The physician in charge accompanied me through the wards, for a number of my Hopi were there, and finally we stopped for a little chat with Stella. She still had a taste for candy, and so informed me. This being “uncle” to several thousands has its responsibilities. “She has been here a long time,” I said when we came away. “Yes—an uneven case, erratic chart; and that sort seldom make a complete recovery. By the way, did you notice anything peculiar in her expression?” “Well,” I replied, “she was a very pretty little child, and she has n’t quite lost all that. There is something wistfully patient about her—a half-smiling sadness—” “The very thing,” said the doctor. “I wondered if you would notice it. The Mona Lisa look: Fishberg mentions it. Stella is a perfect example.” But when I last visited the mesa Stella had a home in which to welcome me. She had tired of the long years at the sanatorium, and they were many; she had returned, as they all endeavor, to her people on the mesa-top; and she still liked candy, and she still had that placid, melancholy expression. [4] I have sought to rescue many Hopi from that dread disease, with varying success, but she is the only Gioconda I have found among the Indians. L’ENVOI By a curious irony of fate, the places to which we are sent when health deserts us are often singularly beautiful. —Stevenson: Ordered South “Keams Cañon!” A commonplace name, because a trading rover had made it home. Tom Keams has gone roving into shadowy lands. “Lu-kah-des-chin,” the place of the reeds, is the Navajo name. For nearly three hundred days of the year it possesses the finest climate in the world, air like wine, filtered clean and sweet through ten thousand square miles of unpolluted wilderness. In those few remaining days are the contrasts. An odd change, at the close of a sunlit winter day, to have the sky suddenly go drab and dull, promising a bleak night, and then the added silence of the falling snow. Stealthily the storm would come upon us, whirling crisp dry flakes, weaving a magic veil to drape white all the cliffs. A new hush in the Desert. And at morning, a crystal landscape, glittering like an old-time Christmas card. Chattering birds in springtime, pausing for a little from their travels, gossiping of Mexico and strange Southern lands. They rejoice in this oasis. The filmy gray of the cottonwoods lends them a screen; already the swelling buds are pale green against the colder tones of the Cañon walls. A last patch of snow on a north ledge suddenly seems to slip, and is gone; and where it was shows the newest bloom, a tiny bit of desert scarlet.