opinion in Santa Fé that Colonel Kate would always accomplish whatever
she started out to do, and that nobody ever could guess what she would
start out to do next.

All this was quite true, but it was also true that the Governor's wife
had won her military title by the especial daring and efficiency which
she had once displayed on a particular occasion. The facts in the case
are known only to some three or four people who have always kept them
very quiet. It happened, however, when I asked for information about
Mrs. Coolidge's nickname, that the man with whom I was talking was the
very one who had first bestowed it upon her, and he told me the secret
truth about it. Mrs. Coolidge had no stancher friend than he, nor any
who regarded her with greater respect and admiration, but he rarely
spoke of her or addressed her by any other name than "Colonel Kate."

It all happened a good many years ago, when Harrison Winthrop Coolidge,
then a comparatively young man and newly married, had just come out
from Massachusetts to be Governor of New Mexico. His wife was a young
woman of tall and shapely figure, handsome face, and striking presence,
and possessed of such vivacity, vigor, health, and strength as few
women enjoy. Her superabundant vitality found many emergencies upon
which to expend itself, but the man who told me this story declared
that she never found one that was too big for her. She probably never
found a bigger or more important one than that which she faced on the
night when she won her spurs. Governor and Mrs. Coolidge reached New
Mexico in the days of the first coming of the railroad, when the sleepy
old Territory woke to a brief season of active and hilarious life. And
the Governor, fresh from New England reverence for law and legal forms
and accepted methods, was inexpressibly shocked by the low opinion in
which such things were held in his new bailiwick. Especially was he