Jean was trying bribery and corruption. She had slipped her hand in her pocket and brought out two bright silver dollars. She held one up before the boy, the other before old Laska. "I will give you these if you will leave the girl with us for a few days longer," she suggested.
The Indian boy did not lift his hand. He was gazing at the figure of his sister in the chair. "I no take her, she sick," he said. "I no want her to work for me. It is Laska who make her. She not like other Indian girl. She different somehow. She read books. She talk like teachers at school."
Laska seized the boy by the arm and shook him roughly. "You no talk foolish," she declared. "You bring girl home. We take not white money. Always you try to make the Indian sell big things for little."
"Oh, if somebody would only come to help us," Frieda thought despairingly. She saw that Josef had picked Olilie up in his arms. She felt like Sister Anne in the dreadful story of Bluebeard. If she could see a little cloud of dust arising somewhere down the long road that led through the trees from the far trail of the plains, she knew that help would come to them! If only she could catch sight of one of the cowboys returning to the ranch!
Frieda did spy a little dust along the trail on the upper side of the creek. She seized a white scarf from the table near by and waved it frantically out the window. "Help! Help! Jim! Jack! Somebody come quick! We need you!" she cried.
The Indian boy and woman waited, puzzled and alarmed by the noise that Frieda was making.
Frieda saw a rider catch sight of her signal, plunge down the trail and through the muddy creek, straight to the ranch house door. She knew that it was some one whom she had never seen before in her life, but it did not make the least difference to her.
"Won't you come in here?" she begged. "The door is open. There are some Indians trying to steal a girl away—" Frieda drew her blonde head back inside the window, just in time to see the stranger stalk into their room.
"Put the girl down," he commanded Josef in a tone of authority. Nothing loath, the Indian boy returned Olilie to her chair. The newcomer then spoke to the surly Indian woman. "You and your son leave this ranch at once. It was fortunate that I learned that you were coming here this morning. I rode over just in time."
The young man had brown hair and eyes. His face was quite pale. He did not look in the least strong, but there was something in his quiet manner that showed he was accustomed to being obeyed.