He looked about in fear and anger, his black eyes searching for footprints of a thief and the hoofmarks of the horse.
A rippling laugh, strange and wild, came to him from a little distance.
Lena Forest looked toward the point whence it emanated, and was astounded to see an Indian girl rise there from behind a rock and come forward. The girl seemed amused when first she appeared; but a frown was on her brown face as she approached the girl prisoner and the young chief.
“The Wind Flower!” gasped the young chief, speaking below his breath. “What does she here?”
“Oh, mighty chief,” she said in mockery, “where is thy horse? I see it not. The eagles must have carried it away!”
He regarded her uneasily. “Wind Flower has taken it,” he said. “Where has she placed it? And what does she here?”
The Indian girl laughed again, a rippling laugh that had in it something of the music of running water, for it seemed to bubble and gurgle in her brown throat. Yet that suspicious and questioning light remained in her eyes.
“I found the horse of the great chief, Lightfoot! I am but a squaw—not a mighty warrior and hunter. But I could have taken his horse and ridden it far from here, if I had willed. The mighty young chief is like the bear that sleeps when the winter winds blow; he does not see, and he does not hear. An enemy might have taken his scalp, as well as his horse.”
He shifted nervously on his feet under this rebuke, and looked at her furtively as she turned to Lena Forest, throwing out one brown hand in a significant gesture.
“Where is the young chief taking the white woman?” she asked, and at the question jealousy flashed in her dark eyes.