at this moment. She was, and I hope still is, because I trust that she is still alive, a woman of extraordinary character, anxious to advance and to have her children receive all the benefits of education. She tried hard to learn, and was ever on the alert to imitate the housekeeping of the few ladies who followed their husbands down to Camp Apache, all of whom took a great and womanly interest in the advancement of their swarthy sister. On my way back from the snake dance of the Moquis I once dined at Cooley's ranch in company with Mr. Peter Moran, the artist, and can assure my readers that the little home we entered was as clean as homes generally are, and that the dinner served was as good as any to be obtained in Delmonico's.
For those readers who care to learn of such things I insert a brief description of "Cooley's Ranch" as we found it in that year, 1881, of course many years after the Apaches had been subdued. The ranch was on the summit of the Mogollon plateau, at its eastern extremity, near the head of Show Low Creek, one of the affluents of the Shevlons Fork of the Colorado Chiquito. The contour of the plateau is here a charming series of gentle hills and dales, the hills carpeted with juicy black "grama," and spangled with flowers growing at the feet of graceful pines and majestic oaks; and the dales, watered by babbling brooks flowing through fields of ripening corn and potatoes. In the centre of a small but exquisitely beautiful park, studded with pine trees without undergrowth, stood the frame house and the outbuildings of the ranch we were seeking. Cooley was well provided with every creature comfort to be looked for in the most prosperous farming community in the older States. His fields and garden patches were yielding bountifully of corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, wheat, peas, beans, cabbage, potatoes, barley, oats, strawberries, gooseberries, horse-radish, and musk-melons. He had set out an orchard of apple, crab, dwarf pear, peach, apricot, quince, plum, and cherry trees, and could supply any reasonable demand for butter, cream, milk, eggs, or fresh meat from his poultry yard or herd of cows and drove of sheep. There was an ice-house well filled, two deep wells, and several springs of pure water. The house was comfortably furnished, lumber being plenty and at hand from the saw-mill running on the property.
Four decidedly pretty gipsy-like little girls assisted their mother in gracefully doing the honors to the strangers, and con-
