“No, Miss Davis,” he replied, as he arose; “I’ve seen many of them and I suppose, architecturally speaking, they are all about the same. Guess we’d better be gettin’ on. Thanks for the grub. Good day.”
Five minutes later the two girls stood with their arms about each other, watching from a wide window as the men rode away and Virginia noticed that they were taking the trail toward the west. How she did hope that they would not turn north at the sandhills, and also that Tom had not been delayed.
She glanced at the clock, as she said:
“By now Tom ought to be safe in the Papago village.”
CHAPTER XXXI—WINONA, THE INDIAN MAIDEN.
Luckily for Tom’s comfort, the storm which had threatened when he left V. M. Ranch was turned by a changing wind toward the south; and, when the chill grey of daylight came, he found that he had ridden many miles to the north and that he was slowly crossing a vast, wild broken upland, which was gradually ascending toward a range of mountains that looked grim, lonely and forbidding.
In those barren walls of rock, Virginia had told him that he would find the almost hidden entrance to the Papago Indian village.
No creature was in sight at that early hour save a low sailing hawk, and, now and then, a lizard, frightened by the horse’s hoofs, darted across the trail. So near was it to the color of the sand that only by its quick flashing motion could it be discerned.
As Tom neared the seemingly impenetrable wall of rock, it was hard for him to believe that this was really a fortress surrounding a village of any kind. He was weary and hungry, but, try as he might, he could not find the entrance.
