ade along State Street,
searching for an engagement ring, a gauge which Zulime, knowing my
poverty, stoutly insisted that she did not need--a statement which I was
simple enough to believe until her sister enlightened me. "That's only
Zuhl's way. Of course she wants a ring--every girl does. Don't fail to
get her one--a nice one!"

I found one at last that Zulime thought I could afford. It was a small
gold band with five opals, surrounded by several very minute diamonds,
all of which could be had for the sum of thirty-eight dollars. As I
bought this ring Zulime's girlish delight in it touched as well as
instructed me. Each time she held her finger up for me to see (she had a
beautiful hand) I regretted that I had not purchased a better ring. Why
did I take a ring at thirty-eight dollars! Why not fifty dollars? But
what could be expected of a man who never before had spent so much as
one dollar on a piece of jewelry, a man whose chief way of earning money
was to save it? Whenever I look at that poor little jewel now I
experience a curious mingling of shame and regret. I had so little money
at that time, and the future was so uncertain!

Zulime was living with her sister, and there I spent most of my evenings
and some of my afternoons during the following week, scarcely able to
realize my change of fortune except when alone with her, discussing our
future. She agreed at last to a date for the wedding which would enable
us to spend Thanksgiving at West Salem, and then for some reason, not
clear to me now, I suddenly took the train for Gallup, New Mexico, with
the Navajo Indian Agency for final destination.

Just why I should have chosen to visit Ganado at this precise time is
inexplicable, but there is no mystery in my leaving Chicago. My future
sister-in-law bluntly informed me that my absence from the city would
greatly facilitate the necessary dressmaking. Although an obtuse person
in some ways, I know when I am bumped. Three days after Fuller's
luncheon to Howells, I reached the town of Gallup, which is the point of
departure for the Navajo Agency, some twenty-five or thirty miles north
of the Santa Fe railway.

For nearly ten years I had been going to the Rocky Mountains at least
once during the summer season, and it is probable that I felt the need
of something to offset the impressions of my tour in England and
France--to lose touch with my material even for twelve months was to be
cheated--then, too, I hoped in