toward the cave.

“That’s strange!” she exclaimed a moment later. “There’s a burro tied right outside the entrance. Someone must be in there.”

“And I smell smoke from a campfire, don’t you?” asked Jo Ann in a low voice as she moved over closer to Florence. “Do you suppose we’d better go on?”

“Yes, I think it’ll be all right. If we have neighbors, I want to see what sort of people they are.”

Just then they saw, silhouetted against the dark cave entrance, the bent form of an old woman leaning on a stick. On coming closer the girls were able to make out the features of a brown, wrinkled face, which was almost hidden by the folds of the black shawl-like rebosa about her head and shoulders.

“Buenos tardes,” greeted Florence, then went on to explain in Spanish that they had come up to see the cave, not knowing that it was occupied.

While Florence was talking to the old woman, Jo Ann was peering into the dark opening beyond. By the light of the fire in the middle of the floor she could see a woman kneeling by a stone metate grinding corn for tortillas, and near by, lying on a straw mat on the floor, was a tiny naked baby.

Just then several little stair-step children ran to peer up at the visitors from behind their grandmother. Jo Ann took some of the flowers from her bouquet and offered one to each of them. With smiles spreading over their thin, grimy faces, they reached out timidly for the flowers, then drew back behind their grandmother again.

“What is your name?” Jo Ann asked the largest of the children in her best Spanish, but either the child could not understand or else she was too timid to reply.

Hearing a slight noise behind her, Jo Ann turned in time to see the two boys she had noticed gathering wood. The one with the heavy burden on his back passed on into the cave without looking around, but the other hesitated and stared up at her curiously before disappearing into the dim interior. In that short interval Jo Ann had an opportunity to see that his eyes were unmistakably a deep blue; moreover, she noticed that, although his skin was brown, it was not as dark as the other boy’s and the little girls’.

While she was pondering over this difference, Florence reached over and touched her on the arm. “Come on, Jo, we’d better go now. We’ll come down again sometime.”

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