She took a small leaf and with deft, love-taught fingers fashioned a simple model which, to the plant-wise Carlota, suggested a blossom she could readily identify. Then she swiftly rose and clasped the child in her arms, saying:
“Adios, beloved, sun-gleam on a darkened life. May angels go with each step on the way until the father you miss shall clasp you close again. Adios!”
The little girl felt a desolate heart-sinking as the three Pueblos almost immediately disappeared. Then she reproached herself for tears, since Carlos was with her, safe and free, and now the jubilant possessor of a beautiful horse that was, in truth, “almost as handsome as Benoni,” and which was, hereafter, to bear that beloved creature’s own name though he could never take the old Benoni’s place.
There was nothing to fear, now. The guides had taught Dennis how to draw the tethers around a bit of ground in such a manner as to keep all reptiles from intruding upon this circular space where the wanderers would safely sleep. Carlota began to watch the Irishman at his labors and, idly, to study the ground he enclosed. A last ray of sunlight stole through the branches overhead and touched to glory a bit of herbage almost at her very feet. Touched one fragment of it that, seeing, the child was thrilled to intense surprise and stared so long and so fixedly, that, at last, Carlos teasingly cried:
“Why, little sister, you look as if you were seeing ghosts!”
With a little gasp she aroused from her revery and answered very gravely:
“Carlos, I believe I am!”
CHAPTER XXVIII
AT THE POINT OF DEATH
Carlota was awakened by the sun shining upon her face and Connemara nibbling at her curls. She sprang up, confused by her new surroundings, then laughed aloud at the beauty of the morning. The loneliness of the last evening had vanished and she was ready for whatever might come. First, for a frolic with Carlos or Dennis.
These two yet lay sleeping, their feet toward the ashes of their bedtime fire and their heads almost touching the ring of prickly, horsehair ropes which marked out their tiny camp; and over which, the Pueblos had assured them, no reptile of delicate skin would crawl.