d man with piercing
gray eyes and sturdy, upright figure. This was Lorenzo Hubbell, one of
the best-known citizens of New Mexico, living here alone, a day's ride
from a white settler.

Though hairy and spectacled he was a comparatively young man, but his
mixed blood had already given him a singular power over his dark-skinned
neighbors of the territory.

His wife and children were spending the summer in Albuquerque, and in
the intimacy of our long days together I spoke of my approaching
marriage. "I want to buy some native blankets and some Navajo silver for
our new home."

His interest was quick. "Let me send your wife a wedding present. How
would she like some Hopi jars?"

The off-hand way in which he used the words, "your wife," startled
me--reminded me that in less than two weeks I was due at Professor
Taft's home to claim my bride. I accepted his offer of the vases and
began to collect silver and turquoise ornaments, in order that I might
carry back to Zulime some part of the poetry of this land and its
people.

"The more I think about it," I wrote to her, "the more I want you to
share my knowledge of 'the High Country.' Why not put our wedding a week
earlier and let me take you into the mountains? If you will advance the
date to the eighteenth of November, we can have an eight-day trip in
Colorado and still reach mother and the Homestead in time for
Thanksgiving. I want to show you my best beloved valleys and peaks."

Though addressing the letter to her Chicago home, I knew that she was
about to leave for Kansas; therefore I added a postscript: "I am
planning to meet you in your father's house about the eighteenth of the
month, and I hope you will approve my scheme."

In the glow of my plan for a splendid Colorado wedding journey, I lost
interest in Ganado and its Indians. Making arrangements for the shipment
of my treasures, I saddled my horse one morning, waved Hubbell a joyous
farewell, and started back toward the Agency in the hope of finding
there a letter from my girl.

In this I was not disappointed. She wrote: "I shall leave for Kansas on
the Burlington, Sunday night. You can write me at Hanover." It was plain
she had not received my latest word.

I began to figure. "If I leave here to-morrow forenoon, and catch the
express at Gallup to-morrow night, I can make the close connection at
Topeka, and arrive in St. Joseph just half an hour before Zulime's train
comes in on Monday morning. I shall su