over all she
saw.

Adjoining the hotel was a bazaar, in front of which sat squatted upon
the ground two rows of Mojave Indians, mostly squaws, with their
curious wares spread out for sale upon blankets. There must have
been a score of them, and they exhibited odd pottery ornaments of
indistinguishable shapes, strings of glass beads and beadwork bags,
and a few really fine jardinieres and baskets. After the girls had
been to their rooms and established themselves in the hotel they
hurried out to interview the Indians, Myrtle Dean supporting herself
by her crutches while Patsy and Beth walked beside her. The lame girl
seemed to attract the squaws at once, and one gave her a bead necklace
while another pressed upon her a small brown earthenware fowl with
white spots all over it. This latter might have been meant to
represent a goose, an ostrich or a guinea hen; but Myrtle was
delighted with it and thanked the generous squaw, who responded merely
with a grunt, not understanding English. A man in a wide sombrero who
stood lazily by observed the incident and said:

"Don't thank the hag. She's selfish. The Mojaven think it brings luck
to have a gift accepted by a cripple."

Myrtle flushed painfully.

"I suppose my crutches make me look more helpless than I really am,"
she whispered to her friends as they moved away. "But they're such a
help in getting around that I'm very grateful to have them, and as I
get stronger I can lay them aside and not be taken for a cripple any
more."

The air was delightfully invigorating here in the mountains, yet it
was not at all cold. The snow, as Uncle John had predicted, had all
been left behind them. After dinner they took a walk through the
pretty town and were caught in the dark before they could get back.
The twilights are very brief in Albuquerque.

"This is a very old town," remarked Uncle John. "It was founded by a
Spanish adventurer named Cabrillo in the seventeenth century, long
before the United States came into existence. But of course it never
amounted to anything until the railroad was built."

Next day they were sitting in a group before the hotel when a man was
seen approaching them with shuffling steps. Uncle John looked at him
closely and Mumbles leaped from Patsy's lap and rushed at the stranger
with excited barks.

"Why, it's Wampus," said Mr. Merrick. "The car must have arrived."

Wampus caught up the baby dog and held it under his arm while he took
his cap off