Banney without looking away from the
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 Fe, 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
as the stars came into the skies.

"Why don't you go to bed, Gail?" my uncle asked.

"I'm not sleepy. I'm homesick," I replied. "Come here, boy." He opened
his arms to me, and I nestled in their embrace.

"You've grown a lot in these two months, little man," he said, softly.
"You are a brave-hearted plainsman, and a good, strong little limb when
it comes to endurance, but just once in a while all of us need a
mothering touch. It keeps us sweet, my boy. It keeps us sweet and fit to
live."

Oh, many a time in the years that followed did the loving embrace and
the gentle words of this gentle, strong man come back to comfort me.

"Let me tell you something, Gail. I'm going to need a boy like you to
help me a lot before we leave Santa Fe, and I shall count on you."

Just then a noise at the far side of the corral seemed to disturb the
stock. A faint stir of awakening or surpri