e
breezy life of the Western country. He had been to a cattle round-up the
week before and he described it minutely in terse and vivid language,
with many a flash of wit, or graver touch of wisdom, and here and there
a boyish expression that showed him young at heart, and devoted to his
mother. He told of a visit he had paid to the Hopi Indians, their
strange villages, each like a gigantic house with many rooms, called a
pueblo, built on the edges of lofty crags or mesas and looking like huge
castles five or six hundred feet above the desert floor. He told of
Walpi, a village out on the end of a great promontory, its only access a
narrow neck of land less than a rod wide, with one little path worn more
than a foot deep in the solid rock by the feet of ten generations
passing over it, where now live about two hundred and thirty people in
one building. There were seven of these villages built on three mesas
that reach out from the northern desert like three great fingers,
Oraibi, the largest, having over a thousand people. He explained that
Spanish explorers found these Hopis in 1540, long before the pilgrims
landed at Plymouth Rock, and called the country Tusayan. Then he went
on to describe a remarkable meeting that had been held in which the
Indians had manifested deep interest in spiritual things, and had asked
many curious questions about life, death and the hereafter.

"You see, dear," said the mother, her eyes shining eagerly, "you see how
much they need him, and I'm glad I can give him. It makes me have a part
in the work."

Hazel turned back to the letter and went on reading to hide the tears
that were gathering in her own eyes as she looked upon the exalted face
of the mother.

There was a detailed account of a conference of missionaries, to attend
which the rider had ridden ninety miles on horseback; and at the close
there was an exquisite description of the spot where they had camped the
last night of their ride. She knew it from the first word almost, and
her heart beat so wildly she could hardly keep her voice steady to read:

"I stopped over night on the way home at a place I dearly love. There is
a great rock, shelving and overhanging, for shelter from any passing
storm, and quite near a charming green boudoir of cedars on three sides,
and rock on the fourth. An abundant water-hole makes camping easy for
me and Billy, and the stars overhead are good tapers. Here I build my
fire and boil the kettle, rea