Beneath him was a lower ridge, and on outcropping rocks, with their backs to him, gazing off at the sea, were two native girls. He knew too little about native girls to judge their ages, but both seemed fully grown. They wore short, loose dresses of bright-colored cotton.
The two girls were so strangely different that it seemed they could hardly belong to the same tribe. “And yet,” the boy reasoned, “they must.” Both were quite dark, but there the similarity ended. One was short and stocky, with a mop of black hair that stood out all around her head.
“Regular fuzzy-wuzzy,” Jack told himself.
The other girl was rather slender, and her hair, though black and curly, had a tendency to lie down.
The short stout one held a live chicken by its feet. “There goes our rooster,” Jack thought.
The tall girl had a bunch of small wild bananas slung over her shoulder.
“Oh, well,” he thought, “they may have left a bunch of bananas still on the stalk near here.”
Just then the tall, slender girl, turned halfway around. Startled, not wishing to be seen, Jack drew back.
When he looked again the two girls were walking along the rocks. He got a profile view of them. “Yes,” he thought, “they are very different.” Both were barefoot, but the tall one walked with a joyous spring, while the other one just plodded along. With a laugh the tall girl lifted the bunch of bananas to her head, then, with this crown, she moved away as regally as a queen.
When they had vanished into the bushes he slid back down the rock to his own side of the ridge. After following the ridge for a short distance he took a different route toward their beach.