r days were dreams of loveliness, and dawn and sunset on the
desert were indescribably beautiful. But the nights were bitterly cold.
Eloise and Sister Gloria were native to the Southwest and they knew how
to dress warmly for it. Aunty Boone had never felt such chilling night
breezes, but not one word of complaint came from her lips in all that
journey.

One night we gathered into camp beneath the shelter of a little butte.
We had overtaken Father Josef's Indian runner an hour before. He had not
found the Hopis yet, and so we held a council.

"The Hopi is ahead of us northwest," the Indian declared.

"Is the Apache following?" Jondo asked.

The runner nodded. "They have been pursued, but they have slipped away;
the Apache goes north, they turn north-west. They take the dry lands and
the pine forests beyond; their last chance. If they hold out till the
Apache leaves, they will return safely. You follow them, wait for them,
or go back without them. It is your choice."

We turned toward the three women, one in the bloom of her young
womanhood, one with the patient endurance of the nun, one black and
strong and always unafraid.

"I do not want to leave Little Blue Flower in her hour of peril," Eloise
said.

"I can go where I am needed," Sister Gloria declared.

"This is my land, I never know Africa was right out here. I thought they
was oceans on both sides of it. I go where Bev's gone out an then I come
here and stay. Whoo-ee!"

We smiled at her mistaken dream of her far African home, and, cheering
one another on, when morning came we moved northwest.

Jondo rode beside me all that day, and we talked of many things.

"Gail," he said, "Aunty Boone is right. This is her Africa. I don't
believe she will ever leave it."

"She can't stay here, Jondo," I replied.

"She will, though. You will see. Did she ever fail to have her way?"

"No. She is a type of her own, never to be reproduced, but like a great
dog in her faithful loyalty," I declared.

"And shrewder than most men," Jondo went on. "She supplied the lost link
with Santan for me last night. Years ago, when Little Blue Flower
brought me a message from Father Josef on the morning that we took
Eloise from Santa Fe, I caught a glimpse of the Apache across the plaza
and read the message--_'trust the bearer anywhere'_--to mean that boy.
Aunty Boone had just peered out and scared the little girl away. She
told me all about it last night, when she was bewailing B