THE TALKING LEAVES.[1]
An Indian Story.
BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.
Chapter XVIII.
fair amount of beauty as well as convenience marked the spot which the Apache braves had chosen for their camp on the bank of the river. Many Bears had approved of it when he came, but he had said nothing about the beauty of it. He had only ordered two or three trusty warriors to go at once and hunt for a ford, so that he could get upon the opposite bank of the river if necessary.
It was some little time before they found one, a mile lower down, and then they and the great chief were astonished by a report brought to him by Dolores. Some of the squaws, she said, had taken their children into the river for a bath, right there by the camp, and one of them had found a place where she could wade across and back.
It was afterward found to be a flat ledge of rock, with deep water above and below, but it was none the less a bitter pill for the pride of the warriors.
To think of squaws and children presuming to find, right there under their noses, the very thing they were hunting for up and down so anxiously! That, too, when any man's eyes, or any woman's, could now perceive a slight ripple in the water on the shallow place, such as ought to have made them suspect it at once.