untain-camp, and
it's no place for a motherless child. Lola's a kind of queer little
soul, too! My wife made a great deal of her. She was from old Mexico,
ma'am. She was a _mestizo_--not pure Indian, you know, but part
Spanish. Her folks were _rancheros_, near Pachuca, where I worked in
the mines. I'm from Texas, myself. They weren't like these peons about
here--they were good people. They never wanted Margarita to marry me."
He laughed a little. "But she did, and the old folks never let up on
her. They're both dead now. We've lived hither and yon around New
Mexico these ten years past, and I aint been very successful; though
things will be different now that I've decided to pull out for the gold
regions!"

Keene paused with an air of growing good cheer. He seemed to forget his
point. Whereupon the doctor said simply: "In view of these things, Mr.
Keene would like to make some arrangement for leaving his daughter here
until he can look round."

"And we thought of your taking her, ma'am," broke in Keene, with
renewed anxiety. "Lola's delicate and high-strung, and I don't know how
to manage her like my wife did. It'll hamper me terrible to take her
along. Of course she's bright," he interpolated, hastily. "She was
always picking up things everywhere, and speaks two languages well. And
she'd be company for you, ma'am, living alone like you do. And I'd pay
any board you thought right."

[Illustration: "'I WILL NOT GO WITH YOU!'"]

Jane's pulses had leaped at his suggestion. She was aware of making a
resolute effort as she said, "Wouldn't Lola be happier with the
Vigils?"

"Her mother wouldn't rest in her grave," cried Keene, "if she knew the
child was being brought up amongst a tribe of peons! And me--I want my
child to grow up an American citizen, ma'am!"

"Take the little girl, Miss Combs," advised the doctor. "It'll be good
for you to have her here."

"I've got to think if it'll be good for her," said Jane.

"If that's all!" chorused the two men. They rose. The thing was
settled. "I'll go and tell the Vigil tribe," said Keene, "and send
Lola's things over here right off." With a wave of the hand and a
relieved look, he went down the road.

That night a boy brought to Jane's door a queer little collapsible
trunk of sun-cured hide, thonged fast with leather loops. The Navajo
blanket was outside. Jane surmised that Mr. Keene had sent it because
he dreaded its saddening associations. A message from him conveyed t