Emersons Wife and Other Western Stories | Page 9

a good thing I did; for now we 've got the
Dyserts, and Emerson did n't get a scratch!"
"Boys," said Mead, and his voice was thick in his throat, "you 're the
best friends any fellow ever had; but you-all don't know what a brick

Marguerite is! She 'd rather die than come between us, I know she
would! She would n't have any more use for me if she thought I 'd kept
a whole skin by going back on you! It's the truth, boys, and don't you
forget it!"

COLONEL KATE'S PROTÉGÉE
"Colonel Kate," as both the Select and the Unassorted of Santa Fé
society were accustomed to speak of Mrs. Harrison Winthrop Coolidge,
had long ago proved her right to do whatever she chose, by always
accomplishing whatever she attempted. She had done so many startling
things, and always with such dashing success, since Governor Coolidge
had brought her, a bride, to the old town, that people had become
accustomed to her, just as they had grown used to the climate, and
expected her deeds of daring as unthinkingly as they did cool breezes in
summer, or sunshine in winter. Besides, everybody liked her; for she
had both the charm which makes new friends and the tact which holds
them loyal.
When, finally, Colonel Kate brought an Indian girl from the pueblo of
Acoma and made it known that she intended her protégée to grace the
innermost circles of Santa Fé society, it is possible that some of the
Select may have shrugged their shoulders a trifle; but, if they did, they
were careful to have no witnesses. For Governor Coolidge was the
richest, the most influential, and the most prominent American in New
Mexico, and his wife could make and unmake social circles as she
chose. The Santa Fé Blast, which was the organ of the Governor's party,
announced the event as follows:
"Mrs. Governor Coolidge and guests returned yesterday from a trip to
Acoma. As always, Mrs. Coolidge was the life of the party and
charmed all by her wit and beauty and vivacity. . . . She even persuaded
old Ambrosio, the grizzled civil chief of the pueblo, to entrust to her
care his most precious treasure, his lovely and charming daughter, Miss
Barbara Koitza. This beautiful and talented young lady, whom Mrs.
Coolidge has installed as a friend and guest in her hospitable and

interesting home, where she is soon to be introduced to Santa Fé
society, is as cultured as she is handsome. She has spent a year in the
Indian school at Albuquerque and two years at Carlyle, and is well
fitted to adorn the choicest social circles in the land. She will no doubt
be warmly welcomed by Santa Fé society and will at once take that
position in its midst to which her beauty, grace, and talents entitle her."
If she had known of it, poor little Barbara would have been
overwhelmed by this flourish of trumpets. But Colonel Kate did not
allow it to fall under her eye. And the girl did not even know that,
whatever she was not, she certainly was interesting and picturesque on
the day when she first entered her new friend's door.
She wore her Indian costume, and was neat and clean as any white
maiden with a heritage of bath-tubs. Spotlessly white were her
buckskin moccasins and leggings, which encased a pair of tiny feet and
then wound round and round her sturdy legs until they looked as
shapeless as telegraph posts. Her scant, red calico skirt met her leggings
at the knee; and her red mantle, of Navajo weave, fell back from her
head, but wrapped closely her waist and arms, and then dropped long
ends down the front of her dress. Her coal-black hair, heavy and
shining, was combed smoothly back from her forehead and fastened in
a chongo behind. Her brown face was handsomer than that of most
Indian maidens, being longer in proportion to its width than is the
pueblo type, the cheek bones less prominent, the forehead broader, and
the lips fuller and more delicately chiselled. It is possible that, far back
in Barbara's ancestry, perhaps even as far back as the times of the
Conquistadores, there had been some admixture of the white man's
race which, after generations of quiescence, in her had at last made its
influence felt again.
As Mrs. Coolidge led the girl into her new home she looked down at
her with approving eye and inwardly exclaimed, the conqueror's joy
already filling her heart, "She 'll be a success! A tremendous success!
The Colonel's wife can do what she pleases now!"
For in the days of which this chronicle tells, Santa Fé was still a
military post, and the wife of the