The two were much alike, their skins a muddy reddish hue, their figures spare and lean and rather under-sized. In fact, they and all the other people of Homolobi resembled in general appearance the squat savages who had driven us into their hands, except that they were less muscular and had much more intelligent faces. They were markedly inferior in stature to the Plains tribes, and equally superior in mental development as regards their domestic life.
Kachina, the turkey-shepherdess, was entirely different from the Homolobi people. Her bronze skin had a tawny note in it. Her shape was exquisitely molded; her hands and feet were small; and her features were of a clear-cut, aquiline cast very dissimilar from the flat physiognomy of all the others we saw. I may as well say here, that from these circumstances and others which we discovered I became convinced she had a considerable proportion of Spanish blood in her; but we never were able to secure any definite account of her origin from Wiki, who alone knew the truth.
The older man, after a glance of appraisal at us, engaged in a prolonged conversation with the girl, interrupted frequently by his younger associate; and gradually a circle of curious townsmen formed around us. They were all dressed in cotton kilts of varying colors, and the vegetable-fiber sandals, and carried bows and arrows, spears, hatchets and knives. Their manner toward us was non-committal rather than hostile. The conversation terminated abruptly when the younger man, with a savage glance at Tawannears, snapped a hot retort to something Kachina had said and strode out of the circle, followed by nearly half of its members.
The older man and the girl turned to us as though nothing had happened.
"This is Wiki," said the girl. "He is the High Priest of Massi."
I bowed.
"Tell him," I began, but Wiki himself interrupted me, speaking in Spanish more fragmentary than Kachina's, yet understandable.
"You are not Spanish?"
"No."
"Say after me: 'Go with God, most excellent señor,'" he prescribed.