was being done and hearing all that was said.

"What's the matter, little plainsman?" Jondo cried, catching me up and
setting me on the counter. "Got a thorn in your shoe, or a stone-bruise,
or a chilblain?"

"I slipped out there behind a soldier on horseback, right in front of a
little old Mexican who was just whirling off to the river," I said, the
tears blinding my eyes.

"Why, he's turned his ankle! Looks like it was swelling already," Mat
Nivers declared, as she slid from the counter and ran toward me.

"It's a bad job," Jondo declared. "Just when we want to get off, too."

"Can't I go with you to Santa Fé, Uncle Esmond?" I wailed.

"Yes, Gail, we'll fix you up all right," my uncle said, but his face was
grave as he examined my ankle.

It was a bad job, much worse than any of us had thought at first. And as
they all gathered round me I suddenly noticed the same Mexican standing
in the doorway, and I heard some one, I think it was Uncle Esmond, say:

"Jondo, you'd better take Gail over to the surgeon right away--" His
voice trailed off somewhere and all was blank nothingness to me. But my
last impression was that my uncle stayed behind with the strange
Mexican.

In the excitement everybody forgot that I had on neither hat nor coat as