Then he stole a glance into the face of the brave walking nearest him and observed that while it was as stern as ever it was not at all “blood thirsty.” This increased both his courage and his interest.
“What a tale I shall have to tell—if I live to tell it! I believe I shall. I’m sure these must be some of the ‘good Indians’ which the Captain said were all dead. They look almost less Indian than Mexican, though they are very tall and straight. That old fellow in front is splendid. I wish, oh! how I do wish, I had learned to talk Pueblo when Carlota did and my father warned me, indeed, coaxed me. He said that, living as we did, among so many different people, we should study the language of each. That I would find then the ‘knowledge’ that’s ‘power.’ It would be ‘power,’ indeed, if I were able to ask these people if they know what they are doing and to whom they are doing it!”
At this point he cast a haughty look about him and gave his comely head a higher toss. What? What was that? Did he detect something like a grim smile on the lips of that young fellow at the left?
If so, the smile was too fleeting to have been real. The man was merely adjusting the folds of his blanket, and it might have been a shadow of these which nettled Carlos.
Nettled he was; and, although he knew he would not be understood, he angrily demanded:
“Who are you? What are you going to do with me?”
At sound of his voice the leader of the party turned half about, as if to answer, but checked the seeming impulse; and, in the same stolid silence, the party pressed forward among the scattered shrubs and trees which now marked their path.
Gradually, the trees increased in size and number. There were other and wider streams, at one of which a man stooped and filled a gourd that hung at his waist. He offered this to Carlos, holding it to the lad’s parched lips with a kindliness of gesture that, surely, betokened no malice.
Carlos would have pushed the gourd away, but nature was too strong for this; so, setting his lips to the rim, he drained the cup to the bottom.
“Oh! how delicious that was! Thank you!” said he gratefully.