What she said to the man certainly Ruth and her friends could not understand.  It was said in the Osage tongue in any case.  But with the words the Indian girl thrust forward the light rifle which she carried.  For a moment its blue muzzle was set full against the white man’s chest.

“Oh!” gasped Jennie.  And she was not alone in thus giving vent to her excitement.  “Oh!”

“Why doesn’t she shoot him?” drawled Mercy Curtis.

“I—­I guess It was only in fun,” said Helen rather shakingly, as the Indian girl wheeled her mount again and rode away from Dakota Joe.

“I wouldn’t want her to be that funny with me,” gasped Jennie Stone.  “She must be a regular wild Indian, after all.”

“I am sure, at least, that this Dakota Joe person would have deserved little sympathy if she had shot him,” declared Mercy, with confidence.

“Dear me,” admitted Ruth herself, “I want to meet that girl more than ever now.  There must be some mystery regarding her connection with the owner of the show.  They certainly are not in accord.”

“You’ve said something!” agreed Jennie, likewise with conviction.

If Wonota had been at all flurried because of her treatment by her employer, she no longer showed it.  Having ridden to the proper spot, she wheeled the white pony again and faced the place where there was a steel shield against which the objects she was to shoot at were thrown.

Dakota Joe rode forward as though to affix the first clay ball to the string.  Then he pulled in his horse, scowled across the ring at Wonota, and beckoned one of the cowboys to approach.  This man took up the duty of affixing the targets for the Indian girl.

“Do you see that?” chuckled Jennie Stone.  “He’s afraid she might change her mind and shoot him after all.”

“Sh!” cautioned Ruth.  “Somebody might hear you.  Now look.”

The swinging targets were shattered by Wonota as fast as the man could hook them to the string and set the string to swinging.  Then he threw glass balls filled with feathers into the air for the Indian girl to explode.

It was evident that she was not doing as well as usual, for she missed several shots.  But this was not because of her own nervousness.  Since the pony had been cut with Dakota Joe’s whip it would not stand still, and its nervousness was plainly the cause of Wonota’s misses.

The owner of the show was, however, the last person to admit this.  He showed more than annoyance as the act progressed.

Perhaps it was the strained relations so evident between the owner of the show and Wonota that affected the man attending to the targets, for he became rather wild.  He threw a glass ball so far to one side that to have shot at it would have endangered the spectators, and the Indian girl dropped the muzzle of her rifle and shook her head.  The curving ball came within Dakota Joe’s reach.

“Some baseball player, I’ll say!” ejaculated Jennie Stone slangily.