"They are real Indians just the same!" exclaimed Russ, with confidence. "They aren't just the dressed-up kind. Look at them!"
The big Indians riding at the head of the procession wore great feather headdresses. "Feather dusters" Laddie called them. And they did look like feather dusters from that distance.
"We'd better get our guns and bows and arrows, hadn't we, Russ?" the little boy asked.
"The Indians are not coming this way," explained Russ. "I guess we're safe enough."
"See! There are Indian babies, too," cried Rose. "There's one strapped to a board on its mother's back—just like in the pictures."
"Just the same," said Vi, rather soberly for her, "I'm glad they are going the other way."
The Indians were traveling away from the ranch house and soon were out of sight. So before the children could ask any of the older people about them they were gone. And "out of sight out of mind" was almost always the rule with the little Bunkers, as daddy frequently said. Besides, there were so many new and interesting things to see that the matter of the Indians escaped the new-comers' minds.
There were great corrals down behind the big house, as well as bunkhouses in which the cowboys lived, and stables, and a long cook-shed in which three men cooked for the hands, as Cowboy Jack called his employees. Cowboy Jack owned a very large ranch and a great number of steers and horses and mules.
"It's almost like a circus," said Russ. "And all the different kind of dogs, too. That dog has hardly any hair, and he comes from Mexico, so they say. While that wolfy looking dog comes from away up in Alaska. Then there are dogs from places all between Alaska and Mexico."
This information he had gained from one of the Mexican boys with whom he became acquainted. They did not think to ask the friendly Mexican about the Indians, and not until the children went back to the house did they think to make inquiry about the procession they had seen right after breakfast. It was then Vi, inquisitive as usual, who broached the subject.