where the army overruled everything else, men stood
above him in authority or below him in business affairs; and while he
never cringed to the one, nor patronized the other, where there are no
competitors there are no true measures. That day in the Plaza of Santa
Fe the merchant was in his own kingdom, where commerce stood above
everything else.

Moreover, this American merchant, following a danger-girt trail, had
come in fearlessly, and those men of the Plaza knew that he was one to
exact value for value in all his dealings. But I believe that his real
power lay in his ready smile, his courtesy, his patience, and his
up-bubbling good nature that made him a friendship-builder.

Among the men who came to make acquaintance with the American trader was
a Mexican merchant. Evidently he was a man of some importance, for an
interpreter hastened to introduce him, explaining that this man had been
away on a journey of some weeks among the mines of New Mexico and the
Southwest, and only the day before he had come in from Taos.

"You will find him a prince of merchants, a sound, unprejudiced business
man. His name is Felix Narveo," the American interpreter added.

The two men shook hands, greeting each other in the Spanish tongue. This
Felix Narveo was well dressed and well groomed, but I recognized him at
once as the Mexican of Fort Leavenworth and Independence and Council
Grove.

There was one man in that company, however, who did not come forward at
all. When I first caught sight of him he was looking at me. I stared
back at him with a boy's curiosity, but he did not take his eyes from me
until I had dropped my own. After that I watched him keenly. He seemed
almost too fair for a Mexican--a tall, spare-built man with black hair,
and eyes so steely blue that they were almost black. Everywhere I saw
him--at the corners of the little crowd and in the thick of it. He was
an easy mark, for he towered above the rest, and, being slender, he
seemed to worm his way quickly from place to place. At sight of him,
Aunty Boone, who had been peering out with shining eyes, drew her head
in as quick as a snake, under the shadow of the wagon cover, and her
eyes grew dull. He had not seen her, but I could see that he was
watching the remainder of us, and especially my uncle; and I began to
feel afraid of him and to wish that he would leave the Plaza. It was
years ago that all this happened, and yet to-day my fear of that man
still sticks in