As I sat on my pony beside my uncle’s wagon, I caught sight of the slim figure of Little Blue Flower, well back in the shade of the Plaza.  She was watching Beverly, who sat in Jondo’s wagon, staring at the crowd and seeing no one in particular.  A minute later a tall young Indian boy stepped in front of her, and when he moved away she was gone.

Many men came forward to greet Esmond Clarenden, and there were many inquiries regarding his goods and many exclamations of surprise that he had come alone with so valuable a cargo.

It was the first time that Beverly and I had seen him among his equals.  At Fort Leavenworth, where the army overruled everything else, men stood above him in authority or below him in business affairs; and while he never cringed to the one, nor patronized the other, where there are no competitors there are no true measures.  That day in the Plaza of Santa Fe the merchant was in his own kingdom, where commerce stood above everything else.

Moreover, this American merchant, following a danger-girt trail, had come in fearlessly, and those men of the Plaza knew that he was one to exact value for value in all his dealings.  But I believe that his real power lay in his ready smile, his courtesy, his patience, and his up-bubbling good nature that made him a friendship-builder.

Among the men who came to make acquaintance with the American trader was a Mexican merchant.  Evidently he was a man of some importance, for an interpreter hastened to introduce him, explaining that this man had been away on a journey of some weeks among the mines of New Mexico and the Southwest, and only the day before he had come in from Taos.

“You will find him a prince of merchants, a sound, unprejudiced business man.  His name is Felix Narveo,” the American interpreter added.

The two men shook hands, greeting each other in the Spanish tongue.  This Felix Narveo was well dressed and well groomed, but I recognized him at once as the Mexican of Fort Leavenworth and Independence and Council Grove.

There was one man in that company, however, who did not come forward at all.  When I first caught sight of him he was looking at me.  I stared back at him with a boy’s curiosity, but he did not take his eyes from me until I had dropped my own.  After that I watched him keenly.  He seemed almost too fair for a Mexican—­a tall, spare-built man with black hair, and eyes so steely blue that they were almost black.  Everywhere I saw him—­at the corners of the little crowd and in the thick of it.  He was an easy mark, for he towered above the rest, and, being slender, he seemed to worm his way quickly from place to place.  At sight of him, Aunty Boone, who had been peering out with shining eyes, drew her head in as quick as a snake, under the shadow of the wagon cover, and her eyes grew dull.  He had not seen her, but I could see that he was watching the remainder of us, and especially my uncle; and I began to feel afraid of him and to wish that he would leave the Plaza.  It was years ago that all this happened, and yet to-day my fear of that man still sticks in my memory.