The Indian eyed the two girls doubtfully. She firmly believed that one of them had helped the truant to escape, yet they had not stirred from before her eyes, in the time when the runaway girl threw her off the scent.
"You know where my girl is, you hide her from me," the woman said accusingly.
Jean glanced at her in a bored fashion. "Will you please go away?" she demanded. "We are busy. We do not want to talk to you. I told you that we had never seen any Indian girl."
Frieda did not move, but her rosy cheeks burned a deeper red from the heat of the flames.
The squaw waddled slowly out of sight. What did it matter if she had not caught Olilie? The girl would soon have to return to the hut. She could not live long alone out on the plains and when she came back she should be taught her place. Olilie was only a squaw in spite of the nonsense she had learned at the white people's school. She should do the work and be the slave of the man chief, like all Indian girls had from the beginning.
"Jean, Jack," Frieda hissed softly. She came over toward her cousin and sister with the fish still sizzling and popping in her frying pan.
"Oh, do be careful, Frieda," Jean begged. Some of the hot fat sputtered out of the pan into Jean's lap and she slid backwards off the rock where she was seated.
But Jack saw that something unusual was the matter with Frieda.
"What in the world has happened to you, child? Your eyes are as big as saucers!" she exclaimed.
Frieda set down her pan and though the Indian woman was now well out of sight, she whispered a few words that made both girls jump to their feet.