But Dorothy had other things to think of. Her position was now seemingly more perilous than before. It was so hard to think that they had all been so near deliverance, and, in fact, had given themselves over entirely to hope, and then had been so ruthlessly disappointed.
But there had been compensations. Putting on one side the shedding of blood, for which nothing could compensate, there was that new interest which had sprung into glorious life within her, and had become part of her being—her love for the man who had more than once put himself in the power of the enemy so that she and her father might be saved. Yes, that was something very wonderful and beautiful indeed.
When the moon got up the party was reformed, and they started out again. In the pale moonlight the freaks of Nature's handiwork were more fantastic than ever, and here and there tall, strangely-fashioned boulders of clay took on the semblance of threatening, half-human monsters meditating an attack.
Dorothy had noticed by the stars that the party had changed its direction. They were now heading due north. With the exception of one short halt they travelled all through the night, and in the early grey dawn of the morning came out upon a great plain of drifting sand that looked for all the world like an old ocean bed stretching on and on interminably. It was the dangerous shifting sands, which the Indians generally avoided, as it contained spots where, it was said, both man and horse disappeared if they dared to put foot on it. But Poundmaker's lieutenant was not without some measure of skill and daring, and piloted them between the troughs of the waste with unerring skill.
When the sun gained power in the heavens and a light breeze sprang up, a strange thing took place. The face of the wave-like heights and hollows began to move. The tiny grains of sand were everywhere in motion, and actually gave out a peculiar singing sound, somewhat resembling the noise of grain when it falls from the spout of a winnowing machine into a sack. It was as if the sand were on the boil. There was no stopping now unless they wanted to be swallowed up in the quicksand. Dorothy noticed that the squaws, and even the braves, looked not a little anxious. But their leader kept steadily on. The sand was hard enough and offered sufficient resistance to the broad hoof of a horse, but if one stood still for a minute or so, it began gradually to silt up and bury it. It was a horrible place. When at noon that devil's slough resolved itself into a comparatively narrow strip, and Dorothy saw that they could easily have left it, she began to understand their reason for keeping on such dangerous ground—they did not wish to leave any tracks behind them. In all truth there was absolutely nothing to show that they had ever been in that part of the country. At last they came to what looked like a high hill with a wall-like cliff surmounting it. They stepped on to the firm clayey soil where the sage-bush waved, and had their midday meal. As soon as that had been disposed of, they resumed their journey.
They now went on foot, and steadily climbed the steep hillside by the bed of an old watercourse. Dorothy wondered what was behind the sharply-cut outline of the cliffs, for it gave the impression that nothing lay beyond save infinite space. They entered a narrow ravine, and then suddenly it was as if they had reached the jumping-off place of the world, for they passed, as it were, into another land. Immediately beneath them lay a broken shelf of ground shaped like a horseshoe, the sides of which were sheer cliffs, the gloomy base of which, many hundred feet below, were swept by the coldly gleaming, blue waters of the mighty Saskatchewan. Beyond that, drowsing in a pale blue haze, lay the broad valley, and beyond that again the vast purpling panorama of rolling prairie and black pinewoods until earth and sky were merged in indistinctness and became one. It resembled a perch on the side of the world, a huge eyrie with cliffs above and cliffs below, with apparently only that little passage, the old creek bed, by which one might get there. Dorothy realised that people might pass and repass at the foot of the hill on the other side and never dream there was such a place behind it. Still less would they imagine that there was a narrow cleft by which one could get through. Moreover, a couple of Indians stationed at the narrow track could easily keep two hundred foe-men at bay. Dorothy realised that she was now as effectually a prisoner as if she had been hidden away in an impregnable fortress.
The party descended a gentle slope, and there, in a saucer-shaped piece of low-lying ground fringed with saskatoon and choke-cherry trees, they pitched their camp.
For the first three days Dorothy was almost inclined to give way to the depression of spirits which her surroundings and the enforced inaction naturally encouraged. Though the Red folk were not actually unkind to her, still, their ways were not such as commended themselves to a well-brought-up white girl. Fortunately, the Falling Star was well disposed to her, and did all she could to make Dorothy feel her captivity as little as possible. The two would sit together in a shady place on the edge of the great cliff for hours, gazing out upon the magnificent prospect that outspread itself far beneath them, and the Indian girl, to try and woo the spirit of her white sister from communing too much within itself, would tell her many of the quaint, beautiful legends of the Indian Long Ago.
On the third day, just as Dorothy was beginning to wonder if it were not possible to steal out of the wigwam one night when Falling Star slept soundly, and, by evading the sentries—who might also chance to be asleep—make her way out through the narrow pass and so back to freedom, there was an arrival in camp that exceedingly astonished her. She was sitting some little distance back from the edge of the great cliff with Falling Star near at hand, when some one behind her spoke.
"Ah, Mam'selle," said the voice, "it ees ze good how-do-you-do I will be wish you."