“Your brother,
Malcolm.”
“Margaret,” Virginia said when she had finished reading the letter, “I am going to ride to the Papago village today. Will you and Babs accompany me?”
CHAPTER XLII—AN INDIAN VILLAGE.
When Virginia calmly announced that she was going to ride to the Papago village, Margaret exclaimed in surprise: “But, Virg, dear, it’s mid-day now and you have said that it is a long, hard ride. Would there be time for us to go and return all in one afternoon?”
The western girl shook her head. “I thought we might remain there over night,” was her unexpected reply, “and come back tomorrow morning.”
Bab’s eyes were big and round.
“Virginia!” she ejaculated. “You don’t mean that you would actually stay all night in an Indian village? Why, I wouldn’t be able to sleep the least little bit, I am sure of that. All the time I would be listening, expecting to hear moccasined feet steathily creeping toward my bedeside, and—”
Virginia’s laughter interrupted the speaker.
“Babsy dear, remember that this is the year 1922,” she reminded, “and the Indians whom we are to visit are just as friendly as one could wish neighbors to be. Forty years ago, it is true, we would not have cared to remain all night with the red men of the desert, but, after all, they were unfriendly merely because they believed the white man to be treacherous, and were they not right? The pale face came and drove them from their happy hunting grounds with his superior cunning and the force of arms. My sympathy has always been largely with the Indians, but come, let’s have an early lunch that we may soon be on our northward way.”