uttered an excited squeal.
"Helen! Ruthie!" she declared. "It's that Indian girl—in all her war-togs, too. She is riding like the wind. And, yes! There is somebody after her! Talk about your moving picture chases—this is the real thing!"
"It's Dakota Joe!" shrieked Helen. "Goodness! He must have gone mad. See him beating that horse he rides. Why—"
"He surely has blown up," stated Jennie Stone with conviction. "Ruthie! what are you going to do?"