"What camp? Where did you come from?" asked the Indian. She was a little younger than Maria, and dressed in a quaint little peasant's costume of blue skirt and red blouse with a huge straw hat upon her black hair.
Quickly Maria told her story and the little girl said,
"I can take you back. You must have run very quickly to have come so far. We must start at once to reach the Mission before dark."
"Oh, thank you ever so much," said Maria. "I am so anxious to get back, for my father will be hunting for me."
"He might hunt all night and not find you, for the forest has many paths," said the little girl. She had a sad little face but it was very sweet when she smiled.
"What is your name?" asked Maria as the two girls trudged along through the forest, her companion still carrying the cockatoo.
"Guacha,[18] because I have no mother," she answered. "That is my Indian name, but I am also called Teresa."
"My mother is dead, too," said Maria, and the two little girls looked into one another's eyes with sympathy.
"My father is dead, also," said Guacha. "We were of the Mission Indians, but all my own people died of the fever two years ago."