As ever, Ann felt hesitant about disturbing the native dwellers; but Ronald walked boldly up to several children who were standing about and asked to take their pictures, offering a silver piece at the same time. The children drew back, casting looks at their visitors, and behind them at the queer thatched lodges which were their dwellings. On the floor of one near by, a floor raised several feet from the ground so that it looked more like a low shelf than a floor, there sat a stolid old woman, who glanced at visitors and children with keen black eyes. As Ann and Ronald came nearer, they saw that she was stringing beads of bright colors.
By signs, pointing at the camera, they tried to indicate what they wanted. At last the old woman, whose neck was wound with countless strands of beads, descended to earth and spoke briefly to the children, who then posed for a picture. Several cameras clicked, as the sun shone more brightly for a time and the positions of the Indians were favorable.
“They say,” said Dick, as the party went back to the car, leaving pleasant reminders, in the form of loose change, in the hand of the old woman, “that the more beads they wear, the higher their station among the Indians,—social position, you know.”
“This woman is the mother of a chief,” said Ronald. “How about it, folks? Is it ‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll’? Ready now for a swim?”
“It is,” declared Suzanne. “We are. Don’t you think, Ann, that these bright costumes are prettier than those of the Western Indians?”
“They are more picturesque in some ways,” said Ann, “those full, long dresses of different colors, the stripes running around, are surely startling; but it seems funny that the children wear them. They are all barefooted, aren’t they? Don’t they need moccasins down here?”
“I should think that they would, with the snakes,” remarked Louise.
“Anyhow,” said Ann, “I think that our Indians wear more sensible clothes.”
“You will be loyal at any cost, won’t you, Miss Ann?” queried Jack Hudson. “But remember that down here the climate makes light clothing necessary.”
The sea was just rough enough to be exciting. The bathers did not go out far, but plunged and dived or floated to their hearts’ content. Through all the afternoon’s pleasure, and Ann was interested in all of it, she was thinking of Maurice, wondering if he had yet learned the truth and what that truth was. She could scarcely wait to see him, her gallant young cousin! What a way he had of carrying off a situation with the best of humor, as in working with that engine!