So it came to pass that before the warriors had completed their task the two girls had struck the trail along which the blue-coated cavalry had entered the valley.
Rita's eyes were as good as anybody's, always excepting Apaches' and eagles', and she could see the white fluttering object at which her adopted sister was pointing.
The marks of the wheels and all the other signs of that trail, as they rode along, were quite enough to excite a pair of young ladies who had never seen a road, a pavement, a sidewalk, or anything of the sort; but when they came to that white thing fluttering at the foot of a mesquite-bush they both sprung from their saddles at the same instant.
One, two, three--a good deal dog's-eared and thumb-worn, for they had been read by every man of the white party who cared to read them before they were thrown away, but they were very wonderful yet. Nothing of the kind had ever before been imported into that region of the country.
Ni-ha-be's keen black eyes searched them in vain, one after another, for anything she had ever seen before.
"Rita, you are born white. What are they?"
Millions and millions of girls have been "born white," and lived and died with whiter faces than her own rosy but sun-browned beauty could boast, and yet never looked into the fascinating pages of an illustrated magazine.
How could any human being have cast away in the wilderness such a treasure?
Rita was sitting on the grass, with one of the strange prizes open in her lap, rapidly turning the leaves, and more excited by what she saw than were Many Bears and his braves by all they were discovering upon the trampled level around the spring.
"Rita," again exclaimed Ni-ha-be, "what are they?"
"Did you say, Murray, there were any higher mountains than these?"
"Higher'n these? Why, Steve, the mountains we crossed away back there, just this side of the Texas border, were twice as high, some of them."
"These are big enough. Are there any higher mountains in the world than ours? Did you ever see any?"
"I've seen some of them. I've heard it said the tallest are in India. South America can beat us. I've seen the Andes."
"I don't want to see anything that looks worse to climb than this range right ahead of us."