Just then José returned from the work of picketing the horses and the three sat down to supper.
XXXVIII
"Isn't it strange how easily one can return to the natural life if one has known it before?" said Chiquita later in the evening, as the three lay stretched on their blankets around the small fire which José had kindled in the center of the grove, and watched the flickering flames and dancing shadows against the dark pine boughs surrounding them.
"The life of yesterday has fallen from me," she continued, gazing pensively into the fire whose red glare illumined her beautiful bronze features.
"Yes, you are an Indian once more, Chiquita mia," said the Captain.
"Ah! you are as much of an Indian as José or myself!" she retorted gayly. "What a pity you didn't know the life before the land was conquered and tamed by the White man! Verily, a glory has passed from this earth!" A peculiar light shone in José's eyes as he listened to her words. He seemed on the point of speaking, but did not. He smiled and rolled a fresh cigarillo, lighting it with a pine twig which he took from the fire.
"Tell me why you insisted on our coming this way, Chiquita?" asked the Captain, disposing himself comfortably on his blanket.
"Because I want to see my people again. They are the strongest and most advanced people in Mexico, and we will be safe with them until things have quieted down. Because I wanted you to see where I came from and how I lived before Padre Antonio introduced me to a new world and made of me a woman that you could love. Besides, we can start from their country on our camping trip as well as from any other place. My people are not quite the savages you probably think them. But there is something else," she continued after a pause. "I was impelled, drawn this way. Why, I can not say, but something always kept pointing me toward the northwest. I feel as though the climax of our lives is yet to come; that we are on the verge of something great; that our work in life may begin with them."
"Perhaps it may be so!" interrupted José, no longer able to conceal the agitation her words aroused in him. "That is, if the vision of the White Cloud prove to be true. At any rate, my people await your coming," he added. At the mention of the White Cloud, Chiquita sat bolt upright, regarding José intently the while—then rose to her feet.
"The White Cloud? Your people?" she repeated excitedly. "Then you are a Tewana?" José also had risen from his sitting posture, and dropping on one knee with face downward and both arms extended straight out before him with the palms of the hands turned downward, he exclaimed in the Tewana tongue: "Princess, Flaming Star—I greet you! I am Onakipo, the Pine Tree, son of Ixlao, the Swan!" José's attitude and manner of speech formed a most striking picture. He had not even revealed his true identity to the Captain.