CHAPTER XXIX.
RUNNING BEAR'S SQUAW.
As they rode away to join the herd, which had been moving slowly northward, Hallie and Stella rode together, and Hallie was telling her friend what she felt, and what she thought about her break with Lieutenant Barrows.
"That note was the most impertinent thing I ever read," Hallie was saying.
"What was it all about? Ted did not think it was of much importance," said Stella.
"And yet it was all about him."
"You don't say so. What was it?"
Stella was not very curious about the letter, for she was too free and independent to care what an enemy said of her or her friends. She had that intense loyalty of character that put tried and chosen friends before all the world, and she believed and stuck to her friends through all and above all. But this was a characteristic of all the broncho boys.
She didn't believe that anything any one could write about Ted Strong could hurt him, at least it could not with her.
"It forbade me going with you on this trip, and said some awful things about Mr. Strong," said Hallie.