It was not an impressively beautiful scene—­the river was half a mile wide, broken by flat wooded islands overflowed at high water; the banks were low, and at this season muddy.  But the sky was as blue as Colina’s eyes, and the prairie, quilted with wild flowers, basked in the delicate radiance that only the northern sun can bestow.

On a horse Colina could not be actively unhappy, nevertheless she was conscious of a certain dissatisfaction with life.  Not as a result of the discussion with her father—­she felt she had come off rather well from that.

But it was warm, and she felt a touch of languor.  Fort Enterprise was a little dull in early summer.  The fur season was over, and the flour mill was closed; the Indians had gone to their summer camps; and the steamboat had lately departed on her first trip up river, taking most of the company employees in her crew.

There was nothing afoot just now but farming, and Colina was not much interested in that.  In short, she was lonesome.  She rode idly with long detours inland in search of nothing at all.

Loping over the grass and threading her way among the poplar saplings, Colina proceeded farther than she had ever been in this direction since summer set in.

She saw the painter’s brush for the first time—­that exquisite rose of the prairies—­and instantly dismounted to gather a bunch to thrust in her belt.  The delicate, ashy pink of the flower matched the color in her cheeks.

On her rides Colina was accustomed to dismount when she chose, and Ginger, her sorrel gelding, would crop the grass contentedly until she was ready to mount again.  To-day the spring must have been in his blood, too.

When Colina went to him he tossed his head coquettishly, and trotting away a few steps, turned and looked at her with a droll air.  Colina called him in dulcet tones, and held out an inviting hand.

Ginger waywardly wagged his head and danced with his forefeet.

This was repeated several times—­Colina’s voice ever growing more honeyed as the rose in her cheeks deepened.  The inevitable happened—­she lost her temper and stamped her foot; whereupon Ginger, with lifted tail, ran around her like a circus horse.

Colina, alternately cajoling and commanding, pursued him bootlessly.  Fond as she was of exercise, she preferred having the horse use his legs.  She sat down in the grass and cried a little out of sheer impotence.

Ginger resumed his interrupted meal on the grass with insulting unconcern.  Colina was twelve miles from home—­and hungry.

Desperately casting her eyes around the horizon to discover some way out of her dilemma, Colina perceived a thin spiral of smoke rising above the edge of the river bank about a quarter of a mile away.

She had no idea who could be camping on the river at this place, but she instantly set off with her own confident assurance of finding aid.  Ginger displayed no inclination to leave the particular patch of prairie grass he had chosen for his luncheon.