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 and bowed respectfully to his employer.