was a captive. Strangely, it seemed, her mind would then revert to what Lachlan had told her about the Indian girls—that many of them were beautiful; and always, when her thoughts had taken this channel, they led her quickly to one Indian girl, an Indian girl whom she had never seen—that mysterious daughter of Chief Concha, the Appalache, who held Gilbert Barradell prisoner.
A dozen times she had been on the point of questioning Lachlan further—to get him to tell her exactly what Falcon had said about Concha's daughter during their interview in the Good Fortune's cabin. Yet she had never done so; and she knew now that she never would. When she had first questioned Lachlan about the matter, it had led to a quarrel. She was strangely unwilling to mention the subject to him again.
One afternoon, when Jolie sat alone in this retreat on the crest of the ridge just beyond and below the camp, she saw a sight that brought her instantly back to the living present. Out from the trees in front of her, not twenty feet away, walked a great panther, the largest that she had ever seen.
The beast did not pause. Slowly, noiselessly it came on, its pale eyes fixed upon her face, its long tail held high above its back. She could not move, she could not cry out. Utter terror held her rigid, dumb.
Ten paces from her the panther stopped and stood motionless; and suddenly she was aware that behind
