But the city itself seemed unchanged, and there was little evidence that Yankee thrift and energy had entered New Mexico with the new government.  The narrow street still marked the trail’s end before the Exchange Hotel.  San Miguel, with its dun walls and triple-towered steeple, still good guard over the soul of Santa Fe, as it had stood for three sunny centuries.  The Mexican still drove down the loaded burro-train of firewood from the mountains.  The Indian basked in the sunny corners of the Plaza.  The adobe dwellings clustered blindly along little lanes leading out to nowhere in particular.  The orchards and cornfields, primitively cultivated, made tiny oases beside the trickling streams and sandy beds of dry arroyos.  The sheep grazed on the scant grasses of the plain.  The steep gray mesa slopes were splotched with clumps of evergreen shrubs and pinon trees.  And over all the silent mountains kept watch.

The business house of Felix Narveo, however, did not share in this lethargy.  The streets about the Plaza were full of Conestoga wagons, with tired ox-teams lying yoked or unyoked before them.  Most of the traffic borne in by these came directly or indirectly to the house of Narveo.  And its proprietor, the same silent, alert man, had taken advantage of a less restricted government, following the Mexican War, to increase his interests.  So mine and meadow, flock and herd, trappers’ snare and Indian loom and forge, all poured their treasures into his hands—­a clearing-house for the products of New Mexico to swell the great overland commerce that followed the Santa Fe Trail.

For all of which the ground plan had been laid mainly by Esmond Clarenden, when with tremendous daring he came to Santa Fe and spied out the land for these years to follow.

A boy’s memory is keen, and all the hours of that other journey hither, with their eager anticipation and youthful curiosity, and love of surprise and adventure, came back to Beverly Clarenden and me as we pulled along the last lap of the trail.

“Was it really so long ago, Bev, that we came in here, all eyes and ears?” I asked my cousin.

“No, it was last evening.  And not an eyebrow in this Rip Van Winkle town has lifted since,” Beverly replied.  “Yonder stands that old church where the gallant knight on a stiff-legged pony spied Little Lees and knocked the head off of that tormenting Marcos villain, and kicked it under the door-step.  Say, Gail, I’d like mighty well to see the grown-up Little Lees, wouldn’t you?  And I’d as soon this was Saint Louis as Santa Fe.”

Since the night of Mat’s wedding, I had been resolutely putting away all thought of Eloise St. Vrain.  I belonged to the plains.  All my training had been for this.  I thought I was very old and settled now.  But the mention of her pet name sent a thrill through me; and these streets of Santa Fe brought back a flood of memories and boyhood dreams and visions.