Mrs. Coolidge’s enthusiasm over New Mexican history, and her admiration for the heroic times of the Conquistadores, had caused her to make the interior of her home almost a museum of antiquities.  On the floors Navajo blankets—­fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty years old, and each one with its own dramatic tale—­served as rugs.  Silken rebozos, worn by high-hearted cavaliers riding in search of “la gran Quivera” draped her windows.  Pueblo pottery, dug from villages that were in ruins when the first white men saw them, filled cabinets and shelves.  Saddle skirts of embroidered leather, which had pleased the fancy of some brave capitan leading a handful of men against a rebellious pueblo two centuries ago, made a background for the huge silver spurs of cunning workmanship with which some other daring caballero had urged his horse in search of adventures and of gold.  And beside them lay the stone axe with which a courageous senora, a heroine of the Southwest, had cleft the skull of a Navajo chief and saved her townspeople from falling into the hands of the savage enemy.  On the walls were old, old paintings of Nuestra Senora de this and that, proud of neck and sad and sweet of face, which had been brought from the City of Mexico on the backs of burros, and adored in little adobe churches by generations of men, women, and children, and pierced by the arrows of angry and revengeful Indians during the pueblo rebellion, or scarred by fires of destruction, from which they had been saved by brave and pious devotees.

Such things as these made a picturesque setting for the Indian maid on the night of her debut.  It might have been a painful ordeal for her had she known that all these people were there mainly to satisfy their curiosity concerning her.  But Mrs. Coolidge had carefully kept from her the knowledge that she was of especial interest and was expected to produce a sensation.  So she knew only that she was having a delightful time and that everybody was so kind and cordial and took so much interest in her that she did not have a minute during the whole evening in which to think about herself.  Everybody was eager to dance, or talk, or stroll in the placita with her, and all who were not engaged with her were talking enthusiastically in praise of her appearance, her manner, or her conversation.

Colonel Kate moved about, proud and happy in the brilliant success of her hazardous undertaking and serene in the confidence that the Colonel’s wife would not again attempt rebellion.  She was even more glad and happy for Barbara’s sake, for the two had grown very fond of each other and she had begun to wonder if old Ambrosio could not be induced to let her adopt the girl.  Already it made her heart ache to think she might have to give up her protegee.  She cast a glance at Barbara, who was holding her usual court, a circle of men about her, and thought: