Under a spreading cedar, close
to the opening, a tiny fire glowed in a crevice of the rocks, sending
forth no betraying smoke. About it were some rude utensils, a pot or
two, a skillet, an earthen _olla_, big enough to hold perhaps three
gallons, two bowls of woven grass, close plaited, almost, as the
famous fiber of Panama. In one of these was heaped a store of
_pinons_, in the other a handful or two of wild plums. Sign of
civilization, except a battered tin teapot, there was none, yet
presently was there heard a sound that told of Anglo-Saxon
presence--the soft voice of a girl in low-toned, sweet-worded
song--song so murmurous it might have been inaudible save in the
intense stillness of that almost breathless evening--song so low that
the Indian girl, intent in her watch at the edge of the cliff, seemed
not to hear at all. It was Lola who heard and turned impatiently, a
black frown in her snapping eyes, and a lithe young Indian lad,
hitherto unseen, dropped noiselessly from a perch somewhere above them
and, filling a gourd at the _olla_, bent and disappeared in the narrow
crevice back of the curtain of firs. The low song ceased gradually,
softly, as a mother ceases her crooning lullaby, lest the very lack of
the love-notes stir the drowsing baby brain to sudden waking.
With the last words barely whispered the low voice died away.
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