ver to Santa Cruz--and he said he allowed, from the way she asked
about it, it was what Palomitas ought to have. So he told her there
was, and it was the best one in the Territory--and let it go at that.
He said she said she was glad to hear it, as she took a special
interest in kindergartens, and she'd go and see it the first thing.

Hill said he knowed he'd put his foot in it somehow; but as he didn't
know how he'd put his foot in it, he just switched her off by telling
her about the Dorcas Society. He had the cards for that, he said,
because his mother'd helped run a Dorcas Society back East and he
knowed what he was talking about. The Palomitas one met Thursdays, he
told her, at the Forest Queen. That was the principal hotel, he told
her, and was kept by Mrs. Major Rogers, who was an officer's widow and
had started the society to make clothes for some of the Mexican poor
folks--and he said it was a first-rate charity and worked well. It
tickled him so, he said, thinking of any such doings at the Forest
Queen--with old Tenderfoot Sal, of all people, bossing the job!--he
had to work off the laugh he had inside of him by taking to licking
his mules.

But it went all right with the little old lady; and she was that
interested he had to strain himself, he said, making up more stories
about it--till by good luck she took to telling him about the Dorcas
Society she belonged to herself, back home in Vermont; and was so full
of it she kept things going easy for him till they'd crossed the
bridge over the Rio Grande and was coming up the slope into the town
at a walk.

Up at the top of the slope Santa Fe Charley stood a-waiting for
'em--looking, of course, in them black clothes and a white tie on,
like he was a sure-enough preacher--and as the coach come along he
sung out, pleasant and friendly: "Good-afternoon, Brother Hill. I
missed you at the Bible Class last evening. No doubt you were detained
unavoidably, and it's all right. But be sure to come next Friday. We
don't get along well without you, Brother Hill." And Santa Fe took his
hat off stylish and made the old lady the best sort of a bow.

Hill caught on quick and played right up to Santa Fe's lead. "That's
our minister, Mr. Charles, ma'am. The one I've been telling you
about," he said. "He's just friendly and sociable like that all the
time. He looks after the folks in this town closer'n any preacher
I ever knowed." A part of that, Hill said, was dead certain
tru