ousand refugees in the concentration camp, if
they should mutiny and get out of control.

Poor Mrs. Dalziel drooped more and more piteously as this ball of gossip
was tossed from one side of the car to the other, and Milly's ever white
face grew so pale that her freckles stood out conspicuously. She ceased
to exclaim with excitement over the cowboys galloping along the road on
the United States side of the river, or to count the automobiles and the
great alfalfa barns near small stations where black-veiled Mexican women
waved sad farewells to weedy, olive-faced youths, perhaps going to the
"war."

"Of course, we're not afraid for _ourselves_," said Mrs. Dalziel.
"We--we should want to be near Tony, whatever happened. It's of you
we're thinking, Peggy. I don't know if we ought to have brought you to
such a place. And I do wish Tony's father were with us, anyhow."

The nearer we came to El Paso, the more foreign and Mexican the country
seemed, with its wild purple mountains billowing along the sunset sky of
red and gold; its queer, Moorish-looking groups of brown huts, and its
dark-skinned men in sombreros or huge straw hats with steeple crowns. It
was quite a relief to draw into El Paso station where everything was
suddenly modern and American, and comfortably normal again.

Tony had got off duty to come and meet us; and after the first
"how-do-you-dos," his mother began bombarding him with questions. What
had happened? What was likely to happen? Wouldn't it have been better to
telegraph us not to come?

She and Milly both had the air of eagerly hoping that he might after all
be able to sweep away their fears with a word or a laugh; but for once,
Tony kept as solemn a face as the conformation of his benevolent
Billiken features permitted.

"There's nothing at all to worry about, if you don't get silly and
panicky," said he. "I did think of telegraphing, not because there's any
real danger, but because I was afraid that when you got down here, if
things hadn't cleared up, the newspaper 'extras' and the way they talk
at the hotels might give you the jumps. I couldn't have wired till after
you'd started, though, because there was nothing doing before that,
worth a telegram. I thought it would scare you blue if you got a message
delivered to you in the train saying better not come, or words to that
effect; so it seemed best to let things rip. Now you're on the spot, you
just keep your hair on, and don't believe anythin