“Clarenden,” the young Bostonian began, “you got away from that drunken mob at Independence with your children, your mules, and your big Daniel Boone.  You started out when war was ragin’ on the Mexican frontier, and never stopped a minute because you had to come it alone from Council Grove.  You shook yourself and family right through the teeth of that Mexican gang layin’ for you back there.  You took Little Trailing Arbutus at Pawnee Rock out of pure sympathy when you knew it meant a fight at sun-up, six against fifty.  And there would have been a bloody one, too, but for that merciful West India hurricane bustin’ up the show.  You pulled us up the Arkansas River, and straddled the Gloriettas, with every danger that could ever be just whistlin’ about our ears.  And now you sit there and murmur softly that ’we are in an unsafe country and these are unsafe times,’ so we’d better be toddlin’ back home right soon.  I want to tell you something now.”

He paused and looked at Mat Nivers.  Always he looked at Mat Nivers, who since the first blush one noonday long ago, so it seemed, now, never appeared to know or care where he looked.  He must have had such a sister himself; I felt sure of that now.

“I want to tell you,” Rex repeated, “that I’m goin’ to stay with you.  There’s something safe about you.  And then,” he added, carelessly, as he gazed out toward the darkening plain below us, “my mother always said you could tie to a man who was good to children.  And you’ve been good to this infant Kentuckian here.”

He flung out a hand toward Bill 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.