apered into the commonplace by the friction of
progress and democracy. I confess I am glad of it. I am glad there are
still two nooks in America where simple folk are happy just to be alive,
undisturbed by the "over-weaning ambition that over-vaulteth itself" and
falls back in social envy and class hate. "Our people, no, they are not
ambish!" said an old Mexican to me. "Dey do not wish wealfth--no--we
have dis," pointing to all his own earthly belongings in the little
whitewashed adobe room, "and now I will read you a little poem I make on
de snow mountains. Hah! Iss not dis good?"

"Mighty good," though I was not thinking of the poem. I was thinking of
the spirit that is contented enough to _see_ poetry in the great white
mountains through the door of a little whitewashed adobe room; and in
this case, it was a sick room. Presently, he got up out of his bed, and
donned an old military cape, and came out in the sunlight to have me
photograph him, so that his friends would have it _after_.

* * * * *

Having reached Glorieta, you have decided which of the many ranch houses
in the Pecos Forest you will stay at; or if you have not decided, a few
words of inquiry with the station agent or a Forest Service man will put
you wise; and you telephone in for rig or motor to come out for you. Any
normal traveler does not need to be told that these ranch houses are
not regular boarding houses as you understand that term; but as a great
many travelers are not normal, perhaps I should explain. The custom of
taking strangers has arisen from those old days when there were no inns
and all passers-by were given beds and meals as a matter of course.
Those days are past, but luckily for outsiders, the custom survives;
only remember while you pay, you go as a _guest_, and must not expect a
valet to clean your boots and to quake at any discord of nerves untuned
by the jar of town.

In half an hour after leaving the transcontinental train, we were
spinning out by motor to the well-known Harrison Ranch, the rolling,
earth-baked hills gradually rising, the forest growth thickening, the
little checkerboard farms taking on more and more the appearance of
settlement than on the desert which the railroads traverse. Presently,
at an elevation of 8,000 feet; we pulled up in Pecos Town before the
long, low, whitewashed ranch house, the two ends coming back in an L
round the court, the main entrance on the other side of