middle-distance is Mr. MacWilliams himself in the act of
repairing a water-tank. He is the one in a suit of blue
overalls, and as his language at such times is free, we will
drive rapidly on and not embarrass him. Besides,'' added the
engineer, with the happy laugh of a boy who had been treated to a
holiday, ``I am sure that I am not setting him the example of
fixity to duty which he should expect from his chief.''

They passed between high hedges of Spanish bayonet, and came to
mud cabins thatched with palm-leaves, and alive with naked,
little brown-bodied children, who laughed and cheered to them as
they passed.

``It's a very beautiful country for the pueblo,'' was Clay's
comment. ``Different parts of the same tree furnish them with
food, shelter, and clothing, and the sun gives them fuel, and the
Government changes so often that they can always dodge the tax-
collector.''

From the mud cabins they came to more substantial one-story
houses of adobe, with the walls painted in two distinct
colors, blue, pink, or yellow, with red-tiled roofs, and the
names with which they had been christened in bold black letters
above the entrances. Then the carriage rattled over paved
streets, and they drove between houses of two stories painted
more decorously in pink and light blue, with wide-open windows,
guarded by heavy bars of finely wrought iron and ornamented with
scrollwork in stucco. The principal streets were given up to
stores and cafe's, all wide open to the pavement and protected
from the sun by brilliantly striped awnings, and gay with the