"Señorita," said Blanch at length, heaving a sigh, "who are you?"
The latter did not reply immediately. Her face took on an earnest expression and for some moments she stood silent, gazing straight out before her as though oblivious to her surroundings. Then, suddenly recollecting herself, she said:
"I am a Tewana, and am called the Chiquita. My father was the Whirlwind, the War Chief of my people."
"The Whirlwind?" echoed Blanch. "What an appropriate name for a savage!"
"Ah, but you should have seen him! He was the tallest man of the tribe."
"Do you know," said Blanch musingly, "I fancy you must be something like him, Señorita."
"In spirit perhaps, but only a little," she answered. "I often wish that I were more like him, for although he was a child in many things, he was a man nevertheless—civilization had not spoilt him."
Again that dreamy, far-away look came into her eyes and again she seemed to forget for the moment the presence of the two girls as her thoughts reverted to the past.
"Señorita," she said at last, "when one like me stands on the threshold midway between savagery and civilization and compares the crudities and at times barbarities of the one with the luxuries and vices of the other, he often asks himself which is preferable, civilization and its few virtues, or the simple life of the savage. Which, I ask, is the greater—the man who tells the time by the sun and the stars or he who gauges it with the watch? I have listened to your music and gazed upon your art and read your books, but what harmonies compare to nature's—what book contains her truths and hidden mysteries? When I came here I was taught to revere your civilization and I did for a time until the disillusionment came, when I was introduced to the great world of men and discovered how shallow and inadequate it was. Your mechanical devices are wonderful, but as regards your philosophies, the least said of them the better. Spiritually, you stand just where you began centuries ago, and I found that I should be obliged to deny the existence of God if I continued to revere your institutions.
"Believe me, Señorita, for I speak as one who knows both worlds intimately, nature's and man's, that the great symphony of nature, the throb of our Mother Earth, the song of the forest, the voices of the winds and the waters, the mountains and plains, and the glory of the stars and the daily life of man in the fields, are grander by far, and more satisfying and enduring than all the foolish fancies and artificial harmonies ever created by civilized man."