An Apache Princess

"But don't you think she'd like to see me just a little while, Miss

Wren?" the girl inquired, her hand caressing the sleek head of one of

the big hounds as she spoke. Hounds were other objects of Miss Wren's

disfavor. "Lazy, pilfering brutes," she called them, when after hours

of almost incredible labor and ingenious effort they had managed to

tear down, and to pieces, a haunch of venison she had slung to the

rafters of the back porch. "You can come in, Kate, provided you keep

out the dogs," was her ungracious answer, "and I'll go see. I think

she's sleeping now, and ought not to be disturbed."

"Then I won't disturb her," was Miss Sanders's prompt reply, as she

turned away and would have gone, but the elder restrained her. Janet

did not wish the girl to go at all. She knew Angela had asked for her,

and doubtless longed to see her; and now, having administered her

feline scratch and made Kate feel the weight of her disapproval, she

was quite ready to promote the very interview she had verbally

condemned. Perhaps Miss Sanders saw and knew this and preferred to

worry Miss Wren as much as possible. At all events, only with

reluctance did she obey the summons to wait a minute, and stood with a

pout on her lips as the spinster vanished in the gloom of the hallway.

Angela could not have been asleep, for her voice was audible in an

instant. "Come up, Kate," she feebly cried, just as Aunt Janet had

begun her little sermon, and the sermon had to stop, for Kate Sanders

came, and neither lass was in mood to listen to pious exhortation.

Moreover, they made it manifest to Aunt Janet that there would be no

interchange of confidences until she withdrew. "You are not to talk

yourselves into a pitch of excitement," said she. "Angela must sleep

to-night to make up for the hours she lost--thanks to the abominable

remarks of that hardened young man." With that, after a pull at the

curtain, a soothing thump or two at Angela's pillow, and the muttered

wish that the coming colonel were empowered to arrest recalcitrant

nieces as well as insubordinate subs, she left them to their own

devices. They were still in eager, almost breathless chat when the

crack of whip and sputter of hoofs and wheels through gravelly sands

told that the inspector's ambulance had come. Was it likely that

Angela could sleep until she heard the probable result of the

inspector's coming?