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 surprise—­just a hint in the air.  All was still in a moment.  Then it came again.  We listened.  Something, an indefinite something, somewhere, was astir.  The surprise became unrest, anxiety, fear, among the mules.

“Wait here, Gail.  I’ll see what’s up,” Uncle Esmond said, in a low voice.

He hurried away toward the corral and I slipped back in the shadow of a rock and leaned against it to wait.

In the dim beams of a starlit New Mexican sky I could see clearly out toward the valley, but behind the camp all was darkness.  As I waited, hidden by the shadows, suddenly the flap of the family-wagon cover lifted and Little Blue Flower slid out as softly as a cat walks in the dust.  She was dressed in her own Indian garb now, with her bright blanket drawn picturesquely about her head and shoulders.  Silently she moved about the camp, peering toward the shadows hiding me.  Then with noiseless step she slipped toward where Beverly Clarenden lay, his boyish face upturned to the stars, sleeping the dreamless sleep of youth and health.  I leaned forward and stared hard as the girl approached him.  I saw her drop down on one knee beside him, and, bending over him, she gently kissed his forehead.  She rose and gave one hurried look around the place and then, like a bird lifting its wings for flight, she threw up her arms, and in another moment she sprang to the edge of the ridge and slipped from view.  I followed, only to see her gliding swiftly away, farther and farther, along the dim trail, until the shadows swallowed her from my sight.

A low whinny from the corral caught my ear, followed by a rush of horses’ feet.  As I slipped into my place again to wait for my uncle to return, the smoldering logs blazed out suddenly, lighting up the form of a man who appeared just beyond the fire, so that I saw the face distinctly.  Then he, too, was gone, following the way the Indian girl had taken, until he lost himself in the misty dullness of the plains.