"Let us proceed to the Mona Fiesta," said Chupurosa. "Let the son of Dan Smeed lead the way."
Over this strange new designation Oliver was given no time for thought; for instantly Jessamy laid a firm grip above his elbow and led him to the pasture gate. The Showut Poche-dakas followed at the heels of Jessamy's mare.
"Don't worry," the girl whispered into Oliver's ear. "Nothing much will be required of you. Just try to appear as if you know all about it, and had attended to the preliminaries yourself."
"Yes, yes," said Oliver dazedly, his mind now in a whirl.
She led him across the pasture in the direction from which she had ridden so unexpectedly to the cabin. They reached a little arroyo, and down it they turned to the creekbed. They crossed the watercourse and turned down it. Presently they entered a cluster of pines and spruce trees, which was close to what Oliver called The Four Pools.
In succession, four deep depressions in the bedrock of the creekbed were ranged, and each held clear, cool water, fed by an undiscovered spring, though the creek proper was now entirely dry. In the bedrock about these pools Oliver had previously noted several round holes the size of a half-bushel measure. These were morteros, he knew—the mortars in which the California Indians pound acorns in the making of the dish bellota. He had often speculated on the probable antiquity of these morteros, and had dreamed of early-day scenes enacted there and about them.
There was a circular open space in the midst of the tall, whispering trees. Just above this spot, up the steep hillside, he had lain in the prospect hole and watched Digger Foss spying on the cabin down below, while Tommy My-Ma hid under the brush and spied on him. Into the open space in the trees the fearless girl led the way, and there in the centre of it the moonlight streaming through the branches revealed a huge pile of brush and wood, arranged as if for a great fire.
She pressed his arm, and they came to a halt. Behind them the Showut Poche-dakas halted. To Oliver's side stepped Chupurosa, and spoke in the tongue of the Paubas to a man at his right hand.
This man stepped to the pile of brush and wood and fired it.
As the flames leaped up and licked at the sun-dried fuel the Indians closed in, and now the light of the fire showed Oliver that there were women among their number. At the edge of the trees they formed a circle about the fire, then all of them save Chupurosa squatted on the ground.