“All I can say, Sweet-Face, is that I am delighted to know that you escaped from the Indians, for I heard that they were going to force you to marry Mud Face when he returned from his hunting trip, the trip on which Mr. Harold killed him. I had made up my mind to run away with you and try to reach the nearest settlement before I would see you married to that cruel fiend, even if you thought I was going crazy for not obeying the pull on my reins. We ponies as well as other animals are often misunderstood when we try in our own dumb way to help our masters and mistresses, for they cannot always interpret our actions and signals, so often think us disobedient when we are really trying to serve them.”
“You dearest darling!” exclaimed Ione, “to think that you were trying to plan a way to save me and I did not even know that they intended marrying me.”
“I knew you did not, but I overheard it by chance, as I grazed peacefully about while listening to Mud Face and Old Heron Feather talk, wrapped in their blankets near the camp-fire.”
“Oh! here come my pet doves,” she cried, as a flock of white pigeons alighted on her head, shoulders and outstretched hands. “You beauties! Where did you come from and how do you like it up here where you never need to have a fear of being stoned or shot?”
Looking up, she saw Harold riding off on a pet horse he used to own, while the Prince was petting an elephant he used to ride in processions in Siam. The Princess had her arms around the neck of a gazelle and all this time Mercury stood near smiling to see them all so happy.
“Oh mercy! here comes a bear out of the woods,” cried the Princess as she ran toward the Prince for protection. But Mercury quieted her fears by telling her that it was perfectly harmless as were all the rest of the animals here, even to the usually ferocious Bengal tigers.
“I am sorry, but am afraid I must hurry you,” said Mercury, “if you wish to visit all the places yet to be seen.”
“Oh! do we have to go?” said Ione. “I am so sorry to leave my old pets so soon. I would dearly like to take them back to Earth with me.”
“So do I feel sorry to part with them so soon,” said the Prince; “but it is a great comfort to know that they all live again and that we shall see them again some day.”
Then away they all flew. Their next stopping place, Mercury told them, was to be the Frost King’s Isle.