A boy of ten or twelve rode the barrow solidly and with dignity, while a thin-legged girl pushed the vehicle.

Behind them trotted two smaller ones, gravely bestriding stick horses.
Casually it resembled play.

It would have been play had not Mateo gone out where they were and inspected the result of stick-dragging and barrow-wheeling, and afterwards, with a wave of his hand and a few swift Mexican words, directed them to play farther out from the oak, where the Thunder Bird had first come to earth.

Solemn-eyed, they extended the route of their procession, and Johnny, watching them with a queer grin on his face, knew that when those children stopped "playing" there would be no mark of the Thunder Bird's landing left upon that soil.
"I've sure got to hand it to the kids," he told Cliff, who merely smiled and pulled out his cigarette case for a smoke..