ng."

CHAPTER XIII

A WOMAN OF EMERALD EYES

At the first break of dawn, Rhodes was up, and without waiting for
breakfast walked over to the rancherias of Palomitas to see Tula.

She was with some little girls and old women carrying water from the
well as stolidly as though adventure had never stalked across her
path. A whole garment had been given her instead of the tatter of rags
in which she had returned to the little Indian pueblo. She replied
briefly to his queries regarding her welfare, and when he asked where
she was living, she accompanied him to an old adobe where there were
two other motherless children--victims of the raiders.

An old, half-blind woman stirred meal into a kettle of porridge, and
to her Kit addressed himself.

"A blessing will be on your house, but you have too many to feed
here," he said "and the child of Miguel should go to the ranch house
of Mesa Blanca. The wife of Isidro is a good woman and will give her
care."

"Yes, senor, she is a good woman," agreed the old Indian. "Also it may
be a safe house for a maiden, who knows? Here it is not safe; other
raiders may come."

"That is true. Send her after she has eaten."

He then sought out one of the older men to learn who could be counted
on to round up the stray cattle of the ranges. After that he went at
once back to the ranch house, and did not even speak to Tula again.
There was nothing to indicate that she was the principal object of his
visit, or that she had acquired a guardian who was taking his job
seriously.

Later in the day she was brought to Mesa Blanca by an elderly Indian
woman of her mother's clan, and settled in the quiet Indian manner in
the new dwelling place. Valencia was full of pity for the girl of few
years who had yet known the hard trail, and had mourned alone for her
dead.

There was a sort of suppressed bustle about _la casa de Mesa Blanca_
that day, dainties of cookery prepared with difficulty from the
diminished stores, and the rooms of the iron bars sprinkled and swept,
and pillows of wondrous drawnwork decorated the more pretentious bed.
To Tula it was more of magnificence than she had ever seen in her
brief life, and the many rooms in one dwelling was a wonder. She would
stand staring across the patio and into the various doorways through
which she hesitated to pass. She for whom the wide silences of the
desert held few terrors, hesitated to linger alone in the shadows of
the circling wall