“It’s morning!” And Anne sat up and looked about with surprised eyes. Little flecks of sunshine came through the sheltering branches of the tall pine, squirrels ran up and down its trunk, and there were chirpings and calls of birds among the near-by trees. “And I’m not half-way to the top,” continued Anne, shaking off the feeling of drowsiness, and springing up from the soft moss. She picked up her bundle and “Martha Stoddard” and started on. “’Tis about the time that Aunt Martha and Uncle Enos are eating porridge,” she thought longingly, and then remembered that on the hillside, not far from the top, there was a spring of cool water, and she hurried on. She could hear the little tinkling sound of the water before she came in sight of the tiny stream which ran down the slope from the bubbling spring; and laying down her doll and the bundle she ran forward, eager for a drink. She knelt down and drank, and then turned to pick up her belongings, but the bundle and doll had disappeared. Anne looked about as if she could not believe her eyes. “They must be here!” she exclaimed aloud, and at that moment “Martha Stoddard” peered at her astonished owner from behind a tree. The little wooden doll appeared to walk. Then it bowed very low, and vanished. Anne ran to the tree, but Martha was not there; but the doll’s head could be seen behind a small bush, almost within Anne’s reach; but now Anne stopped, remembering that dolls, even dolls like Martha, could not play hide-and-seek. She felt bewildered, and, although Martha bowed and even tried to dance, Anne did not approach a step nearer. She could see that a small brown hand was keeping a tight grasp on Martha, and as she watched this hand a brown face peered out at her over Martha’s head—the brown smiling face of an Indian girl, probably several years older than Anne. After looking at Anne for a few seconds she came out from behind the cluster of bushes. “She’s as tall as Rose Freeman,” was Anne’s first thought.

“Where is my bundle?” she demanded, for although the Indian girl held Martha Stoddard in plain sight the bundle was not visible.

The Indian girl shook her head smilingly, and Anne repeated, “Bundle! Bundle!” and then exclaimed, “Oh, dear, she doesn’t know what I say.”

The girl now came a step or two nearer, holding out the doll for Anne to take. Her hair was very black and thick, and braided in one heavy plait. There was a band of bright feathers about her head, and she wore a loose tunic of finely dressed deerskin which came to her knees, and was without sleeves. Her arms and feet were bare, and as she stood smiling at Anne she made a very pretty picture.

Anne reached out her hand for the doll, and as she did so the Indian girl grasped it firmly, but in so gentle a manner that Anne did not draw back. The girl drew her along, smiling and saying strange sounding words in her own language, of which Anne could understand but one—“Mashpee.” This was the name of a tribe of Cape Cod Indians who owned land, and who were always kind and friendly toward the white settlers; Anne was quite sure that the girl was telling her that she belonged to that nation.

The Indian girl circled around the big tree near the spring, and there lay—spread out on the moss—Anne’s pretty blue cape, her white muslin dress, and her shoes and stockings and the bright coral beads. The Indian girl knelt down and picking up the beads fastened them about her own neck; she then threw the cape over her own shoulders, and, picking up the shoes and stockings, placed them in front of Anne, and put the muslin dress beside them.

It needed no words to explain this; she had selected what she wanted from the bundle and Anne could have the things that the Indian girl did not want.

Anne’s face must have expressed what she felt, for the smile faded from her companion’s lips, and the dark eyes grew unfriendly. She snatched the doll from Anne, and turned as if to run away.

“Nakanit!”

Both the girls gave a little jump, for they had been too much engrossed in each other to notice that an Indian squaw had come along the path, and had stopped a short distance from them. As she spoke the Indian girl started toward her, and began to talk rapidly. Anne stood waiting, and wondering what would happen now, and heartily wished herself safely back in the Stoddards’ snug little house.

As the Indian woman listened Anne could see that she was angry and when Nakanit, for that was the Indian girl’s name, had finished the squaw snatched the cape from the girl’s shoulders, and, pointing to the beads, evidently bade her unfasten them. As the Indian girl obeyed the squaw gave her a sharp slap on the cheek, and Nakanit, without a look toward Anne, fled into the forest.

“Here, white child,” said the woman, “here are your things. What are you doing so far from the settlement?”

“I am going to Brewster,” replied Anne.

The Indian woman eyed her sharply.

“You have run away from your mother and father,” she said sharply.

“My mother is dead, and my father is at sea,” Anne replied, feeling her face growing red under the sharp eyes of the squaw, and a little ashamed that she did not own that she was running away from Aunt Martha Stoddard. But she felt that Aunt Martha had been very unfair toward her.

The Indian woman’s face softened. “And you journey alone to find friends in Brewster?” she asked.

“Yes, indeed; I am to go to Rose Freeman, and ride with her and her father in their chaise to Boston, and wait at their house for my father.”

The squaw nodded. The name of Freeman was known to her, and though a sixty mile journey seemed a long way for so small a girl as Anne, the woman only wondered at the unkindness of the white women in letting a child go alone.

“Come,” she said, and Anne, gathering up her shoes and stockings and the rumpled white dress, followed her.

The squaw turned from the path and, as she walked swiftly on, gave several low calls which to Anne sounded like the notes of a bird. The last call was answered, and a moment later Nakanit appeared beside them. For a long time they went on in silence, and at last the squaw stopped suddenly.

“Oh!” exclaimed Anne, for directly in front of them was a wigwam, so cunningly built in behind a growth of small spruce trees that unless one knew of its whereabouts it might be easily passed by. The Indian girl laughed at Anne’s exclamation, and nodded at her in a friendly manner.

“Go in,” said the squaw. “Did no woman give you food to eat on your journey?”

Anne shook her head.

“Umph!” grunted the squaw, and turned toward Nakanit, evidently telling her to bring Anne something to eat.

The Indian girl opened a basket that stood near the wigwam door and took out some thin cakes made of corn meal, and handed them to Anne. Anne ate them hungrily; they tasted very sweet and good, and, when she had eaten the last one, she turned toward the squaw who sat beside her, and said: “Thank you very much. The cakes were good.”

The squaw nodded gravely. Anne looked round the wigwam with curious eyes. It was evident that Nakanit and her mother were nearly ready for a journey. The two baskets were near the door, the roll of blankets beside them, well tied up with stout thongs of deerskin, and the little brush wigwam had nothing else in it.

The Indian girl stood with her dark eyes fixed on Anne, and the squaw talked rapidly for a few moments, evidently giving the girl information or directions; then she lifted the smaller of the two baskets, and fastened its deerskin strap over Nakanit’s shoulders. The roll of blankets and the other basket she carried herself.

“Follow,” she said to Anne; “we journey toward Wellfleet and you can go with us.”

Anne’s face brightened, and she began to feel that her troubles were over. She picked up her own bundle and followed the squaw and the Indian girl out through the woods and across a meadow where a few cattle were feeding.

“This must be Truro,” Anne thought to herself as she trudged silently on beside her new friends.

It grew very warm and there was no shade, and Anne began to feel tired, but neither Nakanit nor her mother seemed to notice the heat. It was past noon before they made any stop, and as Anne, who was some distance behind her companions, saw the squaw turn toward a little wooded hill and begin to lower the basket from her shoulders, she gave a long tired sigh of relief. Nakanit heard and turned toward her, and reached out her free hand to take Anne’s bundle. But Anne shook her head, and tightened her hold on it. This seemed to anger the Indian girl, and with a surly word she gave Anne a push, sending her over into a clump of wild rose bushes. As Anne reached out to save herself the thorns scratched her hands and arms and she cried out. The squaw turned, and, as she had not seen the push, thought that Anne had stumbled, and began to laugh at her and to mock her cries. This delighted Nakanit, who joined in so loudly that Anne stopped in terrified amazement, and scrambled out as well as she could. Her feet ached, and she could hardly walk, but she went on behind Nakanit into the pleasant shade of the woods, and here her companions set down their baskets, and threw themselves down to rest. Anne looked at them a little fearfully; they had not spoken one word to her since leaving the wigwam.

The squaw opened the basket and gave each of the girls some of the corn bread, which they devoured hungrily. “There are berries over there,” she said briefly, pointing toward the slope, “and water.”

Nakanit was already running toward the slope, but Anne did not move; she was still hungry and very thirsty, but too tired to walk, and as she lay on the soft grass she began to dread the moment when the squaw might start on again. It was not long before Nakanit returned. She brought with her a cunningly made basket of oak leaves pinned together with twigs, and heaped full of blueberries; the squaw shook her head as Nakanit offered her the berries, and pointed toward Anne. Nakanit obeyed, but somewhat sulkily, for she had meant to help Anne with the bundle, and was still angry at Anne’s refusal.

“How good they taste,” exclaimed Anne as she helped herself to a handful, and she smiled up gratefully at Nakanit. The Indian girl’s face brightened, and she smiled back, and sitting down beside Anne held the basket forward for her to take more. When the berries were finished Nakanit again disappeared.

After several hours’ rest the squaw started on again, and Anne followed after wondering where Nakanit was. In a short time they came down to a sandy beach.

“Why, look! There’s Nakanit!” exclaimed Anne, pointing toward the water, where a bark canoe floated near the shore with Nakanit in it, holding her paddle ready to send the craft to whatever point on the beach her mother might direct.

The squaw called, and with a twist of the paddle the girl sent the canoe to the shore. The squaw lifted in the baskets, the roll of blankets and Anne’s bundle. “Sit there, and be quiet,” she said, and Anne stepped in very carefully and sat down on the bottom of the canoe.

It was now late in the afternoon. The water was very calm, and as Nakanit and her mother dipped their paddles and sent the canoe swiftly along, Anne looked back toward the wooded shore and was very glad that she was not plodding along over the fields and hills. It was much cooler on the water, and the little girl wondered if her Aunt Martha missed her at all. “But perhaps she is glad that I ran away,” thought Anne, for she was sure that she had not given either Amanda or Mrs. Stoddard any reason to be unkind or to blame her. “Rose Freeman will be glad I came; I know she will,” was her comforting thought.

The Indians did not speak save for an occasional word of direction from the squaw. The sun had set when they turned the canoe toward the shore. Nakanit pulled the canoe up on the sand beyond reach of the tide, and the squaw led the way to a little opening among the trees, and there Anne was surprised to find another wigwam, very much like the one they had left that morning. The squaw spread the blankets, gave the girls the corn cakes with strips of dried fish for their supper, and they had water from a near-by brook.

Anne was soon fast asleep, quite forgetful of her strange surroundings and of the friends in Province Town.

Meanwhile those friends had now nearly given up the hope of finding her.

Amanda Cary’s jealousy had vanished the moment she heard of Anne’s disappearance.

“I do not know what I shall do with the child,” Mrs. Cary said anxiously, when Amanda cried herself to sleep on the night after Anne left home, and when, on the next morning, she began sobbing bitterly at the mention of her playmate’s name.

“Amanda’s ashamed; that’s what’s the matter with her,” declared Amos boldly.

Amanda’s sobs stopped, and she looked at her brother with startled eyes. What would become of her, she wondered, if the Stoddards should ever find out that she, Amanda, was the one to blame; that Anne had not deserved any punishment.

“Amos, don’t plague your sister,” said Mrs. Cary. “You know she loves Anne, even if the girl did slap her. Amanda has a good heart, and she does not hold resentment,” and Mrs. Cary looked at Amanda with loving eyes.

At her mother’s words Amanda began to cry again. She thought to herself that she could never tell the truth, never. “Everybody will hate me if I do,” she thought, and then, remembering Anne and hearing her father say on the second day after her disappearance that there was now little hope of finding the runaway, she felt that she must tell Mrs. Stoddard.

“I’ll wager I could find Anne,” said Amos as he and Amanda sat on the door-step. “She’s started for Brewster.”

“Oh, Amos!” Amanda’s voice was full of delight. “I shouldn’t wonder if she had.”

“But Captain Stoddard says he followed the Truro path and no sign of her; and other people say that wolves would get her if she started to walk.”

Amanda’s face had brightened at Amos’s assertion that he knew he could find Anne, and now she asked eagerly:

“What makes you think you could find her, Amos?”

“You won’t tell?” and Amos looked at his sister sharply.

“I promise, hope to die, I won’t,” answered Amanda.

“Well, I’ll tell you. I think she started for Truro, and will go by the meadows and over the hill instead of the regular path. I know the way I’d go, and I know I could find her; but father just shakes his head and won’t let me try.”

“Amos, you go,” said Amanda. “Promise you’ll go. I’ll tell you something if you won’t ever tell. It’s something awful!”

“I won’t tell,” said the boy.

“I made Anne run away! Yes, I did. I was angry when she told me about going to Boston again, and going in a chaise, and I pushed her——”

“And then you came home and told mother that yarn!” interrupted Amos; “and mother went and told Mrs. Stoddard, and so Anne got punished and didn’t know what for. You’re a nice sister to have!” and the boy’s face expressed his disgust.

“But, Amos, I didn’t s’pose Anne would run away,” pleaded Amanda.

“Hmph!” muttered Amos. “Well, she has, and whatever happens to her will be your fault.”

“O-ooh—dear,” wailed the little girl. “What shall I do?”

“Nothing,” answered Amos relentlessly; “only of course now I’ve got to find her.”

“And you won’t ever tell about me,” pleaded Amanda.

“I’d be ashamed to let anybody know I had a sister like you,” answered Amos.

“Amos, you’re real good,” responded Amanda, somewhat to her brother’s surprise. “When will you start?”

“Right off,” declared the boy. “I’ll put a jug of water and something to eat in my boat, and I’ll go round to Truro—Anne must have got that far—and I’ll keep on until I find her and tell her how ashamed I am of you.”

“And say I’m sorry, Amos; promise to tell her I’m sorry,” pleaded Amanda.

“Lots of use being sorry,” said the boy. “When they miss me you can tell them just where I’ve gone and that I’ll be home Saturday night, anyway, or let them hear from me if I don’t come.”

“I do believe you’ll find her, Amos,” declared Amanda.

“Sure!” answered the boy.