"Abel wants you, Kit!" cried Mrs. Smith, quite ignoring the child's recent outbreak, and the girl walked quietly toward him. But it was Gaspar who helped to swing her into her saddle, where she settled herself with an ease learned long ago of the Snake-Who-Leaps. The lad, also, found time to whisper:
"Remember your promise! We are to ride this race for Wahneenah's life--though nobody knows that save you and me. So ride your best. Ride as you never rode before--and on the road I lead you!"
The sons of the new settler and horse dealer were to ride against these two. There were three of these youths, all well mounted, and the course was to be a certain number of times around the great wheat field so freshly reaped. It was a rough route, indeed, but as just for one as another, and in plain sight of all the visitors. The five horses ranged in a row with their noses touching a line, held by two men, that fell as the word was given:
They went. They made the circuit of the field in fair style, with the three strangers a trifle ahead. On the completion of the second heat, the easterners passed the starting-point alone.
"Why, Gaspar! Why, Kitty!" shouted Abel reprovingly. "How's this?"
"Maybe they don't understand what's meant," suggested somebody.
Seemingly, they did not. For neither at the third round did they appear in leading. On the contrary, they had started off at a right angle, straight across the prairie; but now so fast they rode, and so unerringly, that long before their deserted friends had ceased to stare and wonder they had passed out of sight.
"We can rest a little now, Kit. We are so far away that nobody could catch us if they tried. They won't try, any way, I guess. They'll think we'll go back."
"Didn't the horses do finely, Gaspar! I never rode like that, I guess. Where are we going? What did you mean about saving Wahneenah's life? Where is she?"
"Don't ask so many questions. I've got to think. I've got to think very hard. I'm the man of our family, you know, Sun Maid. Wahneenah and you are my women."
"Oh! indeed!" said the girl, moving a little nearer her foster-brother on the grassy hillock where they had slipped from their saddles, to rest both themselves and the beasts.