ut them, for he did not seem to misunderstand the situation as
many Latins would have done. Before the girl had realized it the two hours
were over and the little engine reappeared.

Conejo should, I believe, be called a town. The people who live in it
always dignify it by that name and they probably have a reason for so
doing. To one holding advanced ideas as to towns, it seems at a first
glance to be only a collection of pinkish looking adobes which on
inspection turn out to be a church, a store, a jail, a saloon, a hotel--at
which no one stays who has a friend to take him in--and some private
houses. It is Juarez without the bull ring, the racetrack or the gambling
places.

It is situated rather flatly between two ranges of mountains and when
Polly Street landed there at about six o'clock--a trying hour in
itself--it was in the grip of a sand-storm. One's first sand-storm is
always a surprise. It looks so innocent from behind a window pane; just
sand--blowing about rather swiftly, whirling in spirals, beating against
the glass, piling itself up in drifts--an interesting sight but not a
terrifying one.

Polly had been a little surprised to see the fat ladies array themselves
in goggles before descending from the train, and had laughingly refused an
offer of his own from Juan Pachuca, who promptly put them on himself. But
when she alighted from the train onto the platform which extended from the
rear end of the general merchandise store, and which served as station,
waiting parlor and baggage-room, she gasped in dismay. It was as though
thousands of tiny pieces of glass had struck her in the face and throat.

Before she could get her breath they struck her again and again; sharp,
vindictive, piercing little particles they were. She shut her eyes and put
her hands to her bare throat to protect it. Suddenly she felt a hand on
her arm and Juan Pachuca's voice said:

"Keep them shut and let me lead you. I told you what sand-storms
were--you'd better have taken the goggles."

Polly succumbed and felt herself being led along the platform.

"There, we're in the store," said the young man. "Rather nasty, eh?"

"Awful! I never felt anything like it," gasped the girl, shaking the sand
from her clothes. "And it isn't sand, it's gravel. No wonder you wear
goggles!"

"I find them most convenient for many purposes," was the reply.

Polly noticed that he still had them on though they were in the store.
They gave him a quee