a
trail, a party was formed to represent the six whom the Happy Family
bad been following. These divided and made off in different directions,
leaving a plain trail behind them to lure the white men into the traps
which would be prepared for them farther on.

When dawn made it possible to do so effectively, the squaws began
to whip out the trail of the six renegade Indians, and the chance
footprints of those who bad gone ahead to leave the false trail for the
white men to follow. Very painstakingly the squaws worked, and the young
ones who could be trusted. Brushing the sand smoothly across a hoofprint
here, and another one there; walking backward, their bodies bent, their
sharp eyes scanning every little depression, every faint trace of the
passing of their tribesmen; brushing, replacing pebbles kicked aside
by a hoof, wiping out completely that trail which the Happy Family bad
followed with such persistence, the squaws did their part, while their
men went on to prepare the trap.

Years ago--yet not so many after all--the mothers of these squaws, and
their grandmothers, had walked backward and stooped with little branches
in their hands to wipe out the trail of their warriors and themselves to
circumvent the cunning of the enemy who pursued. So had they brushed
out the trail when their men had raided the ranchos of the first
daring settlers, and had driven off horses and cattle into the remoter
wilderness.

And these, mind you, were the squaws and bucks whom you might meet
any day on the streets in Albuquerque, padding along the pavement and
staring in at the shop windows, admiring silken gowns with marked-down
price tags, and exclaiming over flaxen-haired dolls and bright ribbon
streamers; squaws and bucks who brought rugs and blankets to sell,
and who would bargain with you in broken English and smile and nod
in friendly fashion if you spoke to them in Spanish or paid without
bickering the price they asked for a rug. You might see them in the
fifteen-cent store, buying cheap candy and staring in mute admiration at
all the gay things piled high on the tables. Remember that, when I tell
you what more they did out here in the wilderness. Remember that and do
not imagine that I am trying to take you back into the untamed days of
the pioneers.

Luck and the Happy Family--so well had the squaws done their
work--passed unsuspectingly over the wiped-out trail, circled at fault
on the far side of the rocky gulch for an