e, lay Santa Fe, the capital of the department of New Mexico, and the
home of her vainglorious, pompous, good-looking, and brutal governor;
Santa Fe, the greatest glass jewel in a crown of tin; Santa Fe, the
customs gate and the disappointing end of a long, hard trail.

Through the even more filthy streets of the poverty-stricken outskirts
of the town went the little _atejo_, disputing right-of-way in the
narrow, porch-crowded thoroughfares with _hoja_ (corn husk) sellers and
huge burro loads of pine and cedar faggots gathered from the near-by
mountain; past the square where the mud hovels of the soldiers lay; past
a mud church whose tall spire seemed ever to be stretching away from the
smells below; past odorous hog stys, crude mule corrals with their
scarred and mutilated creatures, and sheep pens, and groups of avid
cock-fighters; past open doors through which the halfbreed women,
clothed in a simple garment hanging from the shoulders, could be seen
cooking _frijoles_ or the thin, watery _atole_ and hovering around the
flat stones which served for stoves; past these and worse plodded the
_atejo_, the shrewd mules braying their delight at a hard journey almost
ended. Sullen Indians, apologetic Mexicans, swaggering and too often
drunken soldiers gave way to them, while a string of disputing,
tail-tucking dogs followed at a distance, ever wary, ever ready to wheel
and run.

Reaching the _Plaza Publica_, which was so bare of even a blade of grass
or a solitary tree, and its ground so scored and beaten and covered with
rubbish to suggest that it suffered the last stages of some earthly
mange, they came to the real business section of the town, where nearly
every shop was owned by foreigners. Around this public plaza stood the
architectural triumphs of the city. There was the _palacio_ of the
governor, with its mud walls and its extended roof supported on rough
pine columns to form a great porch; the custom-house, with its greedy,
grafting officials; the mud barracks connected to the atrocious and much
dreaded _calabozo_, whose inmates had abandoned hope as they crossed its
threshold; the mud city hall, the military chapel, fast falling into
ruin, and a few dwellings. The interest attending the passing of the
_atejo_ increased a little as the pack train crossed this square, for
the Indian guards were conspicuous by their height and by the breadth of
shoulder, and the excellence of their well-kept weapons. Strangers were
d