[Illustration: PUEBLO WOMEN GRINDING CORN IN METATE BINS. The women are the millers who grind the varied colored corn in lava bins.] [Illustration: PUEBLO WOMAN WRAPPING DEER-SKIN LEGGINS. A lady’s social prominence is gauged by the thickness of doeskin wrappers she displays.] Laguna, built on a solid ledge of mother rock, attracts attention by the notched beauty of its skyline. It is entertainingly terraced on irregular streets, forced to conform to the shape of its rock foundation. A ramble about town brings unexpected vistas. You start on what seems to be the street, trail along after a shock haired little savage in unbuttoned frock, and suddenly find yourself in a barnyard, gazing with a flea bitten burro upon the intimacies of Pueblo family life on the roof of the house next door. Through the village come sounds of the leisurely tasks of the evening. The mellow, throaty boom of the tombé, and syncopated rhythm of the corn-grinding song come from the open doors, framed in the warm glow of firelight. A dead coyote, waiting to be dressed, hangs by the tail from a _vega_. Children play in the streets. The shifting hills of shimmering sand, moonlight silver in the frosted air of morning, and golden at noon, turn from rose to violet. Above the village rise pencilled lines of smoke from ancient fireplaces. Towering above everything stands the white mass of the old mission, with a gleaming cross of gold cutting sharply against the glory of the west. Laguna owns no hotel, so Toby and I sought out the missionary, whose ruddy, white-haired countenance and stalwart frame bespoke his Vermont origin, and whose hospitality bore the hearty flavor of Green Mountain farmhouses. At something less than what is called a pittance, he had worked for years among the Indians of the pueblo, and at the nearby tubercular sanitarium for government Indians. He seemed to feel no superiority over his charges, and showed none of the complacent cant and proselyting zeal which distinguishes too many reservation missionaries. He had retained with delightful fidelity the spirit of the small community pastor working on terms of equality with his flock,--raising the mortgage, furnishing the church parlor, encouraging the Sewing Circle exactly as he would have done back in Vermont. As he told us of his work the yellow waste and glaring sunshine, squat ’dobe houses and alien brown figures faded, and we seemed to see a white spire with gilded weathervane, and cottages with green blinds; we smelled lilacs and ginger cookies, and walked in a lane of flaming maples. “The work is slow here,” he said. “One needs patience. Yet looking back over the years results are gratifying. Gratifying. Souls who walked in darkness have been won to Christ. Only last night, I attended the bedside of a dear sister,--the oldest person I believe in the state. Her years number one hundred and twenty-six. She confessed her faith and will die in Christ.” “Have you had many conversions?” we asked.