A Mexican woman of the lower class, unable to read, ignorant of almost everything but a little plain cookery, has less to forget than have most American children of six years old. But why should it frighten her if the little she knew and had lost began to come back to her mind?
She did not stop to answer any such questions as that, but poured some pounded corn, a coarse, uneven meal, into a battered tin pan. To this was added a little salt, some water was stirred in till a thick paste was made, and then the best cook of the Apaches was ready to carry her batter to the fire. Envious black eyes watched her while she heated her saucepan on the coals she raked out. Then she melted a carefully measured piece of buffalo tallow, and began to fry for her husband and master the cakes no other of his squaws could so well prepare.
When the cakes were done brown, the same fryer and a little water would serve to take the toughness out of some strips of dried venison before she broiled them, and the great chief would be the best-fed man in camp until the hunters should return from the valley below with fresh game.
They were quite likely to do that before night, but Many Bears was a man who never waited long for something to eat after a hard day's march.
If Dolores had been a little alarmed at the prospect of being forced to "remember," a very different feeling had entered the mind of Rita when she and her sister came out of the lodge.
"What shall we do, Ni-ha-be?"
"Red Wolf told me he had something to say to me. There he is now. He beckons me to come. He does not want you."
"I am glad of it. There are trees and bushes down there beyond the corral. I will go and be alone."
"You will tell me all the talking leaves say to you?"
"Yes, but they will talk very slowly, I'm afraid."