But the life of the trail was not meant for such as she, and I know now that the assurance of having saved her from some greater misfortune alone comforted Uncle Esmond and Jondo in this journey.  For Aunty Boone was right when she declared, “They tote together always.”

As we grouped together under that shelterless glare, getting what comfort we could out of the brief rest, Jondo sprang up suddenly, his eyes aglow with excitement.

“What’s the matter?  Because if it isn’t, this is one hot day to pretend like it is,” Rex Krane asserted.

He was lying on the hot earth beside the trail, his hat pulled over his face.  Beverly and Bill Banney were staring dejectedly across the landscape, seeing nothing.  I sat looking off toward the east, wondering what lay behind those dun bluffs in the distance.

“Something is wrong back yonder,” Jondo declared, making a half-circle with his hand toward the trail behind us.

My heart seemed to stop mid-beat with a kind of fear I had never known before.  Aunty Boone had always been her own defender.  Mat Nivers had cared for me so much that I never doubted her bigger power.  It was for Eloise, Aunty Boone’s “Little Lees,” that my fear leaped up.

I can close my eyes to-day and see again the desolate land banded by the broad white trail.  I can see the dusty wagons and our tired mules with drooping heads.  I can see the earnest, anxious faces of Esmond Clarenden and Jondo; Beverly and Bill Banney hardly grasping Jondo’s meaning; Rex Krane, half asleep on the edge of the trail.  I can see Mat Nivers, brown and strong, and Aunty Boone oozing sweat at every pore.  But these are only the setting for that little girl on the wagon-seat with white face and big dark eyes, under the curl-shadowed forehead.

Jondo stared hard toward the hills in the southeast.  Then he turned to my uncle with grim face and burning eyes; His was a wonderful voice, clear, strong and penetrating.  But in danger he always spoke in a low tone.

“I’ve watched those dust-whirls for an hour.  The wind isn’t making all of them.  Somebody is stirring them up for cover.  Every whirl has an Indian in it.  It’s all of ten miles to Bent’s.  We must fight them off and let the others run for it, before they cut us off in front.  Look at that!”

The exclamation burst from the plainsman’s lips.

That was my last straight looking.  The rest is ever a kaleidoscope of action thrilled through with terror.  What I saw was a swiftly moving black splotch coming out of the hills, with huge dust-heaps flying here and there before it.  Then a yellow cloud spiral blinded our sight as a gust of hot wind swept round us.  I remember Jondo’s stern face and blazing eyes and his words: 

“Mexicans behind the Indians!”

And Uncle Esmond’s voice: 

“Narveo said they would get us, but I hoped we had outrun them.”

The far plains seemed spotted with Indians racing toward us, and coming at an angle from the southeast a dozen Mexicans swept in to cut us off from the trail in front.