Indian. I turned again just as we reached the first straggling houses at
the outskirts of the settlement, but he had disappeared.

It was a strange little village, this Agua Fria. Its squat dwellings,
with impenetrable adobe walls, had sat out there on the sandy edge of
the dry Santa Fé River through many and many a lagging decade; a single
trail hardly more than a cart-width across ran through it. A church,
mud-walled and ancient, rose above the low houses, but of order or
uniformity of outline there was none. Hands long gone to dust had shaped
those crude dwellings on this sunny plain where only man decays, though
what he builds endures.

Nobody was in sight and there was something awesome in the very silence
everywhere. Rex lounged carelessly along, as one who had no particular
aim in view and was likely to turn back at any moment. But Beverly and I
stared hard in every direction.

At the end of the village two tiny mud huts, separated from each other
by a mere crack of space, encroached on this narrow way even a trifle
more than the neighboring huts. As we were passing these a soft Hopi
voice called:

"Beverly! Beverly!" And Little Blue Flower, peeping shyly out from the
narrow opening, lifted a warning hand.

"The church! The church!" she repeated, softly, then darted out of
sight, as if the brown wall were but thick brown vapor into which she
melted.

"Why, it's our own little girl!" Beverly exclaimed, with a smile, just