It was his business to look out for the horses and not for giddy young squaws who might find "talking leaves."
Rita could not have told him, if he had asked her, why it was that her prizes were making her heart beat so fast, as she held them against it.
She was not frightened. She knew that very well. But she was glad to be alone, without even the company of Ni-ha-be.
The bushes were very thick around the spot where she at last threw herself upon the grass. She had never lived in any lodge where there were doors to shut behind her, or if she had, all those houses and their doors were alike forgotten; but she knew that her quick ears would give her notice of any approaching footsteps.
There they lay now before her, the three magazines, and it seemed to Rita as if they had come on purpose to see her, and were looking at her.
No two of them were alike.
They did not even belong to the same family. She could tell that by their faces.
Slowly and half-timidly she turned the first leaf; it was the cover-leaf of the nearest.
A sharp exclamation sprung to her lips.
"I have seen her! Oh, so long ago! It is me, Rita. I wore a dress like that once. And the tall squaw behind her, with the robe that drags on the ground, I remember her, too. How did they know she was my mother?"