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 Fe.  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.

Out of that morning’s events I learned a lasting lesson, and I know now that the influence of Rex Krane on my life began that day, as I recalled how he had followed Aunty Boone about the dark corners of the little trading-post on the Neosho; and how he had looked at Mat Nivers once when Uncle Esmond had suggested his turning back to Independence; and how he had gone before all of us, the vanguard, to the top of the bluff west of Council Grove; and now he had followed this Indian girl.  From that time I knew in my boy heart that this tall, careless Boston youth had a zealous care for the safety of women and children.  How much care, events would run swiftly on to show me.  But welded into my life from that hour was the meaning of a man’s high, chivalric duty.  And among all the lessons that the old trail taught to me, none served me more than this one that came to me on that sweet May morning beneath the shadow of Pawnee Rock.