e no
white men there!"

I will confess that as a representative of the dominant Caucasian stock
I had, for the moment, no apt reply ready. Later I thought of a very
fitting retort, which undoubtedly would have flattened that impertinent
Indian as flat as a flounder; unfortunately, though, it only came to me
after several days of study, and by that time I was upward of a thousand
miles away from him. But I am saving it to use on him the next time I go
back to the Grand Canon. No mere Indian can slander our race, even if he
is telling the truth--not while I'm around!

Down in Southern California I rather figured on finding a large swarm of
Mission Indians clustering about every Mission; but, alas! they weren't
there, either. We saw a few worshipers and plenty of tourists, but no
Indians--at least, I didn't see any personally. There is something
wonderfully impressive about a first trip to any one of those old gray
churches; everything about it is eloquent with memories of that older
civilization which this Western country knew long before the Celt and
the Anglo-Saxon breeds came over the Divide and down the Pacific Slope,
filled with their lust for gold and lands, craving ever more power and
more territory over which to float the Stars and Stripes.

The vanished day of the Spaniard now lives only within the walls of the
early Missions, but it invests them with that added veneration which
attaches to whatever is old and traditional and historic. We haven't a
great deal that is very old in our own country; maybe that explains why
we fuss over it so when we come across it in Europe.

[Illustration: AS SHE LEVELED THE LENS A YELL WENT UP FROM SOMEWHERE]

There is one Mission which in itself, it seemed to me, is almost worth a
trip clear across the continent to see--the one at Santa Barbara. It is
up the side of a gentle foothill, with the mountains of the Coast Range
behind it. Down below the roofs and spires of a brisk little city
show through green clumpage, and still farther beyond the blue waters of
the Pacific may be seen.

Parts of this Mission are comparatively new; there are retouchings and
restorations that date back only sixty or seventy years, but most of it
speaks to you of an earlier century than this and an earlier race than
the one that now peoples the land. You pass through walls of solid
masonry that are sixteen feet thick and pierced by narrow passages; you
climb winding stairs to a squat tower where s