it. You expected
to find wilderness. Well, there is an upright piano, and there is a
gramophone with latest musical records, and close by the davenport where
hangs a grizzly bear pelt, stands a banjo. You have scarcely got travel
togs off before dinner is sounded by the big copper ranch bell hung on
the piazza after the fashion of the Missions.

After dinner, you go over to the Supervisor's office for advice on going
up the canyon. Technically, this is not necessary; but it is wise for a
great many reasons. He will tell you where to get, and what to pay for,
your camp outfit; where to go and how to go. He will show you a map with
the leading trails and advise you as to the next stopping place. To hunt
predatory animals--bear and wolf and cat and mountain lion--you need no
permit; but if you are an outsider, you need one to get trout and turkey
and deer. Another point: are you aware that you are going into a country
as large as two or three of the Eastern States put together; and that
the forests in the upper canyons are very dense; and that you might get
lost; and that it is a good thing to leave somebody on the outside edge
who knows where you have gone?

On my way back from the Supervisor's office, the sick man called me in
and told me his life story and showed me his poem. As he is a Mexican,
has been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and is somewhat of
a politician, it may be worth while setting down his views.

"What is going to happen in Old Mexico?"

"Ah, only one t'ing possible--los Americanos must go in."

"Why?"

"Well," with a shrug, "Diaz cannot--cannot control. Madero, he cannot
control better dan Diaz. Los Americanos must go in."

It is a bit of a surprise to find in this little Pecos Town of adobe
huts set down higgledy-piggledy a tiny stone church with stained glass
windows, a little gem in a wilderness. I slipped through the doors and
sat watching the sunset through the colored windows and dreaming of the
devotees whose ideals had been built into the stones of these quiet
walls.

Three miles lower down the valley is a still older church built
in--well, they tell you all the way from 1548 and 1600 to 1700. I dare
say the middle date is the nearest right. At all events, the bronze bell
of this old ruin dated before 1700; and when preparations were under way
for the Chicago World's Fair, these old Mission bells were so much in
demand that the prices went up to $500; and the Mexicans of