traveling about the country seeking to get the
authorities to hunt up the offender and recover the stolen goods. On one
occasion she started in the early evening to walk into La Gloria from
the port. When she had got about half way darkness came on and she lost
the indistinct trail across the savanna. Not daring to go further, she
roosted in a tree all night. Her idea in taking to the tree was that the
mosquitoes would be less numerous at such an elevation, but she did not
escape them altogether. Nothing serious happened and she turned up in
camp all right the next morning. Mrs. Moller had no better luck when she
rode than when she walked. At one time, while driving from Las Minas to
Nuevitas in a wagon with another colonist, the team went over an
embankment in the darkness and was so badly damaged that she and her
companion were obliged to walk into Nuevitas, twelve or fifteen miles
distant, along the railroad track. The journey was neither easy nor
pleasant.

[Illustration: FIRST HOUSE IN LA GLORIA.]

But Mrs. Moller had both pluck and enterprise. She it was who built the
first house in La Gloria, a log cabin far up in the woods on Central
avenue. It was put up in the latter part of January. She employed an
American and a Cuban to construct it, and had it covered with a canvas
roof. She personally supervised the erection of the house, and when it
was done planted sunflowers, banana trees, pineapples, etc., around it.
She lived here alone for some time before she had any near neighbors.
Mrs. Moller also enjoyed the distinction of owning the first cow, the
first calf, and the first goat in La Gloria. As these animals roamed at
large much of the time and were noisy, disorderly beasts, they were
anything but popular in the colony. They were so destructive to planted
things, that the threats to plant the cow and her unhappy offspring were
numerous and oft-repeated, and the subject was discussed in more than
one meeting of the Pioneer Association. It was said that Mrs. Moller had
come to La Gloria with the idea of starting a dairy business, and it was
further reported that she had taken the first prize for dairy butter at
the World's Fair in Chicago. But the dairy did not materialize, and La
Gloria long went butterless.

It was a standing wonder with us that the Rural Guards did not disarm
Mrs. Moller. They frequently met her as she traveled about the country,
and must have seen that she carried deadly weapons. They did