CHAPTER XI.
A STRANGE LETTER.
To return to Pawnee Brown at the time when he made the double discovery that Yellow Elk, the rascally Indian, was riding his stolen mare, Bonnie Bird, and had as his fair captive Nellie Winthrop, Jack Rasco's niece.
For the moment the great scout was nearly dumfounded by the revelation. He had not met Yellow Elk for several months, and had imagined that the Indian chief was safe within the territorial reservation allotted to him and his tribe.
As Yellow Elk shifted his fair burden, Nellie Winthrop's eyes opened and she started up in alarm.
"Oh, you beast! Let me go!" she screamed faintly. She was about to say more, but Yellow Elk clapped a dirty hand over her mouth and silenced her.
"No speak more," he muttered in his broken English. "White girl speak too much."
"But—but where are you taking me? This is not the boomers camp."
(88)
