ould so easily have
accomplished a task of which she herself had made a distinct failure.

"If I'd only known how to call the poor little soul a lot of coaxing
names!" deplored Jane, "Then maybe she'd have come with me. She'd have
been better off sleeping on my good feather bed than what she will on
those ragged Mexican mats over to Vigil's." Then, observing that two
burros and several goats, taking advantage of the open gate, were now
gorging themselves on her alfalfa, she proceeded to make a stern end of
their delight.

Early in the morning of the stranger's burial, Mexicans from up the
canyon and down the creek arrived in town in ramshackle wagons, attended
by dogs and colts. She who lay dead had been of their race. It was meet
that she should not go unfriended to the _Campo Santo_. Besides, the
weather was fine, and it is good to see one's kinsfolk and
acquaintances now and then. The church, too, would be open, although
the _padre_, who lived in another town, might not be there. Young and
old, they crowded the narrow aisles, even up to the altar space, where
a row of tapers burned in the solemn gloom. Little children were
there, also, hushed with awe. And many a sad-faced Mexican mother
pressed her baby closer to her heart that day, taking note of the
little girl in the front pew, sitting so silent and stolid beside her
weeping father.

Jane Combs was in the back of the church. In their black _rebozos_, the
poorest class of poor Mexican women were clad with more fitness than
she. For Jane, weighted with the gravity of the occasion, had donned an
austere black bonnet such as aged ladies wear, and its effect upon her
short locks was incongruous in the extreme. No one, however, thought of
her as being more queer than usual; for her sunburned cheeks were wet
with tears, and her eyes were deep with tenderness and pity as they
fixed themselves upon the small, rigid figure in the shadows of the
altar's dark burden.

Upon the following day, as Miss Combs opened her ditch-gate for the
tide of mine water which came in a flume across the arroyo, she saw
the doctor and Mr. Keene approaching. They had an absorbed air, and as
she opened the door for them the doctor said, "Miss Combs, we want you
to agree to a plan of ours, if you can."

Keene tilted his chair restlessly. He looked as if life was regaining
its poise with him, and his voice seemed quite cheerful as he said,
"Well, it's about my little girl! I'm bound for a mo