Vanguards of the Plains: A Romance of the Old Santa Fé TrailMcCarter, Margaret Hill
History
Vanguards of the Plains: A Romance of the Old Santa Fé Trail
McCarter, Margaret Hill
Santa Fe National Historic Trail -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- History -- Fiction
"Yo' skeered of this little puff?" she queried. "Yo' bettah see a simoon
on the desset, then. This here--just a racket. What's come of that
little redskin?"
She was not to be found. Nor was there any trace of Rex Krane anywhere.
In consternation we scanned the prairies far and wide, but only level
green distances were about us, holding no sign of life. We lived hours
in those watching minutes.
Suddenly Beverly gave a shout, and we saw Little Blue Flower running
swiftly from the sloping side of the bluff toward the camp. Behind her
stalked the young New-Englander.
"I went up to see what she was in such a hurry for to see," he
explained, simply. "I calculated it would be as interestin' to me as to
her, and if anything was about to cut loose"--he laid a hand carelessly
on his revolver--"why, I'd help it along. The little pink pansy, it
seems, went to look after our friends, the enemy," Rex went on. "The
hail nearly busted that old rock open. I thought once it had. The ponies
are scattered and likewise the Kiowas. Gone helter-skelter, like
the--tornado. The thing hit hard up there. Some ponies dead, and mebby
an Indian or two. I didn't hunt 'em up. I can't use 'em that way," he
added. "So I just said, 'Pax vobiscum!' and a lot of it, and came
kittering back."
Little Blue Flower's eyes glistened.
"Gone, all gone. The rain god drove them away. Now I know I may go with
you. The rain god loves you."
It was to Beverly, and not to my uncle, that her eyes turned as she
spoke, but he was not even listening to her. To him she was merely an
Indian. She seemed more than that to me, and therein lay the difference
between us.
If she had been interesting under the starlight, in the light of day she
became picturesque, a beautiful type of her race, silent, alert of
countenance, with big, expressive, black eyes, and long, heavy braids of
black hair. With her brilliant blanket about her shoulders, a turquoise
pendant on a leather band at her throat, silver bracelets on her brown
arms, she was as pleasing as an Indian maiden could be--adding a touch
of picturesque life to that wonderful journey westward from Pawnee Rock
to Santa Fé. Aunty Boone alone resented her presence among us.
"You can trust a nigger," she growled, "'cause you know they none of 'em
no 'count. But you can't tell about this Injun, whether she's good or
bad. I lets that sort of fish alone."
Little Blue Flower looked up at her with steady gaze and made no reply.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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