"Olive, child, did you hear any one or anything while I was away? I thought we were going to have a perfectly peaceful and uninterrupted day, but I have an idea that while I was looking after the horses I heard some one stirring about not so very far off. Still I may have been mistaken or it may have been a deer or a wildcat. This woods gets so much denser as one goes further into it. This is near the same place where I managed to break my poor little pony's legs several years ago. It was when we were making that horrid visit at the Norton's before it was finally decided that you were to come and live with us. I never have been able to think of having to shoot 'Hotspur' without its giving me the shivers." And Jack now took a small pistol out of a leather holster fastened about her waist. "I never go on a long ride with either of the girls without carrying this," she remarked carelessly, "but I don't believe I am ever going to like hunting again as I did when I was younger. That was one of the lessons I learned when I was ill so long—a greater respect for life, anybody's or anything's." Then the girl's voice grew suddenly hushed.
"Didn't you hear a slight noise then?" she whispered.
After a moment of enforced silence Olive shook her head. "No, or at least nothing of importance," she replied. "Of course these woods must have wild game in them, since it is the only place with running water nearer than Rainbow Creek. But it is odd your having this impression now. Several times I meant to tell you and forgot—that while we were riding I kept having the idea that some one was following after us. Half a dozen times I looked around thinking that it might possibly be either Jean or Frieda. But I saw no one, so of course it must have been only a fancy."
"Well it certainly was neither Jean nor Frieda," Jack replied laughingly. "They have both grown too lazy for such a journey as we are taking. But come along, because if we are ever to get to your old Indian village and back again this afternoon, we must hurry."
For this had been the supposed object of Jack's and Olive's free day together. Soon after her arrival at the Lodge Olive had suggested that she would very much like to go back to the little Indian village where she had lived as a child with old Laska, and see if the woman and her son were yet alive. She desired also to pay a visit to her former teacher and first friend, who was still at work among the Indian children at the little Indian reservation school.
Before the two girls had finally arrived at their destination, it was Olive who discovered the ghost stealthily pursuing them. And it was he whom Jack must have heard in the woods.
Olive at once turned apologetically to her friend. "Don't be cross, Jack, and don't scold if I tell you something," she began unexpectedly. "But just now I saw at some distance behind us a brown shadow on a brown horse. So I'm afraid it is Carlos who has been trailing after us. But really it is my fault for having told him where we intended going. Probably he won't trouble us if we don't wish to notice him."
Frowning, Jacqueline returned: "I'm sorry to confess it to you, Olive dear, but really, Carlos is getting to be rather a nuisance to Jim and me. I do hope you may be able to influence him to settle down to some kind of work or study—to anything he likes. Neither Jim nor I care so much what except that his idleness is a bad influence among the men on the place. There is no use in my trying to do anything with him, for he has taken such a violent dislike to me. Frieda says that I am too much of a boss and it has offended the boy's dignity. But I shan't scold today since Carlos is only following us because he does not entirely trust me to look after you and adores you so that he does not wish you out of his sight."
Just as though four or five years had not passed with its crowded and ever changing experiences, walking up to old Indian Laska's dirty hut alone Olive Van Mater found the Indian woman still sitting in her same open doorway, smoking the apparently identical pipe and clothed in the same old nondescript rags of former days with a brilliant Indian blanket across her shoulders. But at the sight of her beautifully dressed visitor the Indian woman showed not the slightest sign of recognition. Nor did she do anything further than nod and grunt several times in succession when Olive assured her that she had once been the girl "Olilie," who had lived with her from the time she was a baby.
Possibly Laska could neither understand nor believe what this charming American girl was trying to explain to her, but certain it was that she never once invited Olive inside her former home, nor showed the slightest interest in her, except to smile at the handful of small change that was bestowed upon her in parting. For of course Olive had long since ceased to feel any bitterness against the old woman, whose ignorance and greed had not been nearly so responsible for her past unhappiness as her own grandmother's careless neglect of her.