child about to fall asleep.
They did not cry out, nor fall on my neck, nor weep. But Bill Banney's
strong arms carried me tenderly away. Water, food, unbound swollen
limbs, bathed in the warm Arkansas flow, soft grass for a bed, and the
eyes of the big plainsman, my childhood idol, gentle as a girl's,
looking unutterable things into my eyes.

I've never known a mother's love, but for that loss the Lord gave
me--Jondo.

XIII

IN THE SHELTER OF SAN MIGUEL

Fear not, dear love, thy trial hour shall be
The dearest bond between my heart and thee.
--ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

When we reached the end of the trail and entered a second time into
Santa Fe the Stars and Stripes were floating lazily above the Palace of
the Governors. Out on the heights beyond the old Spanish prison stood
Fort Marcy, whose battlements told of a military might, strong to
control what by its strength it had secured. In its shadow was La
Garita, of old the place of execution, against whose blind wall many a
prisoner had started on the long trail at the word of a Spanish bullet,
La Garita changed now from a thing of legalized horror to a landmark of
history.

But the city itself seemed unchanged, and there was little evidence that
Yankee thrift and energy had entered New Mexico with the new government.
The narrow street still marked the trail's end before the Exchange
Hotel. San Miguel, with its dun walls and triple-towered steeple, still
good guard over the soul of Santa Fe, as it had stood for three sunny
centuries. The Mexican still drove down the loaded burro-train of
firewood from the mountains. The Indian basked in the sunny corners of
the Plaza. The adobe dwellings clustered blindly along little lanes
leading out to nowhere in particular. The orchards and cornfields,
primitively cultivated, made tiny oases beside the trickling streams and
sandy beds of dry arroyos. The sheep grazed on the scant grasses of the
plain. The steep gray mesa slopes were splotched with clumps of
evergreen shrubs and pinon trees. And over all the silent mountains kept
watch.

The business house of Felix Narveo, however, did not share in this
lethargy. The streets about the Plaza were full of Conestoga wagons,
with tired ox-teams lying yoked or unyoked before them. Most of the
traffic borne in by these came directly or indirectly to the house of
Narveo. And its proprietor, the same silent, alert man, had taken
advantage of a l