open West. "When you want to start back to God's country and the land of
Plymouth Rocks and Pawnee Rocks, I'm ready to trot along."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Krane," Esmond Clarenden said. "I shall
need all the help I can get on the way back. Because we got through
safely we cannot necessarily count on a safe return. I may need you in
Santa Fé, too."

"Then command me," Rex replied.

He looked toward Mat again, but she and Little Blue Flower were coiling
their long hair in fantastic fashion about their heads, and laughing
like school-girls together.

Little Blue Flower was as a shy brown fawn following us. She had a way
of copying Mat's manner, and she spoke less of Indian and Spanish and
more of English from day to day. She had laid aside her Indian dress for
one of Mat's neat gingham gowns. I think she tried hard to forget her
race in everything except her prayers, for her own people had all been
slain by Mexican ruffians. We could not have helped liking her if we had
tried to do so. Yet that invisible race barrier that kept a fixed gulf
between us and Aunty Boone separated us also from the lovable little
Indian lass, albeit the gulf was far less deep and impassable.

To-night when she and Mat scampered away to the family wagon together,
she seemed somehow to really belong to us.

Presently Jondo and Rex Krane and Bill and Beverly rolled their blankets
about them and went to sleep, leaving Esmond Clarenden and myself alone
beside the dying fire. The air was sharp and the night silence deepened