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Adobeland Stories 
 
ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 VERNER Z. REED 
 
 Author of '-'■ htt~To~Kah " and" Tales of the Sunland"' 
 
 Adobeland, — great silent land, 
 Weird world made up of sky and sand, 
 Where the mirage mocks, and sand-storms swirl, 
 And brown peaks brood at the drear, dead world. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER ^ CO. 
 
 1899 
 
THE COVER DESIGN IS BY MISS MARION L. PEABODY 
 THE TITLE-PAGE BY MR. ORVILLE P. WILLIAMS 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1898 
 BY RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. 
 
 All Ricrbts Reserved 
 
 BLLIS, PRINTER, 1*1 FRANI'.LIK STREET, BOSTON 
 
955 
 ado 
 
 CHARLES CRAIG 
 
 IN MEMORY OF MANY PLEASANT DAYS SPENT 
 
 TOGETHER, LOITERING, DREAMING, AND 
 
 EXPLORING IN ADOBELAND 
 
 rvi6i8947 
 
Preface 
 
 IT would seem that a preface were entirely un- 
 necessary to a book of short stories, many of 
 w^hich have no foundation in fact, and which are 
 meant to be merely stories, pure and simple. A 
 preface w^ould not be written in this case, were it not 
 for the fact that the lack of one to my former 
 book. Tales of the Sun-Land, caused considerable mis- 
 understanding. The stories in that book are pure 
 fictions, are meant only as such, and they make 
 no pretensions to historical or ethnological accuracy 
 further than is necessary for the base, or settings, of 
 the tales. I tried, of course, to clothe them with 
 verisimilitude; but I have been disappointed because 
 some of the critics who reviewed the book have mis- 
 taken the stories for attempted portrayals of actual 
 legends. The mistake was the more natural on the 
 part of some of the readers of the book because of 
 the fact that I have written down a few actual Indian 
 legends; and I am at fault because I did not write a 
 preface, fully explaining that all the book stood for, or 
 meant to be, was a collection of imaginative tales, 
 
 9 
 
lo ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 having no foundation in fact, and intended only to be 
 amusing, and, in some slight degree, an approach to 
 things that might have been, but w^ere not. 
 
 A preface, then, being sometimes necessary, even to 
 a little book, I make this one. And in it I want to 
 say that these Adobeland stories, like most of the 
 others I have written, have for their chief purpose 
 amusement, and not instruction. It is scarcely neces- 
 sary to say that Santa Beatriz does not exist, or that 
 Antonio Salcido is mythical. Yet, while the tales 
 are fictions, there are — as with almost all things else 
 in the world — some threads of truth running 
 through some of them. In journeying among the 
 people who dwell in Adobeland, one will see some 
 tragedies, some little romances, and the inner joys and 
 sorrows of some hearts. I have woven a little of 
 some of these things into some of the stories, adorning 
 the facts enough to make them more properly belong 
 to fiction than to reality. 
 
 And so, the little book is done, and will soon be 
 beyond me and out o{ my reach, and where ** nor all 
 
PREFACE 
 
 my piety nor wit can lure it back to cancel half a 
 line." The making of it, which has been done at 
 intervals and at places far removed, has been a 
 pleasant task; for, as I wrote, there came back mem- 
 ories of pleasant days spent under the blue skies and 
 the bright sun, and among the quaint, brown-skinned 
 peoples of Adobeland, — that sun-kissed land which 
 extends from the Arkansas River in Colorado, south- 
 ward to the end of my knowledge, and, I think, to 
 the end of the world. There were memories of red- 
 tiled, white- walled old Mexican cities, drowsing in the 
 rays of the tropic sun; of crude Indian homes in the 
 great wind-swept San Juan or in the ancient pueblos 
 of New Mexico; of broad deserts, where living things 
 are few, and where mirages hover on the horizon; of 
 quiet valleys that seem to be just on the edge of the 
 world; and, more than all else, memories of good 
 friends, brown and red and white, with whom I have 
 broken bread and exchanged stories and ridden over 
 the mesas and across the valleys and smoked and 
 enjoyed life, and who have, moreover, helped me to 
 a better understanding of my fellow-men. Some of 
 
12 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 these people showed me their hearts, and taught me 
 that heredity and environment, race and blood, belief 
 and creed, all sink into insignificance before the great 
 fact that we are all humans, and that humanity is 
 humanity's nearest kin. 
 
 If the stories amuse and entertain their readers, and 
 bring to their minds the recollection that away to the 
 southward and to the westward there is a quaint, 
 picturesque land, full of romance and beauty, and if 
 they shall help a little to spread the truth that human 
 hearts — whether they beat under brown skins or 
 white — are much the same, I shall feel that there is 
 some justification for their existence. 
 
 Colorado Springs, 
 November, 1898. 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Antonio Salcido's Story .... 15 
 
 Santa Beatriz 49 
 
 The Tale of Burnt-foot Maiden . 77 
 
 Luz 96 
 
 An Indian's Revenge 114 
 
 At the Pu-ye Cliffs 131 
 
 The Law of Seh-now-wuff . . . 166 
 
ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 Antonio Salcido's Story 
 
 WE were junketing in the old-new land of 
 Mexico. Every hour was worth living; 
 and many of them would have been worth 
 living over again, which can be said of too few of the 
 hours that go to make up the span of a human life. 
 We were enjoying ourselves so much that we grudged 
 the time that had to be spent in sleep. Everything 
 was of interest, — old cathedrals, little mud chapels 
 and shrines, bull rings, haciendas, quartels, the pleas- 
 ant plazas of the cities, the picturesque architecture, 
 and, most of all, the people, — from the courtly Dons 
 who spoke French and talked of literature and state- 
 craft, to the black Indians who came down from the 
 fastnesses of the Chihuahua Mountains to watch the 
 great ** thunder wagons" go screeching and rocking 
 across the deserts. 
 
 When we came to Aguas Calientes, we had the 
 strange feeling, so often experienced by travellers, of 
 having reached a place familiar to us, but which in 
 reality we had never seen before, and yet the arriving 
 at which seemed something like coming to our own 
 homes. To us the quaint old flat-roofed city was the 
 
 15 
 
1 6 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 best spot in all Mexico. It is not so beautiful as 
 Guadalajara, nor so picturesque as hill-hemmed Guan- 
 ajuato, nor so busy as the mountain-girt City of 
 Mexico, nor so quaint as red-tiled old Orizaba. But 
 the beautiful little plaza seemed dimly like a place 
 where we had played in childhood, the palace was 
 like a familiar thing that we had known all our lives, 
 and the booming of the big bells in the cathedral was 
 like well-remembered sounds. And we revelled in 
 the beauty and quaintness and restfulness and half- 
 familiar strangeness of Aguas Calientes. We passed 
 inquisitively through the churches, getting sly glances 
 from the women who knelt upon the hard floors; we 
 struck up acquaintances with the market people who 
 sat on the stone paving of the streets beside their little 
 heaps of merchandise ; we wandered among the low- 
 roofed houses, going from the workshops of the 
 weavers of scrapes and rebosos to the low, cool rooms 
 where women and children toiled through all the 
 hours of light over the fine drawn linen work that has 
 made the name of the city famous. And it was in 
 the Arabian Nights city of Aguas Calientes that we 
 first met Antonio Salcido, now a millionaire child of 
 Luck, one time a peotiy whose story seemed to us 
 worthy of being written down. 
 
 We had gone with a guide, in a quaint old coach 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 17 
 
 drawn by two happy-looking mules, to explore the 
 old panteoUy or cemetery, that lies at the north-western 
 corner of the city. When tired of looking at old 
 monuments, and having the sexton point out the slabs 
 that covered the bodies of wandering Americans who 
 had died in Mexico long before the coming of the 
 railroads, we drove down the mud-walled street that 
 runs to the south, and stopped at one of the places 
 where the glazed pottery peculiar to that city is made. 
 Standing in the narrow streets were a pedler's two 
 carts, loaded to overflowing with earthenware uten- 
 sils ; and tethered to the wall were the mules that 
 drew the carts. There were picturesque and romantic 
 suggestions about the outfit, — visions of long drives 
 across cactus-covered plains and down winding canons ; 
 thoughts of isolated villages, of far-away mining 
 camps, and of the haunts of Indian tribes, all of 
 which might be visited by these weather-beaten carts 
 and their weather-stained owners in their journeys up 
 and down the land. So we made inquiries, which 
 resulted in our becoming possessed of information. 
 The carts were owned by Antonio Salcido, — who 
 was affable and very much at our service. The three 
 men with him were in his employ, one to help him sell 
 goods, and the others to cook, and care for the mules. 
 He dealt chiefly in the gray ware of Guadalajara, 
 
8 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 which is better and finer than any other pottery made 
 in Mexico except the glazed ware wrought by the 
 Tarasco Indians ; but, having been unusually fortu- 
 nate, he had sold out sooner than he had anticipated, 
 and had bought a new stock in Aguas Calientes to be 
 sold on the remainder of his journey. All of w^hich 
 was true as far as it concerned his three employees, 
 and which was cheerfully untrue so far as it related to 
 Salcido, who had not seen his mules and carts nor the 
 city of Guadalajara for two years. Salcido talked to 
 us in good English. He told us of the value of his 
 wares, of the long journey he was making, which he 
 expected to end somewhere to the south of Silao ; 
 and he said many interesting things about the out-of- 
 the-way villages and haciendas that his vocation caused 
 him to visit. He might not have talked so much if 
 we had not asked so many questions, yet he seemed 
 to enjoy the time as well as we. He was a tall, 
 well-formed man, about thirty-five years of age, and 
 was dressed in a rather faded charro costume, consist- 
 ing of short leather coat, tight leather trousers, a wide 
 felt sombrero, and tan shoes. From his side swung 
 a holster containing a big revolver, a belt of cartridges 
 was about his waist, and he had some fine silver orna- 
 ments on his sombrero. We got acquainted with this 
 man because we thought it was worth while; and he 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 19 
 
 gave the Senora a little glazed drinking-cup, that now 
 occupies a very exalted place in our collection of 
 curios. 
 
 In the ev^ening I met him by chance in the plaza, 
 and we listened to the music of the band and talked 
 for two hours. Then we drank tequila together, ex- 
 pressed our hopes of some time meeting again, and 
 said farewell. In the morning he drove away to the 
 south, ostensibly to sell pottery, but in reality upon 
 a grave errand, of which, at that time, we knew 
 nothing ; and we remained in Aguas Calientes to 
 bathe in the mineral waters and mingle like two 
 happy vagabonds in the life of the quaint old town. 
 We remembered dimly that far to the north there was 
 a cold, hard land of banks and mines and stock ex- 
 changes, where men were breathlessly hurrying from 
 their cradles to their graves, stopping only to clutch 
 at dollars as they went; but we believ^ed that they 
 were missing the fulness of life, and we forgot them, 
 and enjoyed the tropic sky and the kindly people, — 
 and wondered why so bright a man as Salcido was 
 nothing but a pedler of earthenware. 
 
 Some days later we were in Silao, and were 
 quartered at the Hotel St. Julian, then kept by a man 
 who looked as though he had a spite at the world 
 because he chanced to be living in it, and whose wife 
 
20 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 was much worse-looking than her husband. In the 
 older days, before the iron hand of Diaz rested like 
 a stern blessing upon all the face of turbulent Mexico, 
 Silao was one of the chief centres of the enterprising 
 bandits who infested the land; and the host and 
 hostess of the inn St. Julian seemed to be perpetually 
 grieving because the old days were gone, and instead 
 of being picturesque banditti they could be only pro- 
 saic hotel-keepers. When the supper was over, we 
 left them looking morosely and sourly at each other, 
 and went and sat on one of the stone seats in the 
 alameda, and spent an hour watching the motley 
 crowd of soldiers, beggars, priests, and bandits in 
 disguise, that passed up and down that thoroughfare. 
 Just below the southern end of the alameda at Silao 
 there is an open field, somewhat resembling the com- 
 mon of Eastern villages. While we were sitting on 
 the stone bench, watching the moon and the people, 
 we chanced to look toward this open place, and saw 
 the ruddy glow of a camp-fire, and busy men cooking, 
 and feeding mules. We strolled over to the camp, 
 and were pleasantly surprised to receive a warm greet- 
 ing from our friend Antonio Salcido, the corredor, or 
 pedler, whom we had met in Aguas Calientes. We 
 passed a pleasant hour, and then the Sciiora was 
 tired, and went to her room; and, when I returned 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 21 
 
 from taking her there, Salcido and I seated ourselves 
 on a stone bench, there was some drinking of 
 tequila, some smoking of black cigars from Orizaba, 
 and then the corredor, perhaps prompted by the 
 strange desire that causes men to confide in strangers, 
 perhaps influenced somewhat by the tequila, told me 
 his story. And in his own words, as nearly as I 
 can remember them, it is thus: — 
 
 *'As you know, my name is Antonio Salcido. I 
 own these carts and mules and goods; and I also own 
 houses, and have money loaned out for the interest it 
 will draw. And — while it is known to but few be- 
 side myself — I am now a very rich man, — so rich 
 that I can dwell in luxury and splendor in any coun- 
 try in the world. I have been rich for two years; 
 and for two years I have travelled, while my men 
 drove up and down the country with these carts and 
 mules. This journey is the last of its kind that I 
 shall make, and I make it for a far greater purpose 
 than to sell those pots and jars. And I was once 
 a peon, had never seen a city, and could not read or 
 write. Is it not strange what changes a few years 
 will make in the life of a man ? 
 
 ** I was born on an hacienda that lies in a valley of 
 the mountains that are east of the great hacienda of 
 Santa Barbara, which place you must have seen on 
 
ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 your way here. My mother and the man who was 
 called my father were in debt to the hacendadoy as 
 were all the people who dwelt on his lands; and I 
 was taught that I, too, was responsible for those debts, 
 and that because of them I could not leave the employ 
 of my patron. I cared not, for I was but a boy. I 
 knew nothing of the world that lay beyond the valley 
 where I was born; and but for the fact that a girl fell 
 into the water of a lake, and was rescued by me, I 
 think I might yet be on that hacienda. And it might 
 be, too, that I would be a happier man if that were 
 true. 
 
 " It was rumored that I was not the son of the 
 man who was called my father. When my mother 
 was a girl, and just before she was taken to wife, a 
 young Don, whose name I have never heard, paid 
 a visit to the family of the patron. My mother was 
 pretty, and it was said by the old ones that the 
 Don was my father. The man remained on the 
 hacienda but a short time, and his name was not 
 learned by any of the w^orking people. I know not 
 if this tale be true or false; for my mother died when 
 I was yet a boy, and she told me nothing of the 
 matter. 
 
 *' At first, of course, I did nothing but play in the 
 sand in front of our jacal. Then they began to send 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 23 
 
 me to help the boys with the herds; and, when I had 
 grown older, I was put in charge of a flock of sheep, 
 and much of my time was spent alone, away from the 
 other people. 
 
 "When I was almost a man, there came to visit 
 at the hacienda a rich family from Ciudad Aguas 
 Calientes. The family was made up of the father, 
 the mother, a youth a year or two younger than my- 
 self, and a Sefiorita who was fourteen or fifteen years 
 old. They were great friends of our patro?iy and 
 much gayety was known at the great residencia while 
 they were there. 
 
 " One day I returned with my sheep, put them 
 safely in the corrals, and was walking alone by the side 
 of the great presa, or artificial lake, in which were 
 stored up the waters for irrigation. When I came near 
 a little grove that is on the side of the presa farthest 
 from the buildings, I heard a scream. At first, I knew 
 not what to do; but, after standing like a dumb goat 
 for a moment, I ran swiftly to the grove, and saw that 
 a young woman was struggling in the water, and that 
 she was very near to death from drowning. It was 
 the young Senorita who was visiting at the hacienda. 
 Being alone in the grove, she had taken off her shoes 
 to wade in the water and enjoy its coolness; and she 
 had stepped off a steep place, and gone beyond her 
 depth. 
 
24 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ** I could swim but little; but I sprang at once into 
 the presay and reached the girl just as she was sinking 
 for the last time. She clung to me, and struggled so 
 violently that at first she carried me into the deeper 
 water and away from the shore. I struggled toward 
 the shore, although I greatly feared that we would both 
 drown; but, just as the last breath seemed leaving my 
 body and the last strength going from my limbs, I 
 got to where I could touch the bottom with my foot. 
 This gave me hope; and I struggled on, and in time 
 reached the bank. We were both so exhausted that, 
 when we reached the bank, we fell down, and lay like 
 two persons who were dead. I recovered strength 
 first, and realized that the Sefiorita was in great danger 
 from the water she had swallowed. I halloed for 
 help, but none came. Then I took up the almost 
 lifeless body of the girl, placed her, face downward, 
 across a log, and moved her backward and forward, 
 in spite of her groans, until she was well. She soon 
 felt better; but she was very weak, and I ran to my 
 jacaly where I had a bottle of mescal concealed, got 
 it, returned to the maiden, and poured some of it 
 down her throat. The liquor warmed her blood and 
 put life into her, and soon she sat up and was almost 
 well. She wrung the water from her clothes, with 
 my serape she dried her face and hands, and then she 
 sat down on the stump of a tree and looked at me. 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 25 
 
 ** It is the truth, Senor, that in all my life, asleep 
 or awake, I had never seen or dreamed of any one so 
 beautiful as was that girl. Her hair was soft and long, 
 and as black as the rain-clouds of summer. The light 
 of the dawn had gotten into her dark eyes, and her 
 form was as are the forms seen in the most beautiful 
 pictures in the cathedrals. She smiled upon me; she 
 took my hand in hers, and kissed it; and she thanked 
 me for saving her life, I remaining silent all the time, 
 for I knew not what to say. She then asked my 
 name. I answered: — 
 
 ** * My name is Antonio Salcido. I am of the 
 herdsmen, and it was by chance that I passed here 
 and heard you scream. You need not thank me, for 
 I have done only what a man should do. ' 
 
 '* She then offered me her purse, which I refused 
 to take; and I think she saw in my face that I was 
 grieved that she should think I would take hire for 
 saving her life. She then said to me: — 
 
 *'* Antonio, my name is Marie Concepcion Tre- 
 vino. I dwell in the city of Aguas Calientes, and 
 with my parents I am visiting at this hacienda. 
 While you are but a pilado, you are in all ways like 
 a gentleman. You have done me a great service, — 
 you have saved my life, — and from this time forth I 
 shall be your friend. Tell me, is there anything I 
 
26 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 can do for you ? My life is full and rich, yours must 
 be empty and poor, and there must be something I 
 can do to make you happier. Tell me what it is. ' 
 
 ** Being alone so much in the desert with the sheep, 
 and spending my time in thinking and dreaming of 
 things far removed from the poverty of my life, caused 
 me to be different in many ways from the class to 
 which I belonged, else I should not have dared to do 
 as I did. As I gazed into her beautiful eyes, I forgot 
 for a moment that she was rich and I was poor, that 
 she was a lady and I but a peon. I knew only that 
 I was young and she was young, that I knew not fear, 
 and that she was more beautiful than a dream. And 
 I said to her: — 
 
 ** * Senorita, in saving you I have given myself 
 more happiness than I ever knew before in all the 
 years of my life. I would give my life rather than 
 that you should be injured in the least. I desire no 
 reward, and would take none. But, if you will, you 
 can make me happier than though you should give me 
 all the wealth in the world. You are more beautiful 
 than any woman I shall ever see again in this world 
 or the next; and, if you will let me hold you in my 
 arms but for an instant, and press your lips in one 
 single kiss, I shall be happier than though I were a 
 saint.' 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 27 
 
 <* The maiden gazed upon me for a moment with 
 a shy smile upon her face, then a mist came into her 
 eyes, and then she impulsively threw her arms about 
 my neck, and pressed upon my lips a kiss that was 
 sweeter than any other kiss ever given to a man by a 
 woman since the world began. She then said, — 
 
 ***This must be kept as a secret between us.' 
 And, turning, she ran down the path and out of the 
 grove. 
 
 ** I saw her by stealth a few times, and we grew 
 very fond of each other; but soon she and her family 
 returned to their home, and I thought she would soon 
 forget me. But the young priest who dwelt on our 
 hacienda came to me, and said that the young Senorita 
 had asked him to teach me; and he began to give me 
 instruction. And then I found that my work was 
 made easier for me, and favors of many kinds were 
 shown me. The priest said the young Senorita had 
 spoken to the patron about me. For two years more 
 I dwelt on the hacienda, spending much of my time 
 in study, but never hearing a word from the beautiful 
 girl whose memory was in my mind by night and by 
 day. 
 
 ** And then my patron died, and I was told that he 
 had forgiven me my debts and that I was free. A 
 few dollars were given me, and I was told that I 
 
28 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 might go away if I cared to. And I walked all the 
 way to Aguas Calientes, hoping that, if I dwelt in that 
 city, I might some day see the beautiful Marie. 
 
 *' I hired a poor lodging far out on Calle Ojo 
 Caliente; and every day I walked in the plaza and on 
 the streets, hoping to see her whom I sought. It was 
 not long until my money was all gone, and I had to 
 seek employment. I had been taught to braid the 
 rush mats used in so many houses; and I found em- 
 ployment at this work, going from house to house, and 
 weaving the mats to fit the rooms where they were to 
 be used. A young man was my partner in this work, 
 and he knew all the great houses in the city. One 
 day he told me we were to go to repair mats at the 
 house of Senor Trevino; and my heart almost burst 
 with joy, for I thought I might then be able to see 
 Marie. I knew the house, and I had haunted its 
 outer walls so much that I feared the gendarmes would 
 suspect me of trying to rob it; but I had never seen 
 Marie even once. 
 
 **We went the next day, and worked on a mat 
 that was in a big room on the second floor. In the 
 afternoon my companion felt ill, and went to his home; 
 and I worked on alone. And, after I had worked for 
 an hour or two, Marie, and an old woman who was 
 her duenna, came into the room. My head was 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 29 
 
 bent low over the mat; and I feared to look up, for I 
 thought I should faint. But tears came into my eyes, 
 and I could not refrain from looking at her. She 
 knew me at once, she called out my name, and then 
 she looked upon me with love shining from her won- 
 drous eyes. 
 
 **' Marie,' said the duenna, 'what does this 
 mean ? How is it that you know this man, and what 
 is he to you that you should look so upon him ? ' 
 
 ** * It is Antonio, nurse, — he of whom I told 
 you,' said Marie. * Now, if you love me, and will 
 be a good nurse, go and leave us alone.' 
 
 **And the duenna, to whom the slightest wish of 
 her mistress was law, went away and left us alone. 
 Marie gazed at me for a moment, and my fear left 
 me. Again I forgot that I was poor and she was 
 rich. Again I forgot all but that I loved her, and 
 again I took her in my arms. I had suffered much in 
 longing for her, and I wept as I held her. And she 
 told me that she loved me as much as I loved her. 
 
 ** She said her family had gone away after the 
 time of the siesta, and she and the duenna were alone 
 in the house, and we would be safe until five o'clock. 
 And then we sat, clasped in each other's arms, and 
 were happier than people can be but a few times in 
 life. She was as beautiful as a dream, as innocent as 
 
30 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 a babe; and she loved me with all the fervor and 
 purity of a first love. And, w^hen it seemed that only 
 an instant had passed, it was time for me to go. 
 
 **I went to the house the next day to complete my 
 task, but I saw nothing of Marie; but a few days 
 after an old priest sought me at my lodging, and told 
 me a friend of mine and his had engaged him to in- 
 struct me, and that I was not to pay him. He taught 
 me English, he gave me many books to read; but I 
 could never get him to talk of the friend who had sent 
 him, and whom I knew to be Marie. 
 
 *< One morning at sunrise I was standing by the 
 western gate of the garden of San Marcos, when 
 Marie and the duenna passed by, going to early mass. 
 They saw me, the duenna stepped forward, and for a 
 moment my loved one lay in my arms. But before 
 we had said a dozen words I was rudely grasped; and 
 her brother stood before us, his face writhing in 
 passion. 
 
 ** * Go away,' said Marie to me. * Go away, and 
 do not fight my brother; for he will kill you.' 
 
 **I turned, and went away; and that afternoon a 
 woman I did not know stopped me on the street and 
 gave me a note. It was from Marie. It said she 
 was locked in her room in disgrace for having been 
 seen in the arms of a common piladoy and that her 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 31 
 
 brother had sworn to kill me on sight. She said for 
 me to walk to the old baths, below the city, at sun- 
 down, and I would be met by some one who would 
 tell me what to do. So I remained in my room all 
 day, and at sundown I walked to the baths. There 
 I was met by the duenna, who — hastily, and with 
 many looks up and down the road — told me she had 
 intended to bring money to me, but her mistress could 
 not give it to her without exciting suspicion; and she 
 told me to go to the town of Mapimi, far to the north, 
 where I should go to a cantiha called the Cantina of 
 the Desert, kept by a man whose wife had been 
 Marie's first nurse, and who had raised her until she 
 was twelve years old. This nurse had married and 
 gone to Mapimi, and she would fall down and wor- 
 ship the devil himself if Marie Trevino should so 
 command her. The duenna said I would find money 
 awaiting me with this woman, and then I must leave 
 Mexico, or at any rate keep away from Aguas 
 Calientes; and, when she had given her message, 
 she hastened away as though she were pursued by evil 
 spirits. 
 
 **I turned to walk back to the city to get my few 
 belongings before setting out to Mapimi, and on the 
 way I met the brother of Marie on horseback. When 
 he saw me, his face turned livid, and he cut me across 
 the face with his riding whip. 
 
32 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ** I had tried to evade the man, but the blow of his 
 whip was something I would not brook. I grasped 
 him by the leg, drew him from his horse, and soon he 
 was lying breathless and senseless in the dust, while 
 his frightened horse raced back to the city. I knew 
 the man was only stunned, and not killed; but I knew 
 I should be thrown into prison if it were known that 
 I had fought him. So, without getting my belong- 
 ings, and with but a little money in my pocket, I 
 turned my face to the north, and set out on the long 
 journey to Mapimi in the desert. 
 
 ** I am a prosperous man now, and know what it 
 is to be able to eat when I hunger and to sleep at 
 night in a bed. I am rich, too; but that is a newer 
 thing. Yet I am assured by it that the future holds 
 much of luxury and comfort for me. But when my 
 thoughts turn back to that terrible journey to Mapimi, 
 or when I dream of it at night, my heart turns cold, 
 and I feel that death would be welcome now if I 
 thought I should have again to face anything so 
 terrible. In all the country north of Zacatecas — 
 that sterile country that is poor enough at best — 
 there had been a drought for years. The land was 
 parched, the poor huts of the peons were tumbling 
 down from dry decay, the grass was withered, and the 
 trees drooped and died. The poor people drowsily 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 33 
 
 slept in the sun, for there was no work to do; and the 
 naked and half-starved children were too listless to 
 even play. 
 
 " I would not beg; and, even if I had, I would have 
 fared badly, for, while our poor people are generous, 
 they, like all people, think first of themselves, I 
 bought food with what little money I had, and then 
 I existed by doing odd pieces of work. My food 
 was never more than a few tortillas and a handful of 
 beans, and often it was nothing. I slept at night on 
 the dry sands, and in the mornings I awoke and 
 staggered forward on my weary way. The merciless 
 sun would beat down on me, and I would be so hot 
 and thirsty that I could hear my own blood surging 
 and ringing in my ears. Sometimes I could see the 
 mirages far off by the mountains. Lakes of shimmer- 
 ing blue would spread, seemingly, for miles; trees 
 could be seen growing upon the banks; and some- 
 times there would be towns and ships, or green fields 
 with cattle and sheep feeding on the grass. Then 
 the mirage would fade, and again would be the 
 deadening sun and the swirling eddies of hot sands 
 that beat into my face and the hunger that was gnaw- 
 ing my vitals. I grew thin and lean, my clothes wore 
 out, my sandals were but strips of leather tied to my 
 feet, my hat had been bartered for food, and my un- 
 
34 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 kempt hair was bound only in a strip of old cloth. 
 And it was thus — starving, discouraged, suffering, 
 almost ready to lie down on the cruel sands and die 
 — that I came to Mapimi in the desert, and found 
 there that the power of Marie Trevino's love had 
 gone before me, and had prepared a welcome, and 
 food and clothes and money and hope for me. 
 
 **A letter had gone before me to the wife of the 
 keeper of the cantina, and in it was three hundred 
 dollars in money. I was given food, clean and strong 
 clothes were bought for me, and I was a welcome 
 guest in the house of friends. I remained a few 
 weeks, resting and regaining strength, and talking to 
 men who came down to Mapimi from the mines. 
 Then I went to the mines myself, formed a partner- 
 ship with a man experienced in seeking veins of 
 mineral-bearing rock, and for two years I remained. 
 Then, my money being nearly gone, and I suffering 
 for news of Marie, I left our mining claims with my 
 partner, and made my way to the city of Aguas 
 Calientes. 
 
 ** I found that Marie and her family were again visit- 
 ing at the old hacienda in the mountains that had been 
 my home; and, as I did not desire to go there, I 
 walked across the hills and valleys to Guadalajara, — 
 that fair city that seems like a dream of Paradise, — 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 35 
 
 and there I invested my few remaining dollars in 
 pottery work, and set out as a corredoVy or pedler. I 
 went on foot at first, and at night slept under trees or 
 by hedges. But I thrived, and soon bought a burro. 
 In time I owned a cart, and had spare money in my 
 belt. And then, being well dressed and prosperous, 
 I went again to Aguas Calientes; and this time I 
 found Marie. 
 
 ** The old priest, who was her friend, and who 
 had befriended me and instructed me, was upon his 
 bed of death. Marie visited him often; and after 
 meeting me in the street, and leaving me after a hasty 
 word of welcome and love, she told the priest that I 
 was again in that city, and that she longed to see 
 me. The priest was a man who had looked deep into 
 the hearts of people, and he said to Marie that he 
 had learned that love was the only thing that mortals 
 ever knew that made life bearable or worth living; 
 and he said she might meet me in his house, where 
 we would be safe and free. We met there, and 
 from dark till the rising of the sun we were happier 
 than I ever hope to be again. Our meeting was 
 clandestine, and we knew that it might be years 
 before we should see each other again. But with 
 youth's faculty for enjoying, without forebodings of 
 the future, we loved, and loved, and were happy. I 
 
36 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 could tell you of what we said, and did, and hoped, 
 and prayed, and enjoyed; but all people who have 
 loved need not be told, for they can divine these 
 things. And when, in later and unhappy years, I 
 have prayed for death, — for sweet, peaceful, un- 
 troubled death, — I have prayed that at least once in 
 the eternity of the future of souls I may know one 
 more such blissful time as I knew that night. 
 
 ** Before we could meet there again, the priest 
 died; and, as it was not safe for me to remain in that 
 city, I went again upon my journeys with my mules 
 and cart. I thought always of Marie. I dreamed 
 of her at night, and in imagination I saw her every 
 hour of the day; but two years passed before I heard 
 of her again. For, although I loved her, I am a 
 gentleman; and I knew she would be disgraced if 
 the secret of our love should come to her high-born 
 friends in Aguas Calientes, and I did not go there. 
 
 **Then again I went to Aguas Calientes, and in 
 the plaza I met Marie's duenna. I spoke to her, she 
 knew me, and she said that if I would be in the same 
 place on the following evening, she would come to me 
 with a message. She came, put a letter in my hands, 
 and fled as though she feared I was possessed of some 
 disease that would contaminate her. I opened the 
 letter and held it in my hand, looking at it for a long 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY i^-j 
 
 rime before I read it. I think I felt much as does a 
 soul when it goes before the great seat of judgment. 
 The letter might tell me that Marie sdll loved me, 
 and that she would go away with me from the splen- 
 dors and unhappiness of her life, and be happy with 
 me. I hoped this, too; for my mine was earning 
 profits, and my business had thrived, and I could 
 keep her in comfort. But it might be, too, that the 
 letter would say that she no longer loved me, that 
 maturer years had brought better knowledge, and she 
 knew her love had been but the fantasy of a girlish 
 fancy. I looked at the letter, wondering whether 
 it were a blessed messenger of joy or an accursed har- 
 binger of evil. And then I read it, and found that it 
 was neither and both. 
 
 ** She wrote me that she loved me with a purer, 
 truer, more devoted love than she had bestowed upon 
 me before, — loved me so much that she prayed for 
 me constantly, and pined me more than she did any 
 one in the world, not excepring herself, — that she 
 would love me always, as the Virgin loves her devo- 
 tees, as a mother loves her babe, or as a sister loves 
 her brother; but that she could not love me as sweet- 
 hearts love, or as wives love their husbands. She 
 said that her father was dead, that the fortunes of the 
 family were ruined, and that she soon was to be mar- 
 
38 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ried to a man she did not love and could never love, 
 but whom she respected and venerated. 
 
 **And that was all. And from then until now I 
 have had no faith in women and but little in men, 
 and sometimes my faith in God has wavered; for I 
 had placed all my trust and faith and hope at that 
 woman's feet, and had believed in her, and believed 
 in all good things because of my belief in her. Yet, 
 with flimsy platitudes and empty protestations of an 
 empty kind of love, she had cast me aside. She had 
 said I was never to see her, and I knew that I could 
 go out of her life wath no more pain to her than a 
 child feels at casting aside a broken toy. And I 
 wandered up and down the streets of the city, striving 
 to make myself believe I hated her, and finding that 
 I loved her as much as I did when she had nestled 
 in my arms, pressed her lips to mine, and swore she 
 loved me above her hopes for her soul's salvation. 
 That was the pity of it. If I could have hated her 
 it would have been better for me; but, in all the years 
 that have passed since then, I cannot learn to hate her 
 nor to lessen my love for her by one jot or one iota. 
 
 ** I no longer feared the danger of disgracing her, 
 and I no longer moved in secrecy. I met her brother 
 in the street, stopped him, challenged him to fight 
 me with knives or pistols, and was surprised that he 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 39 
 
 went from me, looking at me with more of an expres- 
 sion of pity than of fear or hatred. I met the duenna 
 again, and she tried to avoid me; hut I grasped her 
 arm and made her talk. She said but Httle, telHng 
 me only that the Senorita could not see me, and that 
 she was soon to wed. And then, being a woman, 
 she gave utterance to the trouble that was nearest her 
 heart, which was that the family fortunes were in such 
 ruin that her mistress could not buy a wedding outfit 
 suited to a handsome woman who was to wed a rich 
 man, and that pride forbade the fact being made 
 known to the man. 
 
 **I was almost in a frenzy of disappointment and 
 desperation and thwarted love; but at the same time 
 I felt sorry for the woman that I so madly loved, and 
 I took five hundred dollars from my belt, pressed it in 
 the hand of the duenna, and told her to see to it that 
 Marie was wed as became a lady. I told her, too, 
 that it was but paying back a debt I had owed ever 
 since I got the money at IVIapimi. And then I rushed 
 away from the old duenna, who stood weeping in the 
 street. 
 
 ** I drove with my carts to this town of Silao, 
 scarcely trying to trade on the way. And, when I 
 came here, I became drunken, and shouted through 
 the streets, and fought men who spoke to me, and 
 
40 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 terrorized even the peace officers of the place. And 
 then I left my business with hired men, and went to 
 my mines in the north. 
 
 **Five years have gone by since then, Senor, — 
 five miserable years that seem to me like five hopeless 
 eternities. I learned that Marie was wed to a rich 
 man of Guanajuato, and dwells now in a home that 
 is like a palace, and that she is loved by all the peo- 
 ple of that city. Once each year I send one of my 
 men to that city; and he sells the wares of Guadala- 
 jara, and at the same time learns all he can of Marie 
 and her husband and her life. He can be trusted; 
 and he can find out all things, for the serving-women 
 of Marie talk to him, and they know of her life. 
 
 **Well, in five years I have found that I cannot 
 kill my love for her. I have learned, too, that she is 
 unhappy, and that there is no love between her and 
 her husband. Knowing this meant nothing to me 
 until I went to Aguas Calientes two years ago. 
 There I met my old partner of the mines, an old 
 man whose hair is now gray, and whom I trust as 
 myself. When I was last at the mines they were 
 earning a profit; but, soon after I left, a rich ledge of 
 quartz was found, and my partner sold the mines to 
 some Americans for two million Mexican dollars. 
 He went to Aguas Calientes to meet me and tell me 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 41 
 
 the good news; and together we went by train to the 
 City of Mexico, where I bought English exchange 
 with my money. When my money was in my 
 pocket, I thought first of going to Marie to see if my 
 wealth would not tempt her to fly with me and leave 
 her unloved husband. But I conquered myself, and 
 went instead to the United States. For two years I 
 have been away from Mexico, journeying like one to 
 whom all places are hateful. I have wandered from 
 New Orleans to San Francisco, then to New York, 
 then to London and Paris. But all the time my de- 
 sire has been with the wife of a man who is a stranger 
 to me, and all the time I have been resistlessly drawn 
 toward her. At last I could stand it no longer. My 
 wealth seemed like a hateful thing to me, the cities I 
 visited seemed Hke hollow and lifeless places; and I 
 returned to Mexico, donned again my old costume, 
 because it is an effectual disguise, and, with the men 
 who have been in my employ all the time I was 
 away, I am now on my way to Guanajuato. My 
 fortune has not been dissipated. I have it all in 
 drafts. The drafts are now safely sewed into my belt; 
 and I am here with my carts and mules only because 
 as a pedler I can more surely see Marie when I 
 reach Guanajuato than I could if I went as a rich 
 Senor. When I reach Guanajuato and have seen her. 
 
42 
 
 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 no matter how my visit results, I shall give my carts 
 to my men, and Mexico shall know me no more. 
 
 ** Seiior, I am journeying to Guanajuato to strive to 
 induce the Senora Marie to elope with me. I love 
 her so much that I am willing to sin so much as that 
 for the chance of being happy with her. I think she 
 has been unfaithful to me, — that she is as a woman 
 who casts her virtue from her ; for a woman who is 
 false to her plighted lover is but as a harlot, even 
 though she be wedded and true to her husband. I 
 have thought of all these things. I have tried to 
 bring before my eyes the time that will surely come 
 when my loathing for her infidelity will grow stronger 
 than my love, and I shall come to hate her. That 
 time will come; and, when it does, I may go insane. 
 I may kill her and then kill myself, I may become so 
 low that I will keep on living with her, drowning my 
 hatred for her faithlessness in drink and dissipation; 
 but I pray that I may yet be enough of a man so that 
 I shall then give her my fortune, and go from her 
 forever. It is not that future time that troubles me, 
 though; for now my love and my longing and my 
 deferred hope are so strong that I am willing to have 
 her love at any price, even to the loss of my self- 
 respect. 
 
 ** I think she may go with me, for surely she loved 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 43 
 
 me once ; and, while a woman's love is but a bauble 
 compared with a man's, it cannot be that all that love 
 is gone from her heart. And it may be, too, that I 
 misjudge her, that she is more sinned against than 
 sinning, and that she was forced into her hideous mar- 
 riage to cover up some dishonor of her father, who 
 died a pauper while telling his family to hide its pov- 
 erty and not reveal it even to Marie's bridegroom. 
 It must be thus; for gentle Marie, an angel in the 
 form of a loving woman, could not be, cannot be, as 
 vile and false as I have thought she is. No, it can- 
 not be that she is anything but pure and good. And 
 she loves me. And with her I shall find the happi- 
 ness that I never knew, and together we shall forget 
 the horror of the five years that she has been the un- 
 loved and unloving wife of a man whom I hate above 
 all the men in the world. It must be thus, Senor. 
 And I am sorry that I spoke of my doubts of her to 
 you; for deep down in my heart I know she is the 
 purest and best of women, and that her seeming falsity 
 is but some hideous mistake. Forget, Sefior, that 
 I spoke doubtingly of her. Forgive me, too, for 
 telling you my doleful tale. I had not meant to tell 
 you so much; but the things that are uppermost in my 
 heart came to my tongue, and I have talked more 
 than I intended. And now good-night." 
 
44 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 I saw that the man desired to be alone, and I told 
 him good-night, and left him. I might have said 
 much to him, but I felt that it would all sound hollow 
 and meaningless and empty to him; and I merely- 
 pressed his hand. 
 
 When I reached the hotel, I turned and looked 
 back at him, and saw him still sitting on the bench, 
 his head hung in his hands. He seemed to me the 
 living embodiment of a tragedy. Fate had been 
 kind to him in giving him the things men deem desir- 
 able. He was rich and young and intelligent. He 
 might travel over the world, and dwell in luxury, 
 and do the thing that seemed to him the best to do, 
 if it were not for the hunger in his heart for the love 
 of a school-girl he had met and known and fancied 
 when he was but an ignorant boy. But, after all, the 
 words of the old priest might be true; and it may be 
 that love is the only thing mortals find in their span 
 of life that is worth knowing or having or remember- 
 ing. And, if that were true, this Mexican was as 
 much to be pitied as though he were yet a peon. 
 
 The man had laid his heart bare to me, and the 
 sight of it was not pleasant. He loved the woman 
 with a fierce love befitting the fierce blood of his race, 
 and doubted her as fiercely; and yet he strove to be- 
 lieve in her, and keep her memory pure, and to 
 believe that she was not false to him. 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 45 
 
 I thought idly of how he would fare on this 
 strange expedition, — of how the cultured, luxurious, 
 grand lady would meet the roughly clad man with 
 whom she had been indiscreet when she was young 
 and thoughtless. I believed, of course, that their 
 meeting would be short, — fierce on the man's side 
 and cold on the woman's. And that she would 
 treat him well, or even see him, would be only 
 because he had it in his power to disgrace her in 
 her husband's eyes by telling of the past. I feared 
 for the woman, too; for the Mexican blood is hot 
 and savage, the man was almost crazed, and desperate 
 men are often the embodiments of ferocious fate. 
 
 The next morning, when we arose, we noticed 
 that the carts were gone. After strolling through 
 the narrow streets of Silao, we took a train for 
 Guanajuato; and again we began the pleasant task 
 of exploring a Mexican city. We climbed the steep 
 streets, through which no wheeled wagon could go. 
 We visited the quartel, where the soldiers and officers 
 acted as though their sole mission in Hfe was to make 
 our visit pleasant. We climbed to the weird panteon, 
 where the mummies of citizens whose names are yet 
 remembered were pointed out to us by a sexton who 
 seemed half ghoul. We listened to the music of the 
 organ in the cathedral, and looked upon the misery 
 
46 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 of the prisoners in the ill-starred Alhondiga, made 
 famous by the inspired madness of Hidalgo. We 
 went at night to a quaint ceremony in a church; and 
 the next day we again explored the city, and talked 
 to its people, and enjoyed the strangeness of this 
 quaintest and most picturesque city in all Mexico. 
 
 At twelve at night I became restless; and, as the 
 plaza is just in front of the hotel, I went there to 
 smoke a cigar and walk off the restlessness. Homeless 
 brown mothers, with their babes at their breasts, 
 were asleep on the benches in the plaza, — living, 
 suffering evidences of centuries of Mexican wrong. 
 From far up one of the steep streets music could be 
 heard; and the watchmen, with their lanterns, were 
 seen at the corners. Sitting alone on a bench, under 
 the glare of an electric light, I saw a man, his head 
 bowed in his hands, and who was a picture of abso- 
 lute dejection. I wondered at first if he were drunk. 
 Then I thought he might be one who had risked and 
 lost his all at gaming, and was meditating whether he 
 should go to work and begin his life anew, or blow 
 his brains out. And then he chanced to raise his 
 head; and I saw that it was Antonio Salcido, the 
 former peon^ the millionaire, the mad lover. 
 
 He saw me. At first he turned his eyes away. 
 Then he spoke to me. 
 
ANTONIO SALCIDO'S STORY 47 
 
 "Did you find the lady?" I asked. I felt that 
 the question was almost silly, but the look of abject 
 misery in the man's eyes made it impossible to say 
 anything sensible or sane or that should be said. 
 
 *'I have seen her," said Salcido; and again he 
 dropped his face into his hands. 
 
 "And — and she refuses to go with you?" I 
 hazarded. For, like most people who know part 
 of a story, I was anxious to know the sequel, even 
 though it tore the man's heart to tell me. 
 
 "Sefior," said the man, raising his eyes and look- 
 ing up into the night, "I have seen the woman. 
 She is as pure as an angel. She loves me so much 
 that she would die for me. And, as I have told 
 you so much of my miserable story, I will tell you 
 what more there is. The young Don who came to 
 the hacienda where I was born was the same man 
 who was Marie's father. He sinned with my 
 mother at the hacienda, and I am his son. There- 
 fore, Marie is my sister. When her father lay on 
 his death-bed, he told her; and she knew I was her 
 brother. It was because of this that I could not see 
 her five years ago in Aguas Calientes. It was be- 
 cause of this that she married. It was because of this 
 that she is almost as unhappy as I am. And, — and 
 the worst of it is, friend, that death will not come 
 
48 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 to those who pray so much for it, and whose only 
 hope is for it and in it." 
 
 The man relapsed again into silence; and I was 
 silent, too, for I felt that I was in the presence of a 
 grief too deep to be spoken of with idle words. 
 After a time the man again spoke to me. He said: — 
 
 ** I had a lover, and wanted her for a wife. In- 
 stead of as a lover or wife, God has given her to me 
 as a sister. I know not whether I should forgive 
 God or ask God to forgive me." 
 
Santa Beatriz 
 
 ONE autumn day an American traveller was 
 leisurely journeying down a small agricultural 
 valley in one of the central states of the great 
 Mexican plateau. He had as guide a Mexican, who 
 had driven him from a city in a buckboard drawn by 
 two wiry mules. He travelled slowly, as he had no 
 reason for making haste; and each fresh scene was so 
 interesting that he was loath to leave it. 
 
 The water of acequias rippled in the stone-walled 
 fields, corn, beans, alfalfa, and melons grew in odd 
 little plats, groves of orange-trees lent color to the 
 landscape, and brown mountains rose skyward in 
 the farther distance. They passed haciendas built 
 like fortresses, commanding great estates, where hun- 
 dreds of poor peons toiled like slaves, so that their 
 masters might live in profligate splendor. In every 
 village and at every hacienda there arose the cross 
 that indicated the chapel, and the driver reverently 
 bared his head to each of them. Occasionally a 
 man astride an ambling, sleepy burro, or an ox-team 
 drawing a creaking wooden-wheeled cart, would be 
 met; and sombreros were always raised to the stranger. 
 And over all was the matchless sky of Mexico, — 
 that sky of perfect blue, whose color can be seen in no 
 other place except in a baby's eyes. 
 49 
 
50 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 The day was fine, the air delicious, the surround- 
 ings picturesque; and the traveller leaned back in his 
 seat, and enjoyed himself to perfection. The driver 
 babbled away on simple themes, explaining the points 
 of interest, and recounting little anecdotes of the peo- 
 ple who dwelt in the valley. He had been as far to 
 the north as San Antonio. He prided himself on his 
 English speech, and he sometimes spoke to the trav- 
 eller in that language. The driver's jargon was little 
 heeded by the traveller, whose mind was busy, in an 
 indolent way, with musing on the lot and the life of 
 the people in whose land he was a sojourner. It 
 seemed to him that the ceaseless rush for wealth and 
 the greed for place that prevailed in his own country, 
 and which engrossed him as it did his fellows, was a 
 species of madness; that the better way for life to be 
 spent would be to have a cot and a little field in this 
 fair valley, where the sky was always blue and the 
 air always fresh, and where the songs of the birds 
 could always be heard coming from the hedges and 
 groves. 
 
 As the afternoon sun was dipping toward the range 
 of jagged hills, the travellers came to an hacienda that 
 was much larger and more pretentious than any they 
 had seen in the valley. The ** residencia " was of two 
 stories, was built around a patio, and was large enough 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 51 
 
 to have given shelter to a regiment of men. Groves 
 of oranges, prickly pears, and thunder-trees surrounded 
 it; and the tops of some towering cottonwoods could 
 be seen above its walls. Joined to the residence was 
 a great building, also built around a patio, with walls 
 slit in a hundred places with portholes for rifles, and 
 with a sentry-box at each corner. The windows of 
 both buildings were barred with iron, and the great 
 gate that was the means of entrance was closed and 
 locked. Instead of the miserable hamlet o^jacals that 
 usually flanks the great buildings of an hacienda, there 
 were but a few cottages; and they were embowered in 
 vines and surrounded by trees and blooming roses. 
 At a little distance were some large corrals; and sur- 
 rounding all the buildings were numerous fields, all 
 larger and better tilled than any the travellers had seen 
 on their journey, and each containing a well-built 
 little house. The traveller noticed that a cross sur- 
 mounted the gateway to the residencia, and that a 
 much larger cross arose from within the enclosure. 
 The place, however, seemed deserted. No men 
 were at work, and no sign of life came from the great 
 buildings. The traveller supposed it to be the 
 hacienda of some rich patron, to whom many or all 
 of the poorer residents of the valley were peoned. He 
 noticed, too, with some surprise, that songs came from 
 
52 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 the laborers in the fields, and that the few men he had 
 met near the place seemed to have happy faces, and 
 did not wear the look of patient misery and hopeless 
 resignation that is seen upon the faces of the down- 
 trodden millions of Mexican laborers. 
 
 ** Whose house is this, Sanchez? " he asked of his 
 guide. 
 
 ** I do not know," stammered Sanchez, looking 
 steadfastly away from his companion. 
 
 ** Why is it that you do not know this place, when 
 you know every hacienda and jacaly every man and 
 woman, in the valley ? Come, tell me whose ha- 
 cienda this is." 
 
 Sanchez was making heroic efforts to whip his lazy 
 mules into a brisker trot and leave the place; but his 
 guest took the lines, and stopped the team. Sanchez 
 then explained that it was not good for them to re- 
 main there, that strangers were not liked, that there 
 might even be danger. 
 
 ** Danger of what?" asked the impatient traveller. 
 "Is this place a prison, or a convent, or an insane 
 asylum ? ' ' 
 
 **It — it is private, — very, very private," stut- 
 tered the driver. **The people who dwell here do 
 not like visitors. Travellers hasten always by this 
 place, and it is better that they should. We must 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 53 
 
 go." And he hit the patient mules resounding 
 whacks with his braided whip. 
 
 Just then the big gate of the place swung open, and 
 two tall Mexicans took their stand at either side of the 
 entrance. They looked straight ahead of them, seem- 
 ing not to see the two men in the buckboard. 
 
 **We must go! We must go!" said Sanchez, 
 nervously trying to take the lines from his companion. 
 
 <* Why must we go ? What harm are we doing 
 here ? Unless you give me some good reason for 
 your foolish fright, I shall stay here all the afternoon, 
 and then try to secure lodging at this place for the 
 night. ' ' 
 
 ** No, Senor, no! Believe me, it is not well that 
 we tarry here. We must go from here instantly. 
 It is forbid that strangers tarry here." 
 
 ** Forbid by whom ? Why must we go unless we 
 want to ? " 
 
 The face of the carretaro writhed. He made 
 spasmodic clutches at the lines, which his companion 
 held in a firm grasp; and finally he said : — 
 
 **This is the house of the Santa Beatriz. It is the 
 hour when she goes forth to walk in the air. You 
 are not known to Santa Beatriz. You are a stranger, 
 and you have not faith. It is not allowed that the 
 unfaithful look upon her face. ' ' 
 
54 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 At this juncture a man, dressed in solemn black, 
 and bearing a staff of hickory wood, walked out from 
 the gateway, and, waving his billet toward the buck- 
 board, said the single sententious word, ** Vamos!'*'^ 
 
 The terror of the driver increased. He seemed 
 half-minded to throttle the foolish traveller, take the 
 lines from his grasp by sheer force, and hasten away. 
 
 But the American, thinking he was upon the track 
 of a mystery, would not have moved if he had been 
 commanded by half the soldiers in Mexico. 
 
 The man with the staff stood stock-still, surprised 
 that his command had not been obeyed; but before he 
 could repeat it there emerged from the gateway a 
 young girl, followed by a wrinkled old duenna. 
 The man with the staff took off his hat and bowed 
 reverently, for the instant utterly ignoring the men in 
 the buckboard. The two men at the gate also bowed, 
 and then followed the women, keeping at a respectful 
 distance behind, and occasionally casting malignant 
 glances at the intruding strangers. 
 
 The young woman who emerged from the great 
 gateway caused the traveller to stare in astonishment. 
 She seemed to him to be the most beautiful woman 
 he had ever seen, and he had a strange feeling that 
 he knew her or had once known her. She was of 
 medium height. Her figure, as it was disclosed by 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 55 
 
 her loose silken gown, was perfect in its proportions; 
 and her eyes were of that marvellous shade of black 
 that poets dream of and can never find words to 
 describe. Her hair was long and silken and black, 
 and fell over her fair brow in a pretty confusion. 
 Her complexion was as clear as a rose petal, and she 
 walked with the Hssorne elasticity of perfect health. 
 She was clad in a loose white robe, with short 
 sleeves. On her head was a white lace mantilla, and 
 diamonds glistened on her arms, wrists, and fingers. 
 She walked a few paces with her eyes cast upon the 
 ground in what seemed pleasant thought, for she 
 smiled slightly. Then she looked about her, and her 
 gaze fell upon the two men in the buckboard. She 
 cast her hand to her face in a pretty gesture of sur- 
 prise, then approached the wagon and saluted the 
 strangers in Spanish, with a voice whose accents 
 seemed sweeter to the traveller than any he had ever 
 heard before. The driver took off his hat and bowed 
 as though he were in the presence of the Holy 
 Mother; and the traveller gravely bowed, but made 
 no reply, as for the moment he was too much em- 
 barrassed and impressed to speak. 
 
 The old duenna clutched nervously at the sleeve 
 of the girl, striving to have her ignore the trespassers 
 and go with her. The three Mexicans, who 
 
56 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 seemed to be the girl's guard, huddled close to- 
 gether, tightly gripping their staffs, and evidently 
 only awaiting a word of command before springing 
 upon the strangers and driving them away. The 
 Senorita continued to smile upon the stranger, and 
 paid no heed to her companions. Sanchez, the 
 driver, seemed greatly frightened, and began be- 
 laboring the mules, and trying to take the lines from 
 his companion. 
 
 ** Sanchez, you dolt, be quiet! The Senorita will 
 think that we are both half-witted," said the traveller, 
 in English. 
 
 The terrified driver had no chance to reply, for 
 the young lady instantly said: — 
 
 ** So it is the English tongue that you speak, 
 Senor? I speak in the English the same as though 
 I had been born to a mother of that blood; and I 
 have known how to speak it ever since I can remem- 
 ber, — so long that it seems to me I was born with 
 the knowledge of that language in my brain. But 
 you are the first English-speaking man I have ever 
 seen, except my teachers, who were Mexicans and 
 Spaniards. Is it not strange? " 
 
 The traveller was at a loss how to answer this 
 beautiful vision that addressed him so familiarly. He 
 had seen no such woman in Mexico, and he felt a 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 57 
 
 shyness and hesitation that were new to him. Finally 
 he awkwardly said: — 
 
 '* I am pleased, Senorita, to find one in a strange 
 land who speaks so well the language of my own 
 country. I am a traveller journeying in Mexico for 
 the pleasure of seeing the country and its people." 
 
 The girl looked closely at him for a moment. 
 Her expression changed; and, turning to her com- 
 panion, she said rapturously, in EngHsh: — 
 
 **It is he, duenna! It is the man! It is he for 
 whose appearance I have so long waited, and whose 
 coming I have foretold to my people for so many 
 years. Smile and look glad, and rejoice with me; 
 for this is the happiest meeting in all my life ! ' ' 
 
 The duenna gave no answer to her charge, but, 
 addressing the stranger, said: — 
 
 ** There are many things, Senor, that we cannot 
 explain to you; and it may be that you do not care 
 for explanations. But, if you will go on your way, 
 and forget this hacienda and the people you have 
 seen here, it may be that you will be happier for 
 having done so." 
 
 ''Silence!" said the girl. **If you say one 
 word more to the stranger to-day, I will believe 
 that you do not love me. Do you have so little 
 faith that you think I can be mistaken?" 
 
58 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 " You may not be mistaken; but, even if you are 
 not, I think it better for the stranger to go his way,*' 
 said the duenna, quietly. 
 
 The girl did not answer her; but turning to the 
 traveller with a radiant smile, she said: — 
 
 ** You have come from afar. You have journeved 
 through the heat of the day, and along roads that 
 are cheerless and devoid of beauty. You have had 
 no companions save fools and those of dull under- 
 standing. But at the end of your journey you have 
 found me; and I will cause you to be so happy that 
 you will forget the fatigues and weariness you knew 
 while coming to me. Now alight, come within, 
 and you and I will forget that anything but peace 
 and joy has a place in the lives of mortals." 
 
 As though to assist him to alight, she held her soft 
 hand up to him. He took the hand mechanically, 
 but sat still upon the buckboard seat. 
 
 **You may kiss it," said the girl, looking at her 
 hand. 
 
 The traveller kissed her hand, his instinctive ad- 
 miration for her lending grace to the act. 
 
 **Now alight, and come." 
 
 The man alighted from the wagon, forgetting to 
 give any directions to his driver, and with the girl 
 walked toward the gate of the house. As they went, 
 she smiled into his face, and said: — 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 59 
 
 *< Look around you, and see the beauties of the 
 place to which you have journeyed in order that 
 you might be with me. See the haze that hovers 
 over the mountains in the far distance. Look upon 
 the stretches of mesa lands that rise from the valleys 
 and extend as far as our eyesight can carry. And in 
 the valley see the peaceful homes, the fertile fields, 
 the granaries bursting with riches, and the contented 
 people as they go about their toils with hght hearts 
 and happy faces and with songs upon their lips. 
 Have you ever in all your life seen so fair a land as is 
 this one which is my home?" 
 
 ''Never in all my life," said the traveller, fer- 
 vently. '*And never have I seen so fair a face as 
 yours, nor received so royal a welcome from a 
 stranger. ' ' 
 
 ** But we are not strangers, you and I," replied 
 the girl. 
 
 They passed into the arched gateway, the attend- 
 ants baring their heads as they passed the cross; and, 
 when they were within, the stranger gasped with as- 
 tonishment at the scene of beauty before him. The 
 patio was large, containing almost an acre of land; and 
 the portals of the house faced upon it from all sides. 
 Trees and beds of flowers and climbing vines grew 
 all about, and the patio was carpeted with a well-kept 
 
6o ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 lawn. Fountains played in various parts of the en- 
 closure, and at intervals there were statues of the 
 finest marble. Mosaic walks of many-colored stones 
 crossed the enclosure; and divans, easy-chairs, and 
 couches were upon the verandas. Quiet servants 
 passed silently from door to door about their work, 
 and some blooded dogs were lying asleep in the shade. 
 
 **This is my park," said Beatriz. ** Under the 
 shade o^ tht portales I read and dream; and, now that 
 you are with me, this place will be dearer to me than 
 it ever was before. ' ' 
 
 The stranger wondered what sort of woman this 
 was. At first he had thought that she was some 
 heiress, and this her ancestral home, where she ruled 
 with almost the power of old feudal times, as such 
 things are not unknown in the interior of Mexico. 
 Then the thought came to him that she might be 
 demented, for her actions and speech seemed to go 
 almost to the limits of sanity. Then he remembered 
 of having heard of women dwelling in remote regions 
 of Mexico, who are believed by the ignorant peas- 
 antry to be endowed with holy powers, and who are 
 worshipped as saints; and, as this woman was called 
 Santa Beatriz, he concluded that she was one of 
 these. But the magnetism of her presence took such 
 hold upon him that he did not give much time to idle 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 6i 
 
 speculation, allowing himself instead to enjoy the 
 happy present and wait for explanations to come 
 when the time was ripe for them. So he walked 
 across the patio with the girl, smiling when she 
 smiled, saying to himself that already he believed he 
 loved this girl more than he had ever believed it possi- 
 ble to love a woman, and wondering at the strange 
 feeling he had of having known her long and well at 
 some time in the past. 
 
 Beatriz led the way across the patio, under the 
 wide veranda, through a cool wide hall, into the in- 
 terior of the house. First they entered a room the 
 walls of which were dead white, which had but one 
 small window set high in the wall, and which was 
 but scantily furnished for so large a room. A white 
 carpet was upon the floor; and in the centre of the 
 room was a pallet, or couch, that had raised sides, 
 which gave only enough room for one person to lie 
 between them. It seemed like a cradle upon the legs 
 of a bed. By the side of this couch was a small 
 white table, upon which was a small bell, a pitcher 
 and glass, and a plate of fruit. At one side of the 
 room was an opening into another room, or hall; and 
 this opening was closely checkered with strong iron 
 bars, while behind the bars were a large easy-chair and 
 a footstool, both upholstered in white silk. 
 
62 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 "This is the room of the light," said Beatriz, 
 simply, as they passed through it. 
 
 They entered an adjoining room, as superbly fur- 
 nished as any Parisian boudoir, which the girl said was 
 her sleeping-room. They then went again through 
 the white room into the one opening into it from the 
 opposite side; and the girl, with a slight bow and a 
 smile, said: — 
 
 ** This is your room. You see I shall have you 
 near me all the time. When I am seeking the light, 
 you can leave your door ajar, and see that all is well 
 with me; and, when I have found the light and am 
 tired, here you and I can have our lunches served, 
 and I can talk to you and look upon you while you 
 rest and smoke. Is it not a pretty room? " 
 
 It was, indeed. It was of great size. The carpets 
 were so soft that the feet sank within them, fine pict- 
 ures were upon the walls, a book-case was in a corner, 
 there was a writing-desk, and a sideboard, upon which 
 were decanters, ash-trays, and cigars. It was a 
 veritable bachelor's snuggery, with big easy-chairs, 
 and footstools and divans, as well as all manner of 
 little comforts dear to the masculine heart. An elec- 
 tric button was in the wall, which the girl pressed, 
 and a servant appeared. 
 
 ** Wait upon the stranger. He has travelled far. 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 63 
 
 and is dust-stained and weary. Bathe him, and bring 
 him slippers and a loose gown," said the woman. 
 ** I will go now; but, when you are refreshed, I will 
 come again, and we shall eat together." And, with a 
 graceful courtesy, she left the room. 
 
 The servant was a trained valet; and he assisted 
 the man in making a fresh toilet, and brought him 
 slippers and a light dressing-gown. The traveller 
 tried to gain some information concerning his strange 
 hostess from the servant, but the man would say no 
 word. Soon a woman came, and announced that 
 ** Our lady awaits the stranger"; and he was con- 
 ducted to a cool place on the veranda, where a lunch 
 of fruits and wines was served, and where his beauti- 
 ful hostess awaited him. During the meal she talked 
 to him as though she had known him for years, — as 
 though he were, indeed, her lover returned to her 
 from a long absence; and the stranger forgot his re- 
 serve, and felt as though he had known her forever. 
 After the luncheon she gave him a fragrant cigar, and 
 smiled upon him as he smoked. 
 
 **Tell me of yourself," said he, as he leaned back 
 in his luxurious chair, and gazed into the sweet face by 
 his side. ** Who are you, from whence did you 
 come to this place, and why is it the people here 
 seem to worship you, and obey your slightest com- 
 
64 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 mand, and pay you homage as though you were a 
 queen ? " 
 
 •*I see I have much to teach you," said the girl, 
 smiling. ** I thought it might be that you, too, 
 knew the secret of finding the light, and knew of me 
 before you came. But in time I can make all those 
 things known to you. Now to tell you of myself. 
 I am Santa Beatriz, saint by inspiration, to whom all 
 things are made clear. I was born in this house 
 eighteen years ago, and the blood in my veins is 
 Spanish blood. My mother was gifted in a degree 
 with what is known as second sight ; and my father 
 was a devout man of much learning, who was known 
 to all the great priests of Mexico. My mother died 
 in giving me birth; and my father died ten years ago, 
 leaving me rich and with many fields and servants. 
 I grieved much for my father; and then there came 
 a time in my life when people said that I was crazed. 
 For hours and sometimes days I would lie uncon- 
 scious to all about me. But at those times my soul 
 was far away, and I was seeing stranger things than 
 have ever before been seen by a woman. I found I 
 could travel to the ends of the world, could see the 
 secrets hidden within the breast of the earth and 
 under the waters of the ocean, and could know things 
 that it was not given to others to know. I have mem- 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 65 
 
 ory of other lives that I have lived, and also visions 
 of lives yet to come. Of these things the world 
 knows but little. In India and Thibet are many 
 men, although but few women, who have the powers 
 and knowledge that have been given to me. Scien- 
 tists are groping for some of the truths that I know 
 without learning. They talk and write of the nous, 
 of the subjective mind and subjective soul, of the 
 astral body and soul memory; but to me all these 
 things are as open books, and parts of myself and of 
 my life. I am commanded to live out my life in this 
 valley. To the simple people here I am as a guide 
 and protector, and it is decreed that they shall wor- 
 ship me and obey me. There are a few other such 
 as I. Have you not heard of Santa Teresa, of So- 
 nora ? I am happy here in this beautiful valley, and 
 my people are happy. .Every night, for two hours 
 after midnight, I lie on that couch; and my soul goes 
 away, and learns of all the knowledge that is known in 
 the world. And at all times I can close my eyes and 
 learn what is good for my people. I cannot tell you 
 of the joy I obtain from these experiences. It is a 
 joy greater than any happiness known to mortals. I 
 lie back in my chair and close my eyes, and at once 
 the atmospheric waves begin to disclose themselves in 
 the direction of my wish. First the shimmering 
 
ee ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 waves are red, then purple, then blue; and, as they 
 change in color, they extend in length, until soon I 
 can see to the end of the world. I can look across 
 the ocean, under the mountains, down into the very 
 centre of the earth; and all the time my body is here, 
 rigid and cold in the soul sleep. At other times I 
 can leave my body, and go like a bird across space. 
 I rise upon the waves of the atmosphere, which at 
 such times are tangible and visible things to me. I 
 look down upon the face of the earth, and see lights 
 shining from the windows of houses, smoke ascending 
 from chimneys, and the tall trees raising their tops 
 toward the moon. I meet other soul people; and we 
 talk of the destiny of mankind, the secrets of happi- 
 ness, of the infinity of the future. 
 
 ** But my physical body always is here. Once 
 each day I walk forth with my duenna and my guards, 
 and once each day I sit in the chair before the grated 
 door and give advice and tell of my visions to my 
 people. I have but one sorrow. As I learn new 
 things, I forget many that are old. Many friends 
 that were known to me in other lives are now for- 
 gotten, and I feel always that I may forget the faces 
 of even those who are with me through all the days 
 of my life. I have known that you were to come to 
 me, — you who knew me and loved me in other lives 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ e-j 
 
 long centuries ago. This has brought me the greatest 
 happiness I shall ever know, yet this happiness is 
 tinged with sorrow; for I am haunted by the fear that 
 the memory of you may go from my mind, and that 
 I may not remember you again while I live. But 
 just now I will not think of that, and will enjoy my 
 happiness while I may. Now give me your hand; 
 and I will prove to you that I am sane, and that there 
 is nothing hidden from me." 
 
 She took his hand in her soft grasp, and read to him 
 all the details of his past life as though it had been 
 written in a book which lay open before her gaze. 
 She told of the time and place of his birth, of little 
 occurrences of his childhood which had long been for- 
 gotten by him, of the struggles of his youth and the 
 successes that had crowned his manhood. She told 
 him of all the secret longings of his heart, and of the 
 hidden motives that ruled his life. When she had 
 finished, he had not one secret that she did not know, 
 not one aspiration that she had not divined, not one 
 hope that was hidden from her. Then she placed 
 her soft arms about his neck, imprinted upon his lips a 
 kiss, the memory of which will remain with him until 
 his dying day, and told him that she loved him. 
 
 All restraint had gone from the man, all sense of 
 the strangeness of the situation, all memory of the 
 
68 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 past, and all thought of the future. He was in love. 
 The woman of his choice, the bright, glorious 
 woman of his dreams, was in his arms; and he 
 pressed kisses upon her lips, he talked to her of his 
 happiness, and he knew more joy in one short hour 
 than had ever been known to him in all the long years 
 of his life that had gone before. 
 
 The evening passed like a dream. They walked 
 in the cool shade of the patio. They talked of many 
 things a little, and a great deal of one thing. They 
 wandered about, hand in hand, like two children. 
 They looked into each other's eyes and smiled, and 
 they sang for the sheer joy of living and loving. 
 When the sun began to sink behind the mountains 
 in the west and send long shadows across the mesas to 
 envelop the great ^asa, they went within doors and 
 dined together, sitting facing each other at a little 
 table, and paying no heed to the silent servants who 
 waited upon them. Then she played upon a harp, 
 and sang to him, — played the sweetest, wildest, 
 weirdest, most entrancing melodies that he had ever 
 heard, and yet which seemed strangely familiar to 
 him. They talked of the future, of the days and 
 months and years that they should know each other 
 and love each other upon the earth, and of the love 
 for each other that they should know in other worlds. 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 69 
 
 sons of ages in the future, when their short spans of 
 life should be but half- forgotten fractions of time com- 
 pared to the eternity of their love. 
 
 A little before midnight a maid came; and the girl 
 went with her to another room, soon returning clad 
 onlv in a loose white robe. With the lover and her 
 maid she went to the white room; and, after imprint- 
 ing another kiss upon her lover's lips, she lay down 
 upon the bier-like couch, and was instantly asleep. 
 The old duenna silently entered the room, sat down 
 by the couch, and gazed intently at her mistress. 
 The man stood in awe for a time, and then ventured 
 to approach the couch and touch the brow of his 
 sweetheart. Her brow was as cold as ice, and felt as 
 feels the flesh of the dead. He took her hand in his. 
 It was rigid, and seemed to be bloodless. He grew 
 afraid, and asked the duenna, in a trembling voice, ir 
 there was not danger. The woman only shook her 
 head, and made no reply. Thus the man passed two 
 miserable hours. He stood most of the time gazing 
 upon the white, rigid face of the woman who was 
 dearer than life to him, and whose smile he valued 
 more than all else he had gained in the world. He 
 walked at intervals in the silent patio, and gazed up at 
 the stars, wondering sometimes if he were awake and 
 sane, or asleep and demented. 
 
70 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 At two o'clock a little marble clock chimed out the 
 hour; and the girl opened her eyes, sat up, looked 
 around in a dazed way for a moment, and then smiled 
 as her gaze fell upon the man. 
 
 **Help me," she said, holding out her hand to 
 him. 
 
 He assisted her from the couch, led her to her own 
 room, and took her in his arms and kissed her as a 
 mother might kiss a loved babe who had come back to 
 her from the grave. He told her of his fear while 
 she was in the strange sleep. He said wild things to 
 her about what he should do if he ever really lost her; 
 and then he clasped her to him, and asked her to be 
 his bride. 
 
 ** Your bride?" she said, with a radiant smile. 
 '* Why, I am your bride! In the long, long ago, 
 in the dim time that saw the beginning of things, you 
 took me to your heart as your bride. I have been 
 your bride in many lives since then, and will be in 
 many future lives. No words of mummery need be 
 said over us by any canting priests to join our souls to- 
 gether, for we are affinities. I am your bride: you 
 are my bridegroom; and the present, the priceless 
 Now is ours. Let us forget all else." 
 
 They forgot time and sorrow and the world; they 
 forgot death and life, and the past and the future; 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 
 
 they forgot hope, for all their hopes were realized; 
 they forgot joy, for it was incarnate within them. 
 Their love was perfect in its fulness, yet as pure as the 
 love of a mother for her babe. And in a space of 
 time that was as short as a breath and as long as eter- 
 nity, the morning came, and the rays of the sun came 
 out of the east and lightened up the windows of the 
 house that to the man seemed like a palace of the 
 blessed. 
 
 ** You must go from me now for a time," said the 
 girl. ** Your horses are in harness, and your servant 
 awaits you at my gate. You must journey again to 
 your own city, and there arrange so you can come to 
 me again, and be prepared to abide with me forever. 
 You have duties to others, and must go. I shall re- 
 joice all the time you are gone, for I know you will 
 come again. And now farewell." 
 
 The man grieved because his duty compelled him 
 to go to his own people and attend to affairs that re- 
 quired attention; and, as he rode in the buckboard 
 over the mesas and plains, and then in the cars over 
 the deserts and mountains and forests and fields, he 
 thought unceasingly of the woman who was called 
 Santa Beatriz. He remembered, in a disjointed way, 
 the tale she had told him of her visions, of her power 
 over the poor people who dwelt in the valley that was 
 
72 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 her home, of her sayings of past lives and lives to 
 come. It did not seem strange to him that she was 
 not to become known to the world; for it would be 
 sacrilege for the gaping crowds to know of this fair 
 woman who dwelt in seclusion in a sequestered valley, 
 and was almost a goddess. 
 
 So soon as his affairs were adjusted, he hastened 
 back to Mexico. He left the railroads and the busy 
 throngs of men, and set out again for the peaceful 
 valley that was to be his home until the day of his 
 death, and where his radiant bride awaited him with 
 kisses and caresses. He reached Casa Beatriz at the 
 same hour as before. Again he saw the great silent 
 house, the green fields, the long rows of corrals. 
 Once more he observed that no living being was near 
 the house. Soon he saw the ponderous gates open as 
 they had done before, the two tall Mexicans took 
 their stands, and again came the black-clad man with 
 the wooden staff. His heart was in his mouth, and 
 the seconds seemed like hours while he waited for the 
 old duenna and his sweetheart with her beauty that 
 was like unto the beauty of a morning on the sea. 
 
 Then she came, clad as betore in clinging silk, her 
 raven hair in sweet disarray over her fair brow, her 
 white teeth showing as she gazed upon the ground and 
 smiled. The man could scarcely control his emotion. 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 73 
 
 He sprang from the wagon, rushed to her, and clasped 
 her in his arms. 
 
 The girl recoiled from him in surprise, but gave no 
 sign of either recognition or fear. 
 
 "Why, Beatriz! Why do you act so strangely.? 
 Are you not glad to see me again after we have been 
 apart so long?" said the man. 
 
 ** I do not know you, sir. Why should I be glad 
 to see you more than any other stranger? What do 
 you desire of me? " replied Beatriz, with great dignity. 
 
 ''What does this mean?" asked the man, turning 
 to the duenna. ** Has anything occurred to mar the 
 memory of Beatriz? Has she been ill? If some- 
 thing had not befallen her, she would have been over- 
 joyed at my return. Tell me, what is wrong? " 
 
 "Santa Beatriz is well, as she always is," replied 
 the duenna. ** Her mind is as clear as ever, her life 
 goes on in the same way. But, Senor, I must tell 
 you one thing that has befallen, which will make you 
 very sad. It is this: Santa Beatriz has utterly for- 
 gotten you. The recollection of you has gone from 
 her mind entirely, and you will be in her memory no 
 more forever." 
 
 «* What strange things do you talk of, duenna?" 
 asked Beatriz, turning to the old woman. "You 
 speak of my memory for this stranger. Why, I have 
 
74 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 no memory of him; for I have never seen him before. 
 Yet stay: there is something about his face — a look 
 in his eyes — that does seem strangely familiar 
 to me." 
 
 She looked at him carefully, he thought even wist- 
 fully. Then she turned aw^ay, and said: — 
 
 ** No, it must have been fancy or some shred of a 
 dream that has clung in my brain. I thought for an 
 instant I had know^n this man, but I am sure I have 
 never looked upon his face before." 
 
 The duenna seemed to pity the stranger, and in- 
 vited him to take up his abode in the house until he, 
 too, should be perfectly sure that the beautiful girl 
 had utterly forgotten him. 
 
 He remained in the house for many days. He nar- 
 rowly observed every look, word, and action of Santa 
 Beatriz whenever she came near him or was in sight 
 of him. She seemed to know her surroundings per- 
 fectly, to remember every room, piece of furniture, 
 plant, and book; but each time she saw him afresh it 
 was as though she had never seen him before. He 
 could elicit no word of recognition from her; and he 
 decided to go away, as the situation was almost driv- 
 ing him mad. When his conveyance was awaiting 
 him in the road, and he was ready to depart, he saw 
 Beatriz and her duenna walking in the patio. He 
 
SANTA BEATRIZ 75 
 
 spoke to the duenna, and she left her mistress and 
 went to the gate to talk to him. 
 
 ** I am going away now," he said, ** for to remain 
 here is worse than torture. I need not explain to 
 you; for you know what she was to me, and of the 
 love I shall always bear her. But, before I go, tell 
 me, if you can, why it is that memory of me is gone 
 from her, and why it is that she does not know me, 
 when she seems sane and well, and knows all other 
 things." 
 
 *« It is a strange thing, and I can only conjecture 
 the reason for it," answered the duenna. ** Santa 
 Beatriz told you something of her life, so you know 
 that she is as one set apart in the cause of good. She 
 is controlled by unknown powers, and it seems de- 
 creed that she must live out her life in this little valley, 
 devoted to the people who dwell here; and it also 
 seems decreed that she must not bear love in her 
 bosom for any living man. When you came here 
 first, she knew you, and she told me that in other 
 lives than this you had been her lover. I think that 
 may be true, for until you came she never spoke a 
 word of love to any man. Within an hour from the 
 time you went away, she came to me and told me she 
 feared she was fated to forget that you had been with 
 her, and even forget that she had met you in this life. 
 
76 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 I believe that those who guide and rule her life do 
 not desire that she know and love you, and I think it 
 is they who have effaced the memory of you from her 
 brain. I know not why, unless it is that her love for 
 you would mar the work she was born into this life 
 to do. In other lives she may know and remember 
 and love you, as I am sure she has done in past lives. 
 And that is all the hope I can see for you." 
 
 The duenna joined her mistress, and the two 
 women resumed their walk up and down the grassy 
 patio. As they walked, a humming-bird lit upon 
 the finger of Santa Beatriz ; and, as the stranger looked 
 upon her for the last time, she was talking to the bird 
 and smiling like a child with a new toy, or like a 
 poet admiring the fresh beauty of a lily. 
 
 The traveller lives and works and hopes and fears, 
 much as do other men, except that he remembers 
 that he saw and loved and dwelt with the World's 
 Desire in his waking hours instead of only in his 
 dreams. 
 
The Tale of Burnt-foot 
 Maiden 
 
 TRUE is the saying that '* coming events cast 
 their shadows before," and it is also true 
 that past events greatly influence the occur- 
 rences of times long after. That an Indian maiden's 
 life was blighted, and the love of her heart was turned 
 to bitter jealousy, was due to the fact that in years 
 long past, before the white men had settled the plains 
 and valleys of Colorado, a fierce battle between the 
 Ute and Comanche peoples took place on the great 
 plains north of where now stands the little town of 
 La Junta. And even the result of that battle hinged 
 upon another older event. 
 
 Long ago an Apache man, while hunting along the 
 little streams that flow into the San Juan River, met 
 with a band of Utes, and became enamoured of a 
 comely Ute maiden who was with the party. So 
 strong was his liking for her that he abandoned his 
 clan and tribe, took the woman to wife, and lived 
 with the Utes as a member of that nation. A son 
 was born of the union; and the mixture of blood, as 
 is the case of nations as well as individuals, was for 
 good. The son combined the cunning of the Apaches 
 with the sturdy bravery of the Utes, and his intelli- 
 77 
 
78 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 gence was greater than that of men of either of his 
 parent tribes. In time his Apache father returned to 
 his own land and his own people, as old men are 
 prone to do in their declining years; but the son grew 
 up a Ute. When the battle with the Comanches oc- 
 curred, this young half-breed Ute was but a warrior; 
 but, as his band was being cut down by the warriors 
 of the opposing tribe, he rose in his stirrups, made a 
 fiery speech to his comrades, rode headlong into the 
 midst of the Comanches, and plucked victory from the 
 rout that had been started. And then his grateful 
 fellows, forgetting that he was half-alien and of com- 
 mon birth on his mother's side, made him their chief. 
 And thus it was that Mah-kotch-ah-wuh became the 
 chief of the Moache Utes, and his bravery in other 
 battles caused the allied Ute tribes to elect him the 
 war chief of the nation. 
 
 Mah-kotch-ah-wuh took wives, as a great chief and 
 medicine man should do. He selected a wife from 
 his own tribe, he captured another from the Kiowas, 
 and in time a third was given him by a friend of his 
 who had fought by his side in many a hard battle with 
 the surrounding peoples. Children were born to him, 
 the eldest being named Mean. And, as the whites 
 came and filled the land, and their forts grew up on 
 every side, and the strong arm of the law lay over the 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 79 
 
 face of the country of the Utes, the ambition of Mah- 
 kotch-ah-wuh became centred in his son. Mean 
 was not much Hke his father. The old chief was 
 dignified and self-assertive and sometimes strident; 
 while his son was quiet and retiring, and talked but 
 little. But under his quiet demeanor there beat the 
 blood of two red nations, and he was Indian to the core. 
 His father had him instructed in the magic of the 
 tribe, and did all he could to educate him to take his 
 place as chief when the days of the father were no 
 more. And when he was eighteen years old, and the 
 great Bear Dance was being given. Mean took Kah- 
 noon-i-patch (Burnt-foot Maiden) to wife. 
 
 Many of the Ute women are handsome when they 
 are young; but in all the allied tribes of Moaches, 
 Capotas, and Weeminuchees, there was no woman so 
 comely as the bride of Mean. Her black eyes were 
 large and soft; and, when they gazed upon her hus- 
 band in melting tenderness, he thought that no other 
 woman in all the world had eyes of such lustre and 
 beauty. Her form was perfectly modelled, and in 
 her picturesque garments she looked like a woodland 
 Diana. And she loved her husband so much that she 
 had no thought and no care for anything in the world 
 but him. She went with him from the cannee to his 
 horse whenever he rode away, she met him far up the 
 
8o ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 trail on his return from any expedition, and she 
 studied and worked and planned to make his home 
 comfortable and his life pleasant. And she was so 
 happy that she sang soft Ute songs all day as she 
 went about her work, and she smiled and caressed 
 her lover all the time he was at home. 
 
 Then Mean's father came to him and told him that 
 it would be good for him to go to the great schools 
 of the white-faced people, and learn the wisdom they 
 had in their books, and gain knowledge of the ways 
 of that dominant race. Kah-noon-i-patch was grieved 
 that Mean should go from her; but, as it was for his 
 own advancement, and in order that he might become 
 even wiser than nature had made him, she was rec- 
 onciled. And no tenderer farewell was ever spoken 
 than that of the young Ute bride to her husband as 
 he departed for the wide lands of the East. 
 
 In six months Mean returned from the school, and 
 not long after, his wife became the mother of a girl 
 baby. 
 
 ** We will name the baby Purple Morning," said 
 the father, looking from the tent to the east, and 
 thinking, according to Ute custom, to name the new- 
 born child after the first thing his eyes rested upon. 
 
 '* Let us name her Mary," answered the wife. 
 ** While you were away at the great school a Bible 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 8i 
 
 man came here; and he told me a wondrous tale of a 
 mother whose name was Mary, and she was the 
 fairest and dearest and truest woman that ever lived. 
 She was a white-skinned woman; but the tale the 
 man told of her made me think that she was as true 
 and as loving as I am to you, and as I hope our babe 
 will be to her husband when she is a woman and has 
 taken up the life of a woman." 
 
 So the little red mite was named Mary; and, as 
 the soft baby lips found her breast, and her husband 
 held her hand and smiled down into her eyes, the cup 
 of Kah-noon-i-patch's happiness was full to overflow- 
 ing. Mean had returned to his people clad in a blue 
 school uniform and with short hair, and much mur- 
 muring against these innovations was heard amongst 
 the men of his tribe. But his father, the chief, ex- 
 plained that the young man was only following the 
 imperative rules of the school, and that the changes 
 were not permanent. It was not long until Mean 
 went to the school again; and his wife dwelt alone in 
 a tent next her mother's, and passed the long hours 
 caring for her little babe and longing for the return of 
 her husband. Ute social laws are lax, and many 
 men of the tribe essayed to make love to Kah-noon-i 
 patch; but she repulsed them so fiercely that soon she 
 was allowed to pass her time unmolested. And then 
 
82 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 Mean again returned to his people; and to his wife 
 the sky was as fair as the skies of the Happy Hunting 
 Grounds, the days were like sweet dreams of bliss, 
 and the nights were full of joy that was too deep for 
 expression. Love and the world were young and 
 fair; and in no palace in the world dwelt a happier 
 wife and mother and lover than was this red woman 
 of the Utes, who dwelt in a tent in the wild land of a 
 savage tribe. 
 
 ** For your sake, my husband, I am sorry that our 
 child is not a son; for, if the little Mary had but been 
 a boy, then could you rejoice in the knowledge that 
 your son, after you, would be a chief. Yet, for my- 
 self, I rejoice that she is a daughter, and thus will be 
 longer at my breast, and nearer to me for more years, 
 than though she had been a son. And in good time 
 the great Seh-now-wufF will bless us with a male 
 child, and then will you love me even more than you 
 do now. Is it not so, dear one?" And the Ute 
 mother leaned her cheek against the cheek of her 
 husband. 
 
 Mean rejoiced in his wife. Her suppleness, and 
 the strength of her rounded limbs, and the grace of 
 her motion, and the brightness of her eyes, were all 
 dear in his sight. He tarried much with his wife, 
 holding aloof from the council meetings, medicine- 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 83 
 
 making, and monte playing of the men of his tribe. 
 And in time he went again to the Indian school. 
 
 At the school the young Indian found much to 
 think about. He noticed that it took long, weary 
 hours for him to learn simple things from the books 
 that his masters seemed to comprehend without study. 
 He observed that, while he was well treated, he was 
 looked down upon as an inferior, — that he, a man, 
 was petted, cajoled, coaxed, and driven like a child. 
 The Indian blood in his veins ran faster because of 
 these things; and the black savagery of his nature 
 arose within him, and he came to hate the school and 
 its white-faced teachers. So one day he announced 
 that he was going to return to the reservation, and at 
 once. Argument was of no avail; and, as it was 
 deemed best not to anger the son of a powerful chief 
 and thus place difficulties in the way of securing other 
 Ute children and youths for the school, he was 
 allowed to go. 
 
 Again he put in an appearance at the agency in a 
 blue uniform, a gray hat, and with shorn locks. And, 
 when it was said that he had returned to stay, the old 
 men complained of the folly taught to young Indians 
 at school, and taunted Mean for adopting the ways of 
 the whites. As he sat at a meeting of the medicine 
 men, of whom by selection and initiation he was one, 
 an old medicine priest said: — 
 
84 , ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ** Mean, it should he that now you should decide 
 whether you will be fully a Ute or partly a white 
 man. It is not good that you appear among us with 
 shorn hair, for the bravery of men is largely in their 
 hair. And the clothes that were worn by the fore- 
 fathers of our people should be good enough for you. 
 You are the son of a chief, and are a medicine man by 
 your own right; and, if you do not desire to disgrace 
 yourself and your people, you should again return to 
 the ways of your tribe. How will you decide? " 
 
 The lectures given by the teachers of the school 
 came to the Indian boy's memory. He remembered 
 the life that had been pictured to him as the **new 
 dispensation ' ' for the Indians, — a quiet, dull life, 
 spent tilling the soil for six days of the week, sleeping 
 the sleep of exhaustion at night, and on Sunday going 
 to a stuffy church to listen to the droning of some dull 
 man who pretended to interpret the Law of Laws in 
 all correctness. The lectures had not pictured the 
 new life in quite that way, but it was thus that it 
 seemed to Mean. And then he thought of the life of 
 his own people, — of the wild riding, the glad hunt- 
 ing, the sacredness and mystery of the medicine-mak- 
 ing, the dancing that caused one's blood to flow 
 fiercely through his veins. And he arose in his place 
 and stripped his ** citizen's clothes" from his back. 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 85 
 
 he smeared his face with paint, he donned the gee- 
 string and blankets of his people, and he became the 
 wildest and most frenzied of all the frenzied men who 
 took part in the weird medicine-making. 
 
 The next day his father, the chief, took him to a 
 lonely place in the woods, and talked to him long and 
 earnestly. The old man asked his son of the vaunted 
 knowledge that came from studying the books and the 
 ways of the white men; and he seemed rather pleased 
 to hear his son say that it was all folly, and the work 
 of fools, and not fit for men to know or do. 
 
 *' Then, my son," said the old man, ** there is much 
 for you to hope for from our people. The men of 
 my tribe are all my friends, and they all hope that one 
 of my sons shall be chief in my stead when I am 
 gone. Your brother will never be chief. But if 
 you think the ways of our people are better than the 
 ways of the white people, and if you will strive and 
 be diligent in the study of magic, you shall be first a 
 pwu-au-guty and later a chief; for old Mape-ah-sas 
 says he will choose you as initiate to succeed as head 
 medicine-maker, if you will be in all things a Ute; and 
 I will select you to succeed me as chief. But be a 
 Ute in all things. Attend all the dances and makings 
 of medicine, fast with Mape-ah-sas, learn to gamble 
 with adroitness, take to yourself another wife, and 
 
86 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 secure many horses. Win in the races of the riders, 
 win in the game of kan-yute, be first and best if any 
 fighting is to be done, and be eloquent in the 
 councils." 
 
 ** But another wife, my father? I am well pleased 
 with the maid, Kah-noon-i-patch, and I love her; and 
 I fear she would be very sad if I brought another wife 
 to my cannee.^'' 
 
 "Foolish speech, my son," grunted the old man. 
 "You speak like a woman or a child. Kah-noon-i- 
 patch is a good maiden, and a comely one; but, like 
 all women, she is selfish and jealous, and will be 
 angry and will grieve for a time when you bring an- 
 other wife to your home. But shall you be as these 
 fools of white men, and have but one wife all the 
 days of your life? Why, a man who has not many 
 wives and multitudes of horses is no better than a fool 
 of a Pueblo Indian, who knows no more than to mould 
 pottery and grow little fields of maize, and pay his 
 few pieces of money to a priest. When I was young, 
 I sought out the lands of distant tribes to steal their 
 horses and make captives of their women; and those 
 were the days of my life the memory of which make 
 bearable these dull days when our lands have been 
 taken by the whites and we are penned up here on 
 this narrow reservation like so many rabbits in the 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 87 
 
 trap of a Navajo boy. Be a man. Mean. Be my 
 son, and a true son of the two bloods that flow in 
 your veins, and get waves and many horses." 
 
 The annual Bear Dance of the Utes is the time 
 when marriages are arranged more often than at other 
 times. As the Indians dance away the days to assist 
 the bears to recover from hibernation, and then to 
 help them to find mates, so their minds run upon find- 
 ing mates for themselves; and men who seek new 
 wives, and youths who seek their first marital part- 
 ners, dance with great zest and zeal, as do almost all 
 the women. Mean attended the dance that occurred 
 soon after his father's conversation; but, as he feared 
 the reproaches that he felt would be in the soft eyes 
 of his wife, he asked her not to participate in the cere- 
 monies. And one evening, as the great, yellow, 
 molten sun of the San Juan was sinking behind the 
 towering crests of the La Platas, he led to his home in 
 the valley of the Rio de los Pinos a young girl whom 
 he had chosen as his second wife. She was a meek, 
 awkward, rather ungainly creature; and she was very 
 proud that she had been chosen as the wife of a medi- 
 cine man w^ho w^ould some day be chief. 
 
 It is believed by the Utes that from time im- 
 memorial — since the time that Seh-now-wufF, the 
 Great Spirit, dwelt upon the earth — it has been 
 
88 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 proper and right for men to have a plurality of wives; 
 and the second wife of Mean saw nothing wrong, or 
 even unusual, in her marriage to a man who already- 
 had a wife. She expected, of course, that her hus- 
 band would build for her a new tent, or cannee, as the 
 Utes name it, next to the one in which Kah-noon-i- 
 patch would live; and she looked forward with pleas- 
 ure to enjoying the company of the first wife when 
 their joint husband should be away on hunts or attend- 
 ing medicine-makings. Yet she shyly held back as 
 Mean opened the flap of his tent and spoke to Kah- 
 noon-i-patch. 
 
 **Kah-noon-i-patch, come and give welcome to 
 your sister," he said, averting his eyes from her face 
 when he saw the happy smile with which she looked 
 up from where she knelt at her cooking to greet him. 
 
 A frightened look came into her eyes at once, and 
 she hastily rose to her feet. 
 
 ** What is this talk of my sister? " she said. 
 
 ** This is my new wife, and she shall be a sister to 
 you. She has promised to love you, and to render 
 you the obedience that belongs to the first wife of a 
 household," Mean replied, shifting uneasily on his 
 feet. 
 
 Kah-noon-i-patch had been a dutiful daughter to 
 her parents, she had been a true wife to her husband. 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 89 
 
 and throughout all her life she had not seemed like a 
 barbarian. Yet her blood was pure Ute blood, which 
 is to say that it was hot and vengeful and relentless, 
 and could upon occasion be cruel and murderous. 
 When she first heard the terrible words from her hus- 
 band's lips, she stood like one stricken. Then she 
 clutched at her heart and reeled, and the landscape 
 seemed swimming before her eyes. She thought of 
 the happy, happy days she had spent with her hus- 
 band, of the happy years she had expected to live 
 with him, rearing his children and devoting her life to 
 his welfare and happiness. Then a wave of resent- 
 ment arose in her savage blood. She forgot that she 
 was a wife and a mother, and remembered only that 
 she was a loving woman who had been causelessly 
 wronged. Rage mastered her; and she grasped a 
 sharp knife from among her few utensils, and murder- 
 ously struck at her husband with it. He grasped the 
 sharp blade in his hand, and was cut to the bone, but 
 prevented it from striking his heart. The woman, 
 with the strength of fury, drew the knife from his 
 grasp, and struck at him again and again; and it re- 
 quired all his masculine strength to avert the blows 
 and save his life. Finally, she dropped the knife, 
 and struck him full in the face. 
 
 "Why do you not beat me, you animal?" she 
 
90 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 cried. ** It is lawful for a husband to beat his wife 
 for cause, and I am giving you cause. But, if you so 
 much as clench your hand to strike me, I will kill 
 you. I may not have strength to kill you now, when 
 you are warned and can defend yourself. But strike 
 me but once, even make a motion to strike me, and 
 sooner or later I will kill you." 
 
 The young Indian attempted to reason with his 
 wife, and to point out that his own advancement in 
 the tribe required that he should have two wives. 
 He promised that she should always be the favorite; 
 and he said that within a few weeks, after enough 
 time had passed so that too much scandal would not 
 be made, he would dismiss the new wife and dwell 
 alone with Kah-noon-i-patch. Tears came to the 
 eyes of the injured wife, for after all she was a 
 woman. Then, like a wild beast, she flew at her hus- 
 band, clutched his throat, and would have killed him 
 with the strength engendered by sheer frenzy if the 
 frightened new wife had not come to her bridegroom's 
 assistance. Then Kah-noon-i-patch caught up her 
 baby, and ran swiftly away into the forest. 
 
 She wandered in the forest for days, no one know- 
 ing where she slept at night. On the few occasions 
 when any one met her, she at once hastily went 
 away. And when Mean met her, and attempted to 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 91 
 
 persuade her to return to her home, she drew the 
 knife she wore at her belt, and said she would kill him 
 if he did not at once leave her. 
 
 A few women who dared not speak their minds 
 were the only members of the tribe who sympathized 
 with Kah-noon-i-patch. Nearly all the men, and 
 the older of the women, said that she was foolish and 
 very wicked to thus rebel against the law that had 
 come down through countless generations. Some of 
 the men even said that it was to be regretted that the 
 sway of the white men prevented the old punishment 
 for undutiful wives being inflicted upon her. 
 
 Many of the men then sought to win Kah-noon-i- 
 patch; and proposals of marriage were made to her by 
 many of the unmarried men, and even by some who 
 had wives. And, when they were through talking and 
 boasting of their own greatness, she would look at 
 them with a peculiar flash in her eyes, her teeth would 
 meet with a little click, and, when she began to 
 fondle the knife at her belt, the particular swain who 
 was pressing his suit with her would usually remember 
 that he had another thing to do just then, and would 
 hastily depart. 
 
 Then one day a new yellow tent was seen on the 
 little mesa that lies to the east of the river; and, when 
 curious men rode over to it to learn whose it was. 
 
92 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 their eyes were attracted by a little mark upon the flap 
 that announced that the tent was the home of a 
 Magdalen. No eyes but an Indian's could have seen 
 the mark, and none but Indians could have understood 
 it. There was some wonder at the yellow tent and 
 the secret sign; but much greater wonder when it 
 was known that the occupant of the tent was Kah- 
 noon-i-patch, the once gentle wife whom the ** Bible 
 man '* had said was like a white woman, — the tender 
 mother who had departed from the custom of her 
 race in order that her babe might bear the name that 
 stood for all the virtues. 
 
 That was years ago; but Kah-noon-i-patch still 
 dwells in the yellow tent, and the secret sign is still 
 upon the tent flap. The new wife of Mean died in 
 childbirth; and the living infant, according to Ute 
 law, was strapped to its dead mother's breast, wrapped 
 in the same blanket that was her shroud, and buried with 
 her, — the living and the dead together. The tale 
 was told to Kah-noon-i-patch by nearly every gossip 
 of the tribe, some of whom lowered their voices when 
 they told how the little infant had been heard to 
 feebly cry when the soft earth of the grave had been 
 shovelled upon it; but all the time they talked, Kah- 
 noon-i-patch stared straight ahead of her, like a 
 carved image, and not even by the movement of a 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 93 
 
 muscle or an eyelash did she acknowledge that she 
 heard those who were talking. 
 
 One day a trader sat in front of the yellow tent, 
 holding his horse by a lariat which he kept in his 
 hand. This man had given goods to Kah-noon-i- 
 patch when she had no money; he had bought medi- 
 cine for her little Mary, and thus saved her life, when 
 she was sick and had been given up to die; he had 
 done many other kind things to the red woman who 
 was a wild Magdalen; and always he had treated her 
 with as much respect as though she were still the 
 honored wife of a chief's son. For all these things 
 she liked this man; and, when he talked to her of 
 Mean, she answered him. 
 
 She told him that she regretted the life she lived, 
 but would not now change it; that the only fear she 
 had was that she might some time again grow mad 
 with fury and kill her former husband as he lay asleep 
 at night or when he did not think she was near. 
 
 **Do you still hate him so, then?" asked the 
 white man. 
 
 **Hate him!" the Indian woman repeated softly 
 to herself. The hard, cold gleam left her black eyes, 
 and they melted in a tender look. Her voice be- 
 came low and soft and gentle, and she said: — 
 
 "You have been kind to me, and I must speak no 
 
94 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 lies to you. Also, you belong to a people much 
 wiser than ours; and it may be that you will under- 
 stand me better than I understand myself. So I will 
 confess to you that I love Mean — my husband, the 
 bridegroom of my youth — more than I love myself, 
 or life, or my hope of happiness in the other world. 
 I love him! Do you know what that means? I love 
 him, love him! I dream of him every night; I think 
 of him every minute that I am awake; and my heart 
 thrills whenever I see him or see anything belonging 
 to him or hear his name spoken. But I shall never 
 speak to him again: no, not even if he and I should 
 live so long that we were the only two people left 
 upon the earth. I would not raise my finger to save 
 him from death, even if he were being killed by my 
 worst enemy. I love my little girl, but I fear I 
 should hate her if she even spoke to him. And the 
 only reason I now care to live is that he may feel dis- 
 graced, every day and every hour, by the knowledge 
 that I live the life I now do, and yet act in all ways 
 as though he were not even alive." 
 
 The woman's head went forward between her 
 hands, and she gazed with staring, unseeing eyes upon 
 the ground. And the man rode slowly away, as 
 much grieved over the tale of Kah-noon-i-patch as he 
 might have been over some well-written tale in a book. 
 
THE TALE OF BURNT-FOOT MAIDEN 95 
 
 That is all of the story, except Mean's side of it. 
 And, as it would perhaps only still further convince 
 us that there are many things about the characters of 
 Indians that are not understandable by people whose 
 skins are white, it will be better to leave that un- 
 written. 
 
Luz 
 
 THE Santa Cruz mine was far up on the side oi^ 
 one of the bare, bleak, burnt-looking moun- 
 tains of the Sierra Madre. The shaft house, 
 the mill, the store building, and the little house of the 
 superintendent had once been neatly whitewashed; 
 but the sun had stained them until they had become as 
 dingy as the hovels of the natives. There were some 
 straggling rowS of adobe huts occupied by the Mexi- 
 can miners, a few corrals, a little chapel, but rarely 
 opened; and, besides these and the big piles of dump 
 rock, there was only the sky, the sun, some vistas of 
 barrenness, and some discouraged-looking cacti and 
 evergreens. The mine belonged to an American com- 
 pany. Therefore, it worked all the time. The 
 *'chulk-chulk " of its big engines was never stilled, 
 and at all times ore could be heard rattling over the 
 screens. There were always some half-naked babies 
 playing in the sand, some barefooted women slouching 
 from one adobe hut to another, and some sandalled 
 and scraped Mexicans leaning against walls. Some- 
 times, after pay-day, there would be a i^ai/e given in 
 one of the low adobe houses; and sometimes there 
 were fights in which men gashed and slashed each 
 other with great knives. Aside from these things 
 there was not much, and life was very dull in the 
 mining camp of Santa Cruz. 
 96 
 
LUZ 97 
 
 To this outlandish place, far from railroad, tele- 
 graph, post-office, clubs, society, and civilization, went 
 George Bayler, mining engineer and college graduate, 
 to superintend the mines and manage the business of 
 the mining company. There were various reasons 
 for his going, one being that he was in love — he be- 
 lieved deathlessly — with a weak-faced woman, who 
 had thrown him over to marry a richer man. Then 
 he believed himself possessed of an inherent love for 
 the solitude and lonehness of the deserts and moun- 
 tains. And, also, the salary of the superintendent at 
 Santa Cruz was about twice as much as he could have 
 earned in the States, due to the fact that Santa Cruz 
 was so desolate and God-forsaken that it was hard to 
 induce competent men to go there to live. So, with 
 a two years' contract in his pocket, and high hopes of 
 a great success in his mind, Bayler went to Santa 
 Cruz. It may be as well to say that the real name of 
 the mine was not Santa Cruz, nor that of the man 
 Bayler. This, so that some of the people who know 
 the Sierra Madre may not fasten the story to the 
 wrong man. 
 
 Bayler found that Santa Cruz was a sullen place, 
 with sullen surroundings, and that the people were 
 sullen among themselves, although they almost fell 
 down and kissed the ground he walked upon, knowing 
 
98 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 from past experience that favor with the superintend- 
 ent meant the overlooking of shortcomings, many in- 
 vitations to drink, and occasional presents of small 
 sums of money. But for a fev^ wrecks the place, 
 being so different from any he had knovsm before, 
 possessed a certain interest for him. Then there came 
 a time when the novelty was worn off; and, after he 
 had superintended the workings of the mine and mill 
 and checked up his accounts, all that was left him to 
 do was to read newspapers a week old, gaze upon the 
 changeless sky, and curse Santa Cruz and its people. 
 There was absolutely no congenial companionship for 
 him in the place. The storekeeper was an Irishman, 
 who dwelt with a dusky daughter of the soil, and 
 liked Santa Cruz as well as he would have liked any 
 other place in the world. The book-keeper was an 
 American, who dwelt with, and as did, the Mexicans, 
 drank vile mescal in frightful quantities, and was no 
 more company for Bayler than though he had been 
 deaf and dumb. Aside from these there were only 
 the ignorant Mexicans of the peon class and some 
 dirty Indians who occasionally came to the camp. 
 And when things with Bayler were at their worst, 
 and he was seriously considering an easy way of 
 suicide, Manuel Zepada, the head ore-sorter, remarked 
 to him that his step-daughter, Luz, was as beautiful 
 
LUZ 
 
 99 
 
 as the picture of a saint; and he asked Bayler why he 
 dwelt in loneliness when the camp was full of women 
 who had no husbands. 
 
 Bayler swore at him; and Zepada skulked away, 
 his hat in his hand. 
 
 But one hot afternoon the girl Luz went to Bayler's 
 house, where he was sitting, moodily wondering why 
 he had ever consented to immure himself in such an 
 outlandish and unlovely place. 
 
 " Seiior Superintendent, I am Luz, the step-daugh- 
 ter of Zepada, the ore-sorter, ' ' said the girl, standing 
 shyly before Bayler. 
 
 *'Um! " said Bayler, scarcely looking at her. 
 
 ** I am sixteen years old, and I have never had a 
 lover," artlessly announced the dusky maid. 
 
 This was an odd statement, and it rather interested 
 Bayler. So he looked hard at the girl, and said, 
 ''Well?" 
 
 '*Jose Aguilar seeks to take me for his wife," con- 
 tinued the girl, nervously fingering the edge of her 
 tattered reboso; ** but my mother says that, while I am 
 young and pretty, I should have more joy in my life 
 than I would have with Jose. She says that I am 
 very pretty, and that it might be that you would 
 like me." 
 
 ** The devil!" said Bayler. "What are you 
 driving at? " 
 
loo ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ** I am sixteen years old, and I hav^e never had a 
 lover," repeated the girl, drawing nearer to the man. 
 ** I am more beautiful than any other girl in Santa 
 Cruz or for many miles from Santa Cruz. I know- 
 not how beautiful are the white women who dwell in 
 the land that is your home, but here I am the most 
 beautiful. And my mother, and Zepada, her husband, 
 have talked to me; and they have said that it might 
 please you if I came here to dwell with you, — to cook 
 for you and keep your house, and to soothe you to 
 rest after the toil of the day. Would that please you, 
 Sefior? ** 
 
 Bayler comprehended the proposition the girl was 
 trying to make, and curtly ordered her to return to 
 her own home and put such thoughts out of her head. 
 And, with a gentle buenas tardesy she went away. 
 
 Then Bayler' s thoughts went rushing back to the 
 woman he had loved and lost, and again he pondered 
 upon methods of suicide. The next morning, after 
 the work in the mine was well under way, he walked 
 past the jacal of the Zepadas; and Luz gave him a 
 bright smile from the doorway. 
 
 In the afternoon Luz went again to Bayler' s house, 
 and this time he asked her to be seated. She looked 
 smilingly full into his face, and asked, — 
 
 ** Has the Senor thought more of the matter of 
 which I spoke on yesterday?" 
 
LUZ loi 
 
 ** Look here, girl, what is it you have in your head? 
 Are you asking me to marry you? " 
 
 ** No, Sefior, no," answered the girl, smilingly. 
 ** Zepada, my step-father, says that the Americans 
 will not wed with the women of our kind; but he says 
 often they take them to dwell with as companions. I 
 seek only to dwell with you in this house, to work for 
 you, to nurse you if you are sick, and to make the 
 time happier for you than it now is." 
 
 Then the Anglo-Saxon moral principles of Bayler 
 came to the surface. 
 
 "Why, girl," he said, *'you do not know what 
 you propose ! You are little more than a child; and 
 I hear no evil reports about you among the chattering 
 men of the place, so it must be that you do not realize 
 what you say." 
 
 *' You hear no evil of me because I do no evil. 
 And, if you will take me to dwell with you, I will be 
 so happy that as long as I live I will remember the 
 time spent with you as the best time of my life. See! 
 Am I not comely? My hands are soft, and my arms 
 are round, and my eyes are bright, and my hair is not 
 so coarse as the hair of the other women, although it 
 is longer. And I am clean, and my garments are 
 clean; and I can cook as well as though I were a 
 grandmother. Do you not think you would be hap- 
 
I02 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 pier and more free from loneliness if I dwelt here 
 with you? " 
 
 After all, the girl's proposition was rather compli- 
 mentary to Bayler's sense of vanity; and he did not 
 chide her. He told her she was mistaken in her 
 ideas, he counselled her to dwell with no man but her 
 wedded husband, and he strove earnestly to point out 
 to her the evil of the course she contemplated. Then, 
 as he felt sorry for her, he gave her a present of ten 
 dollars, and sent her away. 
 
 Luz took the ten dollars; and, after she was out of 
 sight of Bayler's door, she pressed the money to her 
 bosom, and ran swiftly to her own home. The next 
 morning she stole away at daybreak, and walked to the 
 nearest Mexican town of any size, — a full day's jour- 
 ney away. And there she trafficked for bright clothes 
 and scarlet beads and some ribbons, and various arti- 
 cles of attire. When she returned home, she fashioned 
 her cloth into garments; and on the morning of the 
 fourth day after Bayler had given her the money, she 
 again appeared before him, walking gingerly in new 
 shoes, and resplendent in a bright-colored dress. 
 
 ** See! " she said to him, with a smile that showed 
 all her white teeth. ** Do not fine garments make fine 
 ladies? Am I not now more beautiful than when I 
 came to you in the old clothes that were all I possessed 
 
LUZ 
 
 103 
 
 before you gave me the great sum of money? See my 
 shoes! Are they not like those worn by the great 
 white Senoras of your own land? And is not this 
 reboso as beautiful as any you have ever seen ? Am I 
 not now fair enough in your eyes to cause you to 
 allow me to dwell here with you? " 
 
 The girl was as supple and well-formed as a young 
 animal. Her black eyes sparkled as she spoke, her 
 red lips parted in eagerness, her lissome form swayed 
 toward Bayler; and she was a temptation to the lonely 
 man who hated Santa Cruz, and believed that life was 
 not worth living. 
 
 **Do your parents know of this mad notion of 
 yours? " he asked. 
 
 ** I have no parent but my mother, as my father is 
 dead," she replied. *'Zepada, who is now married 
 to my mother, says it would be the best of good fort- 
 une if you will take me. And my mother, even 
 now, is praying that you will look upon me with 
 favor; for my mother loves me, and desires that life 
 should go well with me." 
 
 ** You certainly know I could never marry you, 
 do you not? " asked the man. 
 
 **To a certainty, Senor. I do not even hope that 
 you will marry me. It is only to dwell with you, — 
 that is all I desire. And I will be very good. I 
 
I04 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 will never drink of the mescal, nor of the aguardiente, 
 and I will be as faithful to you as though I were your 
 dog." 
 
 ** But I shall dwell in Santa Cruz but for a few 
 months; and then I shall go away, and never return 
 again. And, of course, I shall have to leave you 
 here; for I could not take you among my own 
 people." 
 
 ** It is well, Senor. I understand fully. I seek 
 but to be with you while you dwell in Santa Cruz; 
 and, when you are gone again to your own people, I 
 know that I shall never see you again." 
 
 <* But your life would then be ruined. After 
 dwelling with me, no man would marry you; and the 
 remaining years of your life would not be worth 
 living," said Bayler. 
 
 **Ah, the Senor does not understand," said the 
 girl. ** Among your people it may be different, but 
 here at Santa Cruz I should be thought no less of after 
 you were gone." 
 
 *' But, when I go away, never to return, then 
 what would you do? " 
 
 ** Quien sabe, Senor? At first I would go again 
 to dwell with my mother. But there are many men 
 at Santa Cruz, and I think soon one of them would 
 take me to dwell with him. For I am now a woman, 
 and am old enough to dwell away from my mother." 
 
LUZ 105 
 
 Bayler argued and objected. He was striving to 
 justify himself to himself, so that, when in after years 
 his conscience might smite him, he might say to him- 
 self that he had done all that a man could do to show 
 the woman the error of her way. And, finally, he 
 said: — 
 
 <* I will not do this thing. I should be doing you 
 a great wrong, and I will not." 
 
 **A wrong?" replied the girl. *' Why, Senor, 
 you would be granting me the greatest happiness I 
 shall ever know. My life now is a poor life, and I 
 have never known anything better. Zapada spends 
 much of his wage for strong drink, and often we have 
 not enough food in our house to satisfy our hunger. 
 My clothes are always of the poorest; and, when I get 
 a new garment, I know^ not how long it will be until 
 I can hope to get another. I have no money, and 
 often I am cursed and badly used. With you I 
 should have good food, and I should never know 
 hunger. I should have the finest of garments, — like 
 these adorable ones I bought with your blessed money. 
 I should not have hard work, and I would have much 
 time to comfort you and bring smiles to your sad face. 
 Senor, friend, take me. I will do you no harm; and, 
 if you will take me, you will make me happier than I 
 shall ever be in any other way. And I have learned 
 
io6 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 to love you, friend of mine. Your white skin and 
 your fair hair are very dear in my eyes, and our sainted 
 Lady of Guadalupe could grant me no greater joy then 
 that of loving you and being loved by you." 
 
 **But, if you learned to love me, would it not be 
 all the worse for you after I am gone? Would it not 
 be better for you to put all thoughts of me out of your 
 life now, before it is too late? " 
 
 **Ah, dear friend, if you do not take me, I shall 
 be always miserable. But, if you allow me to come 
 here, I shall have one year or two years of joy; and 
 all the after years will be happier because of the mem- 
 ory of the time I dwelt with you and loved you. 
 Take me, Senor. I love you, and I can bring you 
 happiness. Look upon me! I am young. I am 
 beautiful. My kisses shall soothe you when you are 
 unhappy, and my presence shall keep loneliness from 
 you." 
 
 She crept to his side, impulsively put her arms about 
 his neck, and kissed him with all the fervor known to 
 her half-wild blood. And the man was tempted by 
 the woman, and he fell. 
 
 For eighteen months Bayler dwelt in barbaric bliss. 
 He learned to love the brown-skinned Luz, and she 
 was as devoted to him as though he had been a being 
 to be worshipped. And then the term of his engage- 
 
LUZ 107 
 
 ment to the mining company came to an end. He 
 refused another contract at a higher salary, and one 
 day he told Luz that the time had come for him to 
 return to his own country. 
 
 A look like that which hunters see in the eyes of 
 wounded deer came into the dark eyes of the Mexican 
 girl. She clutched at her side, her breath came hard, 
 and she almost swooned. 
 
 "Will not the great company keep you here in 
 charge of the mine if you will stay? " she asked. 
 
 ** I could stay, for it is difficult to get men to come 
 here, and the company would give me greater pay if 
 I would remain ; but I will not stay. I am yet 
 young, my life is before me, and I must not waste my 
 years in these barren mountains. I must go. It is 
 sad to leave you, little sweet one; but you know we 
 talked of all that in the beginning." 
 
 "You must not, must not go," said the girl, clasp- 
 ing him about the neck. " I should die if you were 
 to go and leave me here." 
 
 "I must go, Luz," answered the man. "I owe 
 it to myself and to my friends not to live here longer." 
 
 " Then will you take me with you? You can keep 
 me in hiding. None of your people need ever see 
 me or know that I exist. All that I ask is that you 
 will come to me sometimes, and will love me as you 
 love me now." 
 
io8 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ** It cannot be, little girl. Our life together must 
 now come to an end. And you know we talked it 
 all over in the beginning." 
 
 **In the beginning it was different," said the girl, 
 almost fiercely. ** In the beginning I sought only the 
 shelter of your house, the food of your table, the gar- 
 ments and comforts your money would buy. But 
 now I love you! You are dearer to me than my 
 faith, than my life, than my hope for Paradise! You 
 must not go! You shall not go! If you strive to 
 leave me, I will stab myself in the heart, and fall 
 dead at your feet; and the memory of my death and 
 its cause shall haunt you through every day and every 
 hour of your life. You must not go from me, for I 
 cannot live without you." 
 
 The girl's words ended in a piteous wail, and the 
 man was sorely disturbed. He felt like a murderer, 
 yet he knew that he must abide by his determination. 
 
 ** There is no other way, sweetheart," he said. 
 ** I love you, and you know I love you; and it will 
 be hard for me, too. But we are of different races 
 and of different blood, and w^e must from now on live 
 apart. There is no other way." 
 
 The girl stared silently at him for a moment, her 
 dark eyes dilating and her lips compressing rigidly. 
 Then she said: — 
 
LUZ 109 
 
 ** You will wed some cold white woman, some 
 woman whose blood is as water, and who knows not 
 the meaning of love. Away from me, after having 
 known my love, you will be miserable. Come, dear 
 heart of my heart, promise you will remain with me." 
 
 She twined her arms about the man, pressed her 
 wet cheek to his, and looked appealingly into his face. 
 But he shook her from him, rose to his feet, and 
 said: — 
 
 ** It must be as I have said, Luz. There is no 
 other way." 
 
 The girl glared at him for a moment like a maniac. 
 She rose to her feet with a spring that was as swift as 
 that of a panther. She got between him and the 
 door, drew a stiletto from her belt, and stood over 
 him like a fury. 
 
 ** There is another way," she hissed. ** I belong 
 to you, and you belong to me. I am yours, body 
 and soul, present and future; and you are also mine. 
 You have made me love you as woman never loved a 
 man; you have made me worship you as though you 
 were a saint; you have made every drop of my life's 
 blood yearn for you, every thought of my brain turn 
 to you, every hope of my life cling to you. And 
 now you shall not leave me. If you will abide here 
 with me, all shall be well, and never again, in all my 
 
ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 life, will I turn upon you. Or, if you will go and 
 take me with you, I will dwell in solitude and poverty 
 as your slave, if you will but see me sometimes, when 
 I can no longer bear to be away from you. But if 
 you do not say you will not go and leave me here, 
 utterly alone, this day shall be the last that you and I 
 shall live. This knife shall pierce your heart, and, 
 when you have died in my arms, with my kisses upon 
 your lips, then will 1 also kill myself and lie dead by 
 your side. Speak quickly! What will you do? I 
 do not now control my own acts, and you must 
 speak." 
 
 The man knew something of the fierceness of 
 Mexican souls, and he realized that he was nearer to 
 his death than he had ever been before. And all at 
 once he came to know that life is very sweet, and that 
 it is not good for a young man to be hurled into eter- 
 ity with the quickness of a flash of lightning. His 
 cheek blanched, for a moment he could not speak; 
 and then he decided to deceive the girl, and to gain 
 his point by craft. 
 
 "Would you kill me, sweetheart? " he asked in a 
 shaky voice, — *' me, who loves you better than I love 
 anything else in all the world? I would not part 
 from you, dear one. I could not part from you. I 
 see and know how dear I am to you; and, love, you 
 
LUZ 1 1 1 
 
 are dearer to me than I will ever be to you. I was 
 but trying your love for me. I would not go away 
 and leave you." 
 
 The girl looked at him with fierce longing in her 
 eyes. Slowly her stiletto dropped. Her face became 
 tense; and the lines about her mouth were drawn, as 
 though from much weeping. 
 
 ** What will you do, then?" she asked. ** Will 
 you abide here with me? " 
 
 *< No, sweet one, I will abide no longer at Santa 
 Cruz. I will return to the land of my own people, 
 and there prepare a home for you. And then I will 
 return for you, and take you with me; and we shall 
 dwell with each other forever. It will be much 
 better for us there than here. We shall have a fine 
 house, with soft carpets on the floor and fine curtains 
 at the windows; and you shall always be dressed in 
 such garments as were never even heard of in Santa 
 Cruz. And I will love you all the days of my life." 
 
 ** You will return for me? You will not deceive 
 me?" asked the girl. 
 
 ** I will return for you. I will not deceive you," 
 replied the man. 
 
 **Then, my loved one, my hfe, forgive me for my 
 anger. I love you so much, so much! I could not 
 live without you, and I was crazed when I thought 
 
112 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 of losing you. But never again shall you see me in 
 anger. Kiss mc, dear one, and say you forgive me." 
 
 The next day Bayler took his departure, riding a 
 mule down the steep trail that led from the mountain- 
 side to the valley below. There was a foot-path 
 down the mountain also, and the way down this 
 foot-trail was much nearer. It joined the other trail 
 a couple of miles from the hamlet; and, when Bayler 
 came to the place where the ways came together, he 
 found Luz awaiting him, she having run down while 
 he rode around the longer way. 
 
 *'Why, Luz, why are you here } It is so sad to 
 say farewell that we should have to say it but once," 
 said the man. 
 
 Luz grasped the bridle, as though fearful that he 
 would put spurs to his mule and ride away from her. 
 
 ** When you were gone," she said, ** all at once I 
 knew what it means to be alone. It is terrible, loved 
 one, — so terrible that I fear it will kill me. The 
 sky seemed to hang just over the earth, the air 
 seemed to close about me and suiFocate me, the blood 
 seemed to stop flowing in my veins, and it was as 
 though the very world itself were dead. Dismount, 
 dear one; for I would look into your eyes." 
 
 Bayler dismounted. The girl took his pale face 
 in her hands, reverently, as though he had been a 
 
LUZ 113 
 
 sacred thing. And she peered into his eyes as though 
 she were strivdng to read the inmost secrets of his 
 soul. 
 
 ** Your eyes look true," she said. *'I believe that 
 you have told me the truth; and now I will believe 
 that you will return to me, and take me with you as 
 you have promised. Now farewell, my loved one. 
 May the Virgin and the saints guard you ! ' ' 
 
 The man's eyes were damp. He kissed the girl, 
 strained her to his breast, remounted his mule, and 
 slowly rode down the sandy trail. And all the time 
 he felt that it would be but scant justice if a thunder- 
 bolt should drop out of heaven and shrivel him to 
 death for the lie he had told to the woman who loved 
 him better than she loved the welfare of her own 
 soul; for he never intended to look into her face 
 again as long as he lived. 
 
 Luz dwelt on in the little sun-baked adobe hamlet 
 that lay by the Santa Cruz mine. Sometimes she sat 
 for hours, silent and alone, leaning against the gray 
 w^all of her httle house, and staring away over the 
 valley wnth wide, unmoving, unseeing eyes. And, 
 again, she drank mescal, and shouted and shrieked 
 through the little street, and terrorized those whom 
 she met. But no harm befell her; and the people 
 were always kind to her, for they said that she was 
 crazed. 
 
An Indian's Revenge 
 
 SAN ANTONIO was the modernized name of 
 the second son of Mah-kotch-ah-wuh, the chief 
 of the Spotted Fawn people of the Ute nation, 
 and one of the medicine men of his tribe. The chief 
 had another and older son, who was a much greater 
 source of pride to him than San Antonio; for the elder 
 son took a wife when he was very young, and it was 
 not long until he took another, which showed that he 
 revered the ancient customs of his people. Also, he 
 was deeply versed in the mysteries of po-o-kante, or 
 magic, practised by the medicine men; and he had 
 advanced until he was the initiate, who, upon the 
 death of the head medicine man, would succeed to 
 that high office. It had been the chief's ambition for 
 one of his sons to succeed him as chief, and for the 
 other to become head medicine man of the tribe; but, 
 as San Antonio showed no ambition, the chief began 
 striving and plotting so that his eldest son might hold 
 both offices. 
 
 The chief knew that the ways of life for his people 
 were changing; and he realized that it would not be 
 many years until all the old-time freedom of the Ind- 
 ians would be known of only in tales and traditions, 
 and that a new era, either for good or bad, was 
 dawning for his people. So his eldest son, who v/as 
 114 
 
AN INDIAN'S REVENGE 115 
 
 initiate, and would in time be both priest and chief, 
 was sent away to a government school to learn the 
 language of the whites. Often, in talking to his son, 
 the chief told him that he must learn all possible things 
 from the whites; for they had become the rulers of the 
 land, and they were so many in numbers that they 
 never could be driven away. This chief grieved be- 
 cause he had been born too late to live out his life in 
 the wild, free way that his fathers lived, and too soon 
 for him to master the great knowledge of the white 
 conquerors. When he was a youth in his tribe, there 
 were no white men in his country, and his people 
 roamed and hunted and fought over a vast region 
 that they claimed as their own. Then the pale faces 
 had come from over the Eastern plains in swarms, 
 like locusts; and the lands of his tribe had been taken 
 by the invaders, and his people had been penned 
 upon a reservation that gradually grew smaller until 
 a few square miles of land were all that was left to 
 them. An agency had been established, and even 
 a railroad had stretched its long steel miles across the 
 lands that were left to the Indians. 
 
 In his youth the old man had been a great warrior; 
 and in the few years that had elapsed between his 
 birth and the coming of the whites he had made his 
 name respected and feared, not alone in his own tribe. 
 
ii6 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 but in all the tribes that occupied the surrounding 
 countries. By sheer bravery he had risen among his 
 people; and one time, when with a little band of 
 buffalo hunters he and the chief of the tribe were 
 hemmed in by a marauding band of Comanches, the 
 old chief had surrendered his office to him, and begged 
 him to strive to win the battle. The odds were fear- 
 ful; yet the brave words and braver actions of Mah- 
 kotch-ah-wuh so spurred the courage of his comrades 
 that they defeated their foemen, who outnumbered 
 them ten to one. 
 
 But all that had gone into the past; and Mah-kotch- 
 ah-wuh was dwelling in a little board house, behind 
 which were fields that were planted and tilled by 
 himself and his wives. He could not become great 
 as a war chief, so he studied magic. And, as with 
 many disappointed white men, it had come to be that 
 his chief hope was centred in his sons. 
 
 The elder son was a joy to his father's soul. 
 There were no wars in which he might win distinc- 
 tion; but the vigilance of the white soldiers had once 
 or twice been evaded, and raids made upon neighbor- 
 ing tribes. After one of these raids the tribesmen 
 said that Mah-kotch-ah-wuh might name his own suc- 
 cessor as chief, suggesting that he name his eldest 
 son. And the chief was glad, and worked all the 
 
AN INDIAN'S REVENGE 117 
 
 harder to secure honor among his own people for his 
 son. 
 
 San Antonio, who was several years younger, was 
 a thorn in his father's side. He would not go away 
 to the schools. He would not study po-o-kante. 
 When the men went away on the great annual deer 
 hunt, San Antonio stayed at home with the women 
 and the old men, saying that he was not yet full 
 grown, and would hunt when he became a man. 
 Yet the boy was well treated in the tribe; for he was 
 the son of a chief, and a chief who brooked no insults 
 for himself or his family. 
 
 San Antonio grew until he was a large boy or a 
 half-grown man, yet he played always with the 
 smaller children. The agency had become firmly 
 rooted, and some of its buildings were beginning to 
 show age. A trader's store had been established; and 
 many of the Indians had almost forgotten that once 
 they rode, free hunters and warriors, over the wide 
 confines of the land they claimed, and that no tribe 
 was known that could conquer them. Now they 
 lived chiefly upon rations doled out to the squaws by 
 government agents, and they sat around under the 
 trees by the trader's store and played monte instead 
 of hunting and fighting across the plains and among 
 the mountains. 
 
i8 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 One day a party of men were sitting around a 
 blanket, playing Mexican monte for small sums of 
 money and trinkets. An exciting play was being 
 made, and the dealer was utterly absorbed in the 
 game. As he was stooping forward, looking intently 
 at the stakes before him, San Antonio crept up be- 
 hind him, and pushed him forward on his face. The 
 man arose in anger and threatened the boy, while the 
 others guffawed and laughed as though it were a good 
 joke. San Antonio, thinking he had done a bright 
 thing, stole away to the little river that ran near, filled 
 an old can with water, and, returning, he crept up be- 
 hind the man he had pushed, and poured the muddy 
 water down his neck. Enraged, the man arose, gave 
 the boy chase, and caught him. 
 
 ** Let me go! Let me go! " howled the boy. ** I 
 am a boy, and you are a man; and you are a coward 
 to fight me! " 
 
 ** I will let you go if you will promise to behave," 
 said the man. 
 
 '*! will promise nothing, you dog!" howled the 
 boy, viciously kicking the man. **You dare do 
 nothing to me. My father is chief; and, if you hurt 
 me, he will kill you. You are a fool and a coyote 
 and a coward, and you dare not hurt me for fear of 
 my father! " 
 
AN INDIAN'S REVENGE 
 
 **I fear not your father," said the man, who was 
 becoming more and more enraged. " Unless he is a 
 fool, he would not fight me for whipping one so bad as 
 you. And, then, he dare not try to harm me. He 
 once was chief, and we all had to bow to his com- 
 mand. But now the Ta-ta rules here, and he rules 
 your father as much as he rules me. Your father 
 now is but a headman, and we have no chiefs but the 
 white people." 
 
 ** You lie!" shouted the boy, biting the man's 
 hand. 
 
 Sorely goaded, the man took his heavy cowhide 
 quirt and soundly whipped the boy, who writhed and 
 shrieked and cursed in his grasp. As soon as he was 
 freed, San Antonio sped away down the valley, not 
 saying to any one where he was going. 
 
 His father had gone that morning to visit an old 
 Indian who was sick in his tent far down the valley; 
 and San Antonio was running to meet him on his re- 
 turn, and tell him of the beating he had received, and 
 of the insults his abuser had cast even upon the chief. 
 
 The chief rode up the valley, his head bent low in 
 thought. He had been to visit old White-Eye, an 
 old man who had been in his maturity when Mah- 
 kotch-ah-wuh was a boy, and who had been one of 
 the first to hail him as chief on that fateful dav when 
 
I20 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 the little band of buffalo hunters had so valiantly de- 
 fended themselves against the great war party. 
 
 *' White-Eye w\\\ soon pass to the Happy Hunting 
 Grounds in the sun," mused the chief, half aloud. 
 ** The number of his days is almost told; and, before 
 the stepping leaves of the winter are being blown 
 across the valley, he will have joined Seh-now-wufF 
 and our fathers in the land where there is no death. 
 To see him sick in his tent reminds me that I, too, 
 am growing old. I seem not to remember the dull 
 years as they pass along, one after another, like white 
 soldiers as they march. When I was young, ah! 
 then were the days and the years both fast and slow. 
 Every day I lived as much as I now live in a year, 
 and yet the years were so full of joy that each seemed 
 no longer than a day. And then the white-faced 
 people came, — the great Merikotch race, before 
 whom no people can stand. Those people must 
 be the children of Yo-woy-witch, the Evil Spirit. 
 They are not strong and hardy and enduring, like 
 men, but are soft and ease-loving and luxurious, like 
 babes. They shiver if the cold blows upon them. 
 They must be served, like those who have broken 
 limbs; they must be swaddled in warm clothing, like 
 sucklings. Yet, with all their weaknesses and follies, 
 they are far greater than even my own great people; 
 
AN INDIAN^S REVENGE 121 
 
 and, if we had not submitted to them, they would 
 ere this have driven us from the face of the earth. 
 They are greater than we, because they know so 
 many things that are unknown to us. They im- 
 plant their strange knowledge in books; and thus it is 
 passed, fresh and unchanged, from one to another. 
 Well, I wish they had not come until my hairs were 
 gray, and I was done with the things of life. Before 
 they came, my people had an empire. Our lands 
 stretched from the barren lands of the south to the 
 great rolling buffalo pastures of the north, and from 
 the wide plains of the east across the tall mountains to 
 the desert in the west. Over that land I would have 
 ruled. My people should have been the greatest of 
 all the Indian nations in the world, and my name 
 should have gone down in the legends of my nation 
 as the bravest and wisest of all the chiefs that ever 
 ruled our allied tribes. But I could no more stand 
 against the whites than a child can stand against a 
 hurricane. It might be that I should be happier if 
 the whites had come generations ago, so that I, 
 too, might have tried to learn of their wondrous 
 knowledge, and so have ruled my people by craft and 
 knowledge instead of by bravery. But to my sons I 
 will have the new knowledge taught; and they may, 
 in after years, be as I would like to be. My sons! 
 
122 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 Better had I say my son, for San Antonio is worse 
 than a woman. He does no good. He hates all 
 things, even babes and animals. He will learn 
 neither the new knowledge of the white-skinned people 
 nor the old knowledge that has come down to us, 
 true and unchanged, since the time the Great Spirits 
 dwelt with us upon the earth. Ah! to-day I have 
 much to make my heart unhappy. White-Eye, he 
 who was at once my father, my brother, my teacher, 
 and my friend, is dying. And with the sad thoughts 
 of his waning life come the bitter thoughts of the 
 growing and useless life of my worthless son." 
 
 The chief's quick ear heard a footfall in the leaves; 
 and, looking up, he saw San Antonio approaching 
 him. He rode slowly along until he met the boy, 
 then reined in his pony, and said: — 
 
 **What causes you to walk forth like an Indian? 
 Why is it that you will stretch your lazy legs, when 
 you might lie at ease in your mother's tent and light 
 the babes that pass her door? " 
 
 San Antonio overlooked the taunt in his father's 
 words, and at once plunged into the details of the 
 insult that had been placed upon him and also upon 
 his father. 
 
 The chief listened, his black eyes sparkling, as the 
 boy told of the brutal blows he had received from the 
 quirt. When the tale was told, he said: — 
 
AN INDIAN'S REVENGE 123 
 
 '* San Antonio, your mother is my first wife; and 
 for many years she has dwelt with me. I took her 
 to wife when she was but a shy girl, to whose eyes 
 tears would come if she were spoken to by a man. 
 I know that all her years she has been faithful to me; 
 but, if I did not fully believe in her, I would think 
 that you are not my son, and that you were sired by 
 some Pah-Ute, so much like a Pah-Ute, or a snake, or 
 a coyote, are you. You make trouble, and you have 
 never made one minute of joy in all the years of your 
 worthless life. Begone from me, ere I forget that 
 you are my son, and strike you in the face as I would 
 strike an enemy or a fool! " 
 
 ** But will you stand under the insult that has been 
 put upon your son and your family and yourself? " 
 whined the boy, edging away. 
 
 ** I will not,'* said the chief, slowly. **I will 
 avenge the insult by killing him who insulted. If he 
 call upon the Ta-ta, then will I kill the Ta-ta. And 
 you, — if you ever speak to me of this matter again, I 
 will spit into your face and drive you forth from the 
 tribe. Now begone!" 
 
 The chief rode away, never looking to see where 
 his son went. As he rode, his jaws compressed into 
 savage firmness, the whites of his eyes became blood- 
 shot and red, and he wore an expression from which 
 
124 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 all feelings but vindictiveness had gone. Soon he 
 came in sight of the agency buildings, and for a mo- 
 ment he stopped and gazed upon them. 
 
 ** There they stand," said he, *' the houses of 
 the white- faced coyotes who have stolen our lands 
 and robbed us of our manhood. In that place dwells 
 their Ta-ta, — the great eater, who knows no joys 
 but those of his stomach. And it is to him that I 
 owe the fact that the lowest and meanest of my tribe 
 can stand in public places, among men who have fol- 
 lowed me to battle, and say that I am no longer a 
 chief and that I am ruled by a fool who knows 
 neither the wisdom of the white men nor the red." 
 
 He savagely spurred his pony and rode briskly for- 
 ward, soon coming in sight of where the lazy Indians 
 were playing monte. He rode straight to the men, 
 and pulled his pony to a stop only a few feet from 
 them. The men stopped playing and looked curi- 
 ously at the stern countenance of the chief, wonder- 
 ing if he would not kill his insulter without parley. 
 The man who had whipped San Antonio was uneasy. 
 He looked over at the big log agency building, and 
 saw the agent standing in front of his door. Then he 
 looked at the stern, unpitying, set face of the man 
 who was his chief and ruler; and, all at once, it seemed 
 to him that the agency and the agent were insignifi- 
 
AN INDIAN'S REVENGE 125 
 
 cant; and he would have given all his worldly pos- 
 sessions if he had not struck the chief's son. 
 
 *'Ho, you," called out the chief, **you who 
 strike boys and deride the chief of your own tribe, 
 stand forth ! ' ' 
 
 The man detached himself from the little crowd, 
 and stood forth alone. To him the government 
 agency and the agent seemed to have shrunk to mi- 
 nuteness, and the fort of the white soldiers seemed 
 very far away. He remembered that he was a Ute, 
 and only a Ute, and that he was still ruled by the 
 ancient laws of his people. And he trembled as he 
 stood before the stern chief. 
 
 In a tone that sounded like a hiss the chief, speak- 
 ing slowly, said: — 
 
 '* There was a time when any man who desired 
 the rule of the whites to be above the rule of his own 
 chiefs would have been killed by the tribe as a traitor. 
 You have spoken something of a truth, though. We 
 now are ruled by the white-faced people, and we en- 
 dure our bondage without murmuring. Yet all true 
 Utes, in their hearts, long still for the old times when 
 we ruled this land; and none but a coward and a fool 
 would vaunt and rejoice because we are so fallen that 
 even our chiefs are ruled by white-faced fools who 
 know not as much as the hopping-toads of the sand- 
 
26 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 hills. Yet it is I, more than any other man or men, 
 who have caused my tribe to submit to the new rule 
 of the new owners of the land. Were I to raise my 
 war-cry now, you are the only man among all my 
 people who would fail to at once don the red paint of 
 war and help me to reduce yonder buildings of the 
 whites to ashes. We have submitted to the new rule 
 because it is best so to do, but we are not such 
 craven beasts that we rejoice in our captivity. It is 
 you, coward and fool, you alone, who boast that your 
 people have no chiefs! I deem you unfit to live. I 
 deem you a disgrace to my disgraced nation. And I 
 will kill you! Not to-day, not to-morrow; but in 
 time surely will I kill you. You are a coward and a 
 traitor, and your days on earth are numbered. As 
 you crawl your mean way over the earth, remember 
 that I have sworn to kill you! As you fight boys and 
 women, and truckle to the fools who rule us here, 
 remember that I shall kill you! Your doom is set, 
 your fate is read; for so surely as I live I shall spill 
 your blood upon the ground! " 
 . The chief abruptly turned his pony, and rode si- 
 lently up the valley. The monte game broke up, 
 and old men told over again of the brave fights of 
 Mah-kotch-ah-wuh when he was young. 
 
 ** Do you think that he may sound the war-cry. 
 
AN INDIAN'S REVENGE 127 
 
 and call us together to sweep yon hated buildings 
 from the face of the earth ? ' * asked a young man. 
 
 '*! hope it may be so," replied grim old Nan- 
 nice. ''I am growing old, and I feel like a wild 
 eagle that is penned within a cage. I should be glad 
 to spill my blood, and let loose my spirit, if my last 
 day could be spent in warring with the hated 
 whites." 
 
 The autumn changed to winter, and the great 
 peaks of the La Platas were covered with snow. 
 The winter passed, and green came up from the 
 south and got into the leaves of the aspens. And yet 
 Mah-kotch-ah-wuh had never fulfilled his revenge, 
 and the gossips of the tribe began to wonder if he had 
 forgotten the vow he had made. 
 
 One day in spring the man who had insulted the 
 chief was walking in the valley, far from any of the 
 huts or tents of the people. He was on foot and 
 alone, but at his side a big revolver swung in a 
 leather holster. Presently he saw a horseman riding 
 up the valley; and, as they came nearer together, he 
 saw that it was Mah-kotch-ah-wuh. 
 
 The chief rode on stolidly and silently, his gaze 
 straight before him; and the man began to believe 
 that he would ride by and affect not to see him. 
 But, as the chief's pony came side by side with the 
 
128 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 man, Ma-kotch-ah-wuh threw the reins over his 
 pony's head, and the beast stopped in its tracks. 
 The chief lithely sprang from his saddle, faced the 
 man, straightened himself to his full height, and 
 said : — 
 
 ** Long ago I promised to you, and to myself, that 
 I would kill you. I hate you! I hate the sight of 
 your coward face! I hate the ground upon which 
 you tread! and I should learn to hate my tribe if you 
 longer remained a part of it! You are armed. I 
 will fight you face to face, man to man. Now de- 
 fend! " 
 
 The chief drew his revolver; and the man trem- 
 bled, and threw up his arm, as though to defend him- 
 self from the bullet that he knew would soon seek 
 him. Then, with a trembling hand, he drew his 
 revolver. If he had been quick, he could have shot 
 the chief in his tracks; but he was paralyzed with 
 fear, and he only stood and trembled, holding his big 
 revolver in a limp grasp. 
 
 The chief gazed at him with supreme contempt. 
 Then again his eyes became red and bloodshot. His 
 face froze in hardness, and his figure became tense and 
 rigid. He drew back his head as does a snake when 
 about to strike. All things became red to his gaze. 
 With his eyes he fastened the eyes of the man before 
 
AN INDIAN'S REVENGE 129 
 
 him, and he held him as a serpent holds a bird. He 
 was an Indian ready for his kill. 
 
 Uttering a shout, he threw his revolver in the form 
 of a half-circle, and fired as its muzzle came even 
 with his enemy's breast. There was a loud report, 
 a puff of smoke, the smell of burning cloth; and the 
 man fell backward. He was not killed, for the chief 
 had not intended that. 
 
 The fallen man writhed where he lay. His flesh 
 quivered and jerked, and he weakly held his hand over 
 his breast as though to protect his body from further 
 harm. 
 
 With a face as stern and pitiless as that of a demon, 
 the chief stood over the fallen man. Then he stooped 
 and looked into his eyes, and said: — 
 
 ** I will kill you! I will kill you! Your coward 
 soul shall wander, shunned and alone, through the 
 bad lands that lie beyond the true paths! Evil spirits 
 shall haunt you ! Good spirits shall shun you ! And 
 with owls and witches and evil serpents your coward 
 soul shall dwell ! ' ' 
 
 He fired a bullet into the shoulder of the prostrate, 
 trembling man, then another into his neck, another 
 into his chest; and then, with the writhing face of a 
 fiend, he shot the fallen man through the heart. He 
 stood for a moment with his foot upon the dead man's 
 
I30 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 head, — gloating. Then he trampled the head into the 
 dust, stamped his feet into the dead face, and turned 
 and went to his pony. 
 
 He was almost joyous by the time he reached his 
 home. His favorite wife was a woman he had capt- 
 ured from an alien tribe in the days of his youth; 
 and he called her, and, as she sat by his side, he 
 chatted to her, and laughed. Then he stroked her 
 hair, and bade her farewell, and went away to per- 
 form the medicine-making required of those who have 
 taken human life. 
 
At the Pu-ye Cliffs 
 
 " Strange dreams of what I used to be, 
 And what I dreamed I would be, swim 
 Across my vision, faint and dim." 
 
 HIDDEN in the heart of New Mexico, far 
 from the pulsing life of the greater world, 
 surrounded by brown hills, barren mesas, 
 and tufa cliffs and foot-hills that rise mountainward 
 until they merge into the great peaks that rise both to 
 the east and west, lies the Espanola Valley, one of 
 the most picturesque and beautiful of all the succession 
 of so-called valleys through which the waters of the 
 Rio Grande del Norte flow in all their long journey 
 from the mountain tops of the Sangre de Cristos to 
 the Gulf of Mexico. This valley is a sunland and a 
 dreamland. It is dotted with the quaint and ancient 
 pueblos of the Tehua Indians, with Mexican hamlets 
 and towns, and with little fields and tiny homes that 
 lie along the waterways and the courses of the ace- 
 quias. To the east the Santa Fe range is seen, its 
 towering peaks whitened with snow during almost all 
 the months of the year ; and running down from these 
 mountains the little rivers of Santa Cruz and Pojoaque 
 come, like threads of silver. To the north-west the 
 valley of the Chama leads away toward the brown 
 lands of the Apaches ; and, farther down the river, 
 131 
 
132 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 the beautiful Santa Clara Valley leads westward, past 
 the tiny summer homes of the Indians, past the ruined 
 cliffs where ancient towns are decaying, on to the 
 heart of the Sierras de los Valles. 
 
 There is a little railroad running through the valley, 
 — a quiet railroad enough, but which is, withal, a 
 kind of desecration. The gray adobe walls of the 
 houses, the gloomy moradas of that strange sect of 
 PeniteJites which flourishes there, the old-age life of 
 the Indians, and the pastoral pictures made by the 
 herds of sheep and goats nibbling on the hills and in 
 the little arroyas, are things that it seems should be 
 allowed to exist in their pristinity, without being dese- 
 crated by the iron commerce of the white invaders of 
 the soil. But the new ways of the new-comers hav^e 
 as yet had but little effect on the valley and its people; 
 and the vale of Espanola will long remain one of the 
 quaintest, as it will always be one of the loveliest and 
 most beautiful, of all the beautiful valleys of quaint, 
 sun-kissed, dreamy old New Mexico. 
 
 A few miles west of the valley, a thousand feet 
 higher in altitude, there are tufa cliffs rising sheer 
 from the levels of the canons and little mountain 
 parks, in which were cut — in some age so long gone 
 into the past that its date can only be guessed — the 
 ncst-like homes of peoples whose period of existence 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 133 
 
 and grade in the scale of civilization have long been 
 unanswerable enigmas to students and scientists. The 
 faces of the cliffs are full of the little doorways that 
 gave entrance to these troglodytic homes. And on 
 the tops of the tall mesas are the ruins of ancient stone 
 buildings, many of which must have been four stories 
 high, that also have been without inhabitants for cen- 
 turies. 
 
 This region of the cliff-dwellers and ancient town- 
 dwellers extends about eight miles from east to west, 
 and nearly thirty miles from north to south. The 
 cliff houses are in almost every mesa, the ruined stone 
 fortresses are on almost every eminence; and yet the 
 place is a dead land, almost as arid as a desert, where 
 water rarely flows above the surface, and can be ob- 
 tained only by digging through a few feet of sand and 
 shale. The vegetation is scant, and, aside from the 
 groves of pinon, spruce, and pine, is sufficient only to 
 give sustenance to a few cattle and sheep that roam 
 there, and that drink the brackish water from the 
 water-holes that have been dug by the herders. 
 
 The great loneliness of this land is indescribable. 
 The silence that hangs like a pall over the entire region 
 is intense. The high, whitish-gray cliffs rise, like 
 ancient castle walls, throughout the entire vista, and 
 seem to add to the sense of deathliness that everywhere 
 
134 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 prevails. And as one wanders among the fallen walls 
 of the old stone towns that once must have teemed 
 with life and action, as he climbs up the niches and 
 footholds cut in the face of the rocks that once led to 
 human habitations, but now lead only to crumbling 
 caves not even inhabited by bats or reptiles, he feels 
 that he is at one of the ancient places of the world, 
 and that the new life of the new race that now dwells 
 in the land is but as a thing that might have sprung 
 into existence since the sunrise. 
 
 How old these now ruined villages and towns are, 
 no one can tell. When the first Spaniards came up 
 from the south, seeking for treasure, and spreading 
 the creed of the martyr of Calvary, they found them 
 without population. But, ages before that, these an- 
 cient places were inhabited by races of people who 
 must have been far different from the wild and brut- 
 ish Apaches and the war-making and marauding 
 Utes, who dwelt in almost all the surrounding lands. 
 
 It is now well authenticated from scientific, archae- 
 ologic, and antiquarian standpoints that the inhabi- 
 tants of these swallow-nest-like cliff lodges, as well as 
 of the stone fortress towns on the summits, were the 
 ancestors of the Pueblo Indians. These Indians trace 
 their history and descent back through the centuries, 
 in unbroken lines, to the time when the cliffs were 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 135 
 
 teeming with population. Almost every Pueblo tribe 
 will tell of the particular clifF where its forefathers 
 dwelt. But there are not so many Pueblo tribes as 
 there are ruins; and the Indians say that the tribes 
 from some of the old owenasy or towns, went, in 
 those old days, off to the south, and were never 
 heard of again. Might it not be that these silent, 
 weird, old ruined towns were the cradles of the 
 great races that swept, in successive waves, over the 
 Vale of Anahuac and the surrounding countries? 
 
 There are many good proofs that the Pueblos are 
 descended from the old peoples of the cliffs. At all 
 the ruined mesa-pueblos are found the curious under- 
 ground apartments that are supposed to have served 
 the same purposes now served by the so-called estufas. 
 On the walls are carvings that the Indians readily 
 identify as their God of Water, and other gods and 
 spirits known in their worship. And the plastering 
 on the walls of the ruins, the grinding-stones found in 
 the caves, the pottery utensils, are very much as are 
 their counterparts of to-day in the quaint old Pueblo 
 towns of the Southwest. Yet, as all these things 
 properly belong to scientific lore, they need not be 
 taken into account here. But there is one other 
 matter that neither science nor the Indians, so far as I 
 know, take into account ; namely, that some of the 
 
36 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 clifF lodges, and those which are apparently of the 
 greatest antiquity, are too small for people as large as 
 the Pueblos of the present generation to have lived in. 
 In some of the more remote ruins of the Southwest, 
 only these pygmy homes are found; but in the region 
 near the Espanola Valley only a few of the very small 
 homes exist, usually mingled with the larger ones, and 
 often in the same cliffs. Was there, before the era of 
 the cliff-dwellers proper, a smaller and ruder race, 
 who carved out their tiny homes in the faces of these 
 sheer precipices, in order that they might be safe from 
 their larger and stronger foes who hemmed them in on 
 every side ? And, if so, did they migrate or become 
 exterminated before the cliff-dwellers of the Indian 
 legends came, or did they remain, mingle with their 
 conquerors, and become component parts of their 
 nations ? The great frowning, deathly-silent cliffs 
 will not give up their secrets as to these things. And, 
 except for the superstitious traditions of some un- 
 lettered Indians, and the puerile guesses of a few 
 egotistical scientists, there is no guide to the knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 A few men have gone into this region to measure 
 the old ruins, and study them in connection with the 
 traditions of the Indians, and reconstruct, in imagina- 
 tion, the towns that once stood upon these heights and 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 137 
 
 commanded the valleys, and to people, in imagina- 
 tion, these places with living, breathing humans, who 
 once loved and hoped and feared and won victories 
 and suffered defeat and reared children and died, as 
 is the lot of all humans. 
 
 All the places have names, and one can learn them 
 if he can induce the Indians to talk. There are many 
 things left to hang theories upon, if one will reason 
 understandingly about what he sees; and the region is 
 one of the most interesting and instructive in all the 
 great country that thrives under the emblem ot the 
 eagle. But the way to this remote region is long and 
 hard, the work of excavating is toilsome, and these 
 decaying remnants of an ancient semi-civilization are 
 but rarely visited. And thus they lie, silent and un- 
 answering as the Sphinx, under the blue sky and the 
 burning sun of the mysterious land of New Mexico. 
 
 A man who dwelt in an Eastern city heard of these 
 places; and he was seized with the desire to journey 
 to them, explore them, trace myths of them through 
 the traditions of the Indians, and ascertain if some 
 clew to their secrets might not be found. He visited 
 one of the adobe pueblos in the valley, examined the 
 pottery and grinding-stones, drew old legends from 
 the old men, and then, with two Indians as guides 
 and servants, he went to the cliffs. He took with 
 
138 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 him a tent, provisions, and cooking utensils, and was 
 prepared for a long stay. He measured the cliffs and 
 ruins at old Sankay-week-carey, and, in imagination, 
 builded again the peerless diamond-shaped rock fortress 
 that once stood upon its crest. He visited the cliff of 
 the Shu-finne, and wondered if it had not been occu- 
 pied by some rebellious offshoot from one of the larger 
 tribes, as the number of its ** houses" are fewer 
 than at the other cliffs. And then he went to the 
 mesa which the pueblos call Pu-Ye; and here he 
 pitched his tent, and settled down for a long period of 
 work and study. 
 
 He liked the Pu-Ye the best of all the ruined towns. 
 The owe7ia, or pueblo, on the crest of the cliff had 
 been excavated to a greater extent than the others; 
 and the view from the narrow eastern point of the 
 mesa was one that would repay a traveller for jour- 
 neying to the end of the earth to gaze upon. 
 
 One day the explorer found that his supplies were 
 running short; and he despatched his two Indians, on 
 horseback, to Espafiola for more. They went away 
 in the morning; and all the forenoon he worked alone, 
 making measurements and digging potsherds from the 
 caves. In the afternoon, being fatigued, he sat down 
 upon the south-western face of the mesa, below the 
 ruined cliff pueblo, to rest. Away to the east he 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 139 
 
 could trace the course of the Rio Grande, which 
 wound its way, Hke a thread of molten silver, through 
 the land. The two little sister rivers could be seen 
 winding into it from the east; and to the south-east, 
 rising like the head of a monster out of the earth, was 
 the Black Mesa, historic in Tehuan legends as being 
 the impregnable fortress to which the Indians always 
 retired when sorely pressed by their foes. In every 
 direction, as far as his sight could reach, was a world 
 of mesas and chalk-colored cliffs and canons and 
 mountains and valleys. 
 
 The man turned from his rapt enjoyment of the 
 marvellous scene that was unfolded before him, and 
 was greatly surprised to find that a woman stood near 
 him. He supposed that he had been too engrossed to 
 hear her approach. After a few moments' awkward 
 silence, he raised his hat, bowed, and addressed her. 
 
 The woman bowed, and slightly smiled; and, as 
 she did so, the traveller observed that she was un- 
 commonly beautiful. Her hair was as yellow as melted 
 gold when it comes fresh from the crucible, her eyes 
 were of an indescribable misty blue, and her skin was 
 as white and as fair as the petals of a lily. Her form 
 was lissome and slender, yet fully developed and per- 
 fectly proportioned; and the soft undulations o{ her 
 bosom caused her silken garments to rise and fall \vith 
 
40 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 a gentle motion. Her hands were small and soft, 
 and she wore a jewel that flashed and gleamed like a 
 star. 
 
 ** I am glad to know that this place is not so 
 deserted as I had thought," said the man. '* I sup- 
 posed that I was entirely alone, and that there was no 
 living human being nearer to me than at the house of 
 a wood-cutter, who dwells four miles further up the 
 valley. My two Indian servants have gone to the 
 little town in the valley for supplies. I am exploring 
 this interesting place. Are you, too, exploring? 
 And where are the others of your party? " 
 
 The woman smiled as the traveller delivered him- 
 self of this rather disjointed and disconnected speech, 
 and she said: — 
 
 *' I am not exploring the ruins. I know them all 
 and know them well, and finished my explorations 
 long ago. And there are no others in my party. I, 
 too, am alone. But are you not going to ask me to 
 be seated? ' ' 
 
 With his handkerchief the man brushed away the 
 dust from a rock, and the woman smiled as she sat 
 down. 
 
 **Do you live near here?" asked the man. "I 
 thought this entire region uninhabited, except for an 
 occasional Mexican herder or wood-cutter." 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 141 
 
 The woman smiled into the man's face as an adult 
 might smile at a child, and she said: — 
 
 ** Do you think that the scantness of inhabitancy 
 here gives you the right to ask me so many questions? 
 I ask you no questions. I express no curiosity about 
 you and your domicile and your environments; but I 
 am content to sit here with you, and enjoy this mar- 
 vellous panorama that has few equals on the face of the 
 earth. I have journeyed much, and to far countries; 
 but to me this crest of old Pu-Ye is one of the dear- 
 est spots in all the world. I love the valley of Mal- 
 trata in Mexico; and Loch Lomond with its frame of 
 brown hills; and the Columbia River on a spring 
 day, when the clouds rise, one layer after another, from 
 the green earth to the blue sky, is another of my dear- 
 est places. But, above them all, I think this is my 
 favorite landscape." 
 
 The man stared at the woman in great wonder. It 
 was strange that a delicate, well-dressed, and refined 
 woman should be alone with him on the top of an 
 uninhabited mesa, miles from human habitancy, and 
 stranger still that she should talk to him with as utter 
 nonchalance as though she had been in her own draw- 
 ing-room. Her costume, too, was entirely out of 
 keeping with the surroundings. Her dress was of 
 silk, and was cut after some flowing, loose. Oriental 
 
ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 fashion. Her shoes were low, and were of the light- 
 est and daintiest kind; and her head was bare, except 
 for a loose silken scarf that fell lightly over her hair. 
 
 Yet the situation did not seem so unusual to the 
 man as it would have done, were it not for a strange 
 feeling he had that he knew the woman, or some one 
 very like her. But he knew he had never seen her 
 before. When she smiled into his eyes again, he be- 
 came perfectly at ease. 
 
 As they talked, the man forgot the strangeness of 
 the situation, and forgot to make further inquiries. He 
 forgot all, except that he was contented and happy. 
 And he and the strange woman sat together on the 
 brink of the old cliff of Pu-Ye, and gazed over the 
 beaudful vistas that opened to their view. They talked 
 of the people who must once have lived in those strange 
 places, but w^ho were now utterly gone, and whose 
 memories, save for a few traditions, were as completely 
 lost to the present people of the earth as though they 
 had never existed. 
 
 '*Do you suppose they were like us?'* asked the 
 man. ** Do you suppose that the men of that time 
 had ambitions that could never be realized and hopes 
 that could never be fulfilled? Or do you think that 
 they were content, and lived out their simple lives in 
 peace, except when they had to protect themselves 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 143 
 
 from the savages who came upon these places from the 
 wilderness to kill and pillage? " 
 
 *' But why do you wonder about the men alone, 
 and not about the women, too?" asked the woman. 
 ** Do you not think that the women who dwelt in 
 these narrow homes in the face of the cliffs, and in 
 the great stone houses that crowned the top of the 
 mesas, might have been in many ways as are the 
 women of our own time? Do you not wonder if they 
 loved their husbands and their sweethearts and their 
 children, if they felt the blight of disappointment and 
 the joy of fulfilment, as do the women who now 
 dwell in the world?" 
 
 ** I forgot to think of the ancient women, I presume 
 because I know so little of women. I suppose my 
 life has been far from being full, for I have known but 
 few women; and I have never been in love with one. 
 I have never met a woman who was more to me than 
 any other woman." 
 
 The woman smiled again, and her great blue eyes 
 seemed to be swimming in hazy mists. 
 
 *'You speak of this hfe alone," said she. 
 
 ** Well, as it is the only life I have Hved, it is the 
 only one I know about." 
 
 ** You do not know it to be the only one you have 
 lived, and it need not be the only one you can know 
 about," replied the woman. 
 
144 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ** Can you tell me of the life I shall live in the 
 future? " asked the man, curiously. 
 
 *' I can tell you nothing of the future, but I think 
 I know something of your past. It seems to me that 
 you once dwelt at this place, and that you then loved 
 a woman, and knew more of the secrets and truths of 
 existence than you now know. I think you dwelt 
 here, and that I knew you then." 
 
 *' But no one has dwelt here for centuries," said 
 the man. 
 
 "I know," said the woman. **It was ages ago 
 — long, almost countless ages ago — when you and I 
 dwelt here. But I remember you." 
 
 Was the woman a maniac? The man could not 
 harbor such an idea for more than an instant; for her 
 bright eyes were full of reason, and every lineament 
 of her beautiful face was brimming with intelligence. 
 The man pondered over her strange statements, which 
 were made in seeming gravity and sincerity. Then 
 he remembered tales he had heard of a strange creed 
 of reincarnations of the soul, and of lives lived long 
 ago and remembered in this life. The woman must 
 entertain those strange beliefs. He remembered, too, 
 that one of the tenets of the strange belief was the idea 
 of indissoluble affinities, of kindred souls that belonged 
 with each other and to each other, and that should 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 145 
 
 know and recognize the bond of kinship whenever 
 they came together. This thought brought to his 
 mind the idea that the woman might consider that she 
 was his affinity. He had heard that such a belief 
 would take people across the world, — and the Pu-Ye 
 is almost as remote as Khartoum. 
 
 As though reading the man's thoughts, the woman 
 sat smiling. Then she said: — 
 
 *' It is true that I believe in reincarnations, and also 
 in affinities. But I am not your affinity, although I 
 hav^e known her. I am nothing to you, sav^e that I 
 am a woman and you are a man. Even that means 
 a great deal; but to you it means nothing in compari- 
 son with the knowledge that your affinity, now for- 
 gotten by you, exists, and will some time be known to 
 you again." 
 
 ** There is no such woman," said the man. 
 ** There is no such woman in the world, and all 
 women are as one to me. I know not the meaning 
 of the word * love ' ; and if you, in your wisdom, can 
 teach me its meaning, I shall be very grateful." 
 
 ** It is true that, save for indistinct memories that 
 you do not understand, you know not the meaning of 
 love. I cannot teach you, but I could cause you to 
 remember. ' ' 
 
 As the woman talked, she gazed into the man's 
 
146 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 eyes; and he felt a strange sensation of drowsiness 
 coming over him. Her last words sounded to him as 
 an echo coming to his ears from a long distance. He 
 gazed listlessly and unseeingly across the great valley 
 that lay to the east, but he did not speak. The 
 woman rose and came nearer to him, all the time 
 gazing intently into his eyes. 
 
 ** It is better now that you rest," she said. **It 
 is better that you rest and sleep. Forget, forget, and 
 sleep!" 
 
 The words she spoke sounded to the man as a lul- 
 laby sounds to a tired child. He closed his eyes 
 drowsily, leaned back, making a pillow of his arms, 
 and knew that he was falling asleep. Then, half- 
 realizing that his actions were very unusual, he made 
 an effort to rouse himself. Again came the softly 
 spoken words: — 
 
 **Rest! Be peaceful, and rest, and sleep! For- 
 get, and rest, and sleep! " 
 
 And the man, lying prone upon the earth, on the 
 arid top of the gray mesa of ancient Pu-Ye, succumbed 
 to the strange influence of the strange woman; and 
 he was soon breathing the breath of deep and peaceful 
 sleep. 
 
 How long the man slept, he knew not; but when 
 he awoke, the morning sun was shining full into his 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 147 
 
 face. He lay prone upon his back for a little time 
 in drowsy enjoyment, and he lazily tried to remember 
 where he was. 
 
 ** The sky is above me, so I must be out-of-doors," 
 he said, ** Let me remember. Oh, yes! I am at 
 the cliffs of Pu-Ye, and must have grown tired, and 
 fallen asleep from fatigue. How was it? I must 
 think! Oh, yes! I sent my Indian servants to the 
 town, and I was alone. But I seem to remember a 
 woman who came to the cliff and talked to me. Ah ! 
 I remember now. She was here when I fell asleep. 
 How stupid it was of me ! " 
 
 This thought caused him to leap to his feet. And, 
 when he had risen and looked about him, he thought 
 for an instant that he was crazed or enchanted. The 
 mesa was teeming with people. Red w^omen and 
 girls, with large water-jars upon their heads, climbed 
 up the side of the cliff. Red men were walking over 
 the mesa, while others sat under the shade of trees, 
 polishing stone implements or moulding pottery. 
 Children played in quiet groups. And off to the 
 west, where the pile of crumbling rocks had been, 
 there arose a great stone structure, high and massive, 
 with smoke rising from its scores of chimneys, and 
 with armed guards walking over its thick outer walls. 
 He gazed into the valley below him; and there arose 
 
148 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 another mass of buildings, also teeming with popula- 
 tion. He could see people passing in and out of the 
 clifF-homcs, and he observed that the clijfF seemed 
 more sheer than he had known it. Where he had 
 seen but a dry, sandy arroyo, there now flowed a 
 stream of clear, limpid water; and all up and down 
 this stream were little fields, where low corn plants 
 and gourd vines and tobacco were growing. 
 
 The man stood gazing in stupid wonder and as- 
 tonishment, and a strange horror began to take hold of 
 him. What had happened to him, and to life, and 
 to the w^orld? Was his mind failing him, and were 
 these people and this strange land and that great 
 stone fortress but things that delirium had conjured up 
 in his disordered brain? As he wondered and feared, 
 he was startled by hearing a soft laugh near him. 
 Turning, his eyes fell upon a beautiful girl, red like 
 the other women about him, but who seemed to him 
 as one he knew well and had always known. And 
 even his perplexity was not great enough to prevent 
 him from observing that she was very beautiful. 
 
 ** How strangely you act, dear one! " said the girl. 
 ** You have slept; and you must have dreamed of war- 
 fare or of evil spirits, for your eyes were wild as you 
 looked about you. I think you were looking for evil 
 witches to come out of the sky, or for a band of 
 Apaches to come stealing up our stone stairways." 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 149 
 
 The man understood all the girl said; yet he re- 
 membered that it was a strange language to him, 
 different from his own, and one that he did not think 
 he had ever heard before. And he marvelled more 
 when he found that the answer he made to the girl 
 was in the same speech as her own. 
 
 ** I know not where I am," he said. ** I remem- 
 ber sleeping; and I have dreamed and I have awakened, 
 and that is all." 
 
 He ceased speaking, and again gazed about him in 
 bewilderment. The girl affectionately embraced him, 
 took his hand in her warm clasp, and said: — 
 
 **I fear you are not well, dear heart. You think 
 too much, and study too much and too long, striving 
 to find out all the knowledge that is known to men, 
 and that has been gathered since the world began. 
 You were so v/eary that you fell asleep as you sat by 
 my side. You are weary yet, and now you must rest. 
 And, too, you must eat. Come with me, and I will 
 prepare food." 
 
 All at once everything seemed natural to the man. 
 He felt as feels one who has become confused about 
 the points of the compass, and then reaches some 
 familiar landmark that makes the directions clear to 
 him again. And he kissed the girl, and said: — 
 
 " I have had a strange dream, loved one of mine; 
 
I50 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 and it was so vivid and so true to what might have 
 been, that the vestiges of it remained in my brain, and 
 my mind was not clear when I awoke. But it is 
 gone now, and I am well. And, as I am not hun- 
 gry, sit you down by me here, and let me be happy 
 in having you with me alone." 
 
 The man gazed at his own body, and it seemed 
 natural to him that the color of his skin was red. It 
 seemed natural, too, that he was clad only in a girdle 
 and a loose robe, that a feather was stuck in the band 
 that held his thick black hair, and that sandals made 
 of the fibre of yucca and soled with deerskin were on 
 his feet. It was also natural that the girl was red, 
 and that she was barefooted and bareheaded, and clad 
 in a gown or robe that half revealed the rounded 
 beauties of her form. And, more than all, it was 
 natural that he loved her more than he loved himself, 
 more than he loved his power over the men of his 
 nation, more than he loved the creed of which he was 
 priest, more than he loved all else in the world. And 
 he sat by the woman and held her hand and caressed 
 her soft cheek, and forgot that the hours were flying 
 and that the sun was journeying toward the west. 
 
 They gazed at the busy life of the cliiFs and the 
 owenas. On the sheer sides of the mesa, little gardens, 
 clinging like birds' -nests to the face of the rock, and 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 151 
 
 fenced in with great jagged stones, showed patches of 
 greenery. Other little stone enclosures held wild 
 turkeys. On the open ground on top of the mesa, 
 groups of men were husking corn; while lines of men 
 were climbing up to the top from the valley below, 
 bearing great bundles of wood supported by bands 
 fastened to their heads. Women and girls came in 
 from other mesas, carrying clay that they were bring- 
 ing to mould into pottery. On the walls of the great 
 building were seen women who fashioned clay jars and 
 bowls. And far down the valley could be seen ap- 
 proaching a band of people, men and women, many 
 in number, who marched in regular order and sang as 
 they marched. They were tillers, who had been to 
 the fields in the valley of the great river in the east, 
 and who travelled in bands to insure safety. Hunters 
 came in from the forests, as the sun sank low. Chil- 
 dren trooped away to their homes for the evening 
 meal. Men went from their toils to the underground 
 apartments called tah-eh, and women bore baskets 
 of food and jars of water to them. Fresh guards 
 mounted the great walls, and began their ceaseless 
 marching up and down, and took up their part of the 
 watchful vigil that never ceased. 
 
 No one disturbed the priest and his bride, and they 
 sat in the glory of the waning sun and gazed upon the 
 
152 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 living scenes before them. In time they arose, and 
 went to the gateway of the great stone fortress-house. 
 The guards, who stood at either side of the gateway, 
 leaning upon their long, obsidian-tipped spears, rever- 
 ently saluted as they passed. And the girl said: — 
 
 ** I am so glad and so proud, dear one of mine, 
 that you are the Ruler of the Waters. When you 
 must fast, and perforce be away from me, I long for 
 your presence. But I do not grieve, for I console 
 myself with the thought that the great God of the 
 Mists loves you more than he loves any one else in all 
 this great nation of people. I rejoice that you are the 
 dearest one to him, and that you know all the secrets 
 he left upon the earth when he went from us to dwell 
 at the right hand of his Father in the sun. I would 
 love you, dear heart, if you were the lowest and poor- 
 est of our people; but I love you more because you 
 are the greatest, the wisest, the best, and the most 
 holy." 
 
 The man was the ruler and chief priest of his 
 nation, and the beautiful girl was his bride. But a 
 few months had gone into the past since they had 
 wed; and since that time they had been as happy as 
 they hoped to be when their lives were over, and they 
 should receive their rewards for right living and should 
 dwell in the bright houses of turquoise in the sun. 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 153 
 
 Children racing and playing across the great central 
 plaza of the place stopped and gazed as the priest and 
 his bride passed by. Men and women closed their 
 hands together and bowed low in reverence. And, 
 as he gazed upon the great towering structure that 
 was a house of many homes, and yet was but a part 
 of the great city he ruled; as he saw the riches of his 
 nation, and the looks of love and reverence upon their 
 faces, the priest felt that it was good to live and good 
 to rule and good to have high honor among his 
 people. And, when he was within the home of his 
 bride, and was seated by the side of his beautiful loved 
 one, he felt that it was doubly good to love. And 
 he said to his bride that love was greater than riches 
 or honor or praise or wealth. 
 
 The priest and his family need do no work. They 
 were served by the other people, in turn; and much 
 rivalry was shown as to who should be the favored 
 ones who should serve them. When they entered 
 their own rooms in the great house, blankets and 
 robes of fur were spread for them by the women and 
 girls who awaited their coming; and soon food was 
 served to them. There was Indian maize; the roots 
 and pods of yucca, cooked with pungent herbs; there 
 Vv'as game and wild fowl, and plants cooked in various 
 ways. There was clear filtered water that had been 
 
54 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 cooled in porous earthen jars. And, when the meal 
 was done, tobacco was given to the young priest, and 
 he and his bride were left alone. He smoked as she 
 sat by his side and gazed upon him with the lovelight 
 shining from her slumbrous, beautiful eyes. 
 
 There came a tap at the door; and soon a band of 
 the Koshaar, or delight-makers, entered. Some of 
 them were old men, some were youths; and there 
 was one little boy, only as high as a man's hip, who 
 was gaudily decked out in bright colors and waving 
 plumes. They saluted the priest and his bride, and 
 craved permission to sing and dance. Permission 
 being given, they ranged themselves about the room, 
 and sang an opening song in weird cadences. Then 
 the little boy danced alone to the beating of a rude 
 drum. Then, all together, they mimicked bears and 
 deer and mountain lions and eagles. They sang songs 
 that embodied the gossip of the city, and they made 
 witty verses about the chiefs and headmen and famous 
 hunters. They were so full of glee, and so untiring 
 in their efforts to amuse, that the priest and his bride 
 laughed till the night rang with their merriment. 
 Then, laden with presents, the Koshaar went away, 
 repeating blessings as they went. 
 
 The youthful priest and his girl-bride sat for a time 
 in silence, smiling as they mused upon the antics of 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 155 
 
 the delight-makers. Then they retired to their couch 
 of furs and yucca blankets; and he pillowed his head 
 upon her breast, and talked to her again of the great 
 love he bore for her. They promised to each other 
 that their love should last, young, undimmed, and un- 
 tarnished, through all the days and years of their lives, 
 and that after they were done with the things of the 
 world it should last again through all the years of the 
 happy eternity they would spend together in the 
 bright, deathless land of endless joy that their Great 
 Father had created in the sun. 
 
 '' But what of the strange dream you had this 
 morning, as you slept in the air, dear one?" asked 
 the girl. ** I know that I am but a woman, and that 
 it is unlawful for women to know the greatest mys- 
 teries; yet I am troubled about that dream, for the 
 look upon your face when you awoke was one that I 
 never saw there before. Can you not tell me of the 
 dream? " 
 
 " It was a strange dream, a strange dream and a 
 weird one," answered he, stroking her hand. *' I 
 have had many dreams, and it is given that much 
 wisdom comes to me in dreams. But never in all 
 the years of my Hfe, never when I was initiate or 
 since I have been priest, has such a dream taken 
 possession of my brain. I know not what it portends 
 
56 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 or means; but to-morrow, or the next day, or when- 
 ever I can spare the time from your sweet companion- 
 ship, I shall go alone to my sacred place, and there I 
 shall perform the mysteries, and strive and fast, until 
 I learn what meaning it has." 
 
 "^ But what was the dream, twin soul of mine? 
 May you not tell me? " 
 
 ** Yes, I may tell you of the dream, dear bride. 
 It deals not with any of our sacred mysteries, and it 
 is so passing strange that 1 am glad to talk of it with 
 some one. I know not how it began. I had no 
 dream of dying, and no dream of any life between 
 the one I now know and the one I lived in my dream. 
 It seemed to me that I was a man, and a very dif- 
 ferent man from any that has ever been seen in the 
 world. I dreamed that my skin was white, that my 
 eyes were blue, that my hair was as fair as the first 
 leaves of the maize, and that I knew and had seen 
 multitudes of people whose skins were also white, and 
 who dwelt in places not like the places where we 
 dwell, nor like any places known in the world. And 
 I thought that I heard a tale of a strange, dead land 
 in the west, where people once had dwelt, but whose 
 ancient inhabitants were forgotten upon the earth. I 
 was seized with a desire to see that place, and I 
 journeyed there; and, dear bride of my heart, the 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 157 
 
 place I came to was this place. It was our own 
 lovely and well-beloved Pu-Ye, but it was not as it 
 now is. The homes in the face of the cliff were 
 deserted, and crumbling into decay, and were 
 half filled with fine dust that the winds of centuries 
 had blown into them. The great building that we 
 dwell in was but a heap of crumbling stones, and it 
 was entirely without inhabitants. The owena in the 
 valley was but a pile of sand and rocks. The very 
 stream had dried up. The game and fowls had de- 
 serted the land. Water could be found only by dig- 
 ging under the ground; and a curse seemed to rest 
 upon the place, and no people dwelt here at all." 
 
 ** Will such a curse come, dear one? Can you not 
 avert it by praying and making magic? ' ' asked the 
 woman, anxiously. 
 
 ** I think such a curse will not come," answered 
 the man, ** although, when our God of the Fine Mists 
 dwelt upon the earth with us, he left a saving that 
 ages in the future a white-faced people — the To-wah- 
 tsee-ee of our Sacred Story — would come to our land 
 from the great unknown lands of the east. But 
 I think my dream was all a fantasy, and "■ that it 
 betokens nothing real. For, although I saw this place 
 in my dream, I had no remembrance of ever having 
 seen it before or of having known you. And, 
 
158 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 surely, a dream with no memory of you in it would 
 not be real. Then I dreamed that I sat on the brink 
 of the cliff, and wondered what manner of people had 
 once dwelt in these places. And, as I mused and 
 wondered, there came to me a strange white woman, 
 with hair as yellow as the arrows shot by the morning 
 sun, and eyes as blue as is the sky when it is seen in 
 glimpses through the mists. She was beautiful, — 
 almost as beautiful as you are, loved one. And she 
 told strange things to me, and said to me that some- 
 where there was a woman that I loved. And the 
 strangest thing of all that dream, sweet one, was that 
 I could remember no such woman. Then the woman 
 gazed into my eyes; and her look seemed to give her 
 mastery over me, and she commanded me to sleep. I 
 slept; and that is all. And never in my life has an 
 awakening been so pleasant; for I awoke from that 
 dream of a joyless life, and found you, and love, and 
 this dear land, and my own great people. In the cruel 
 dream I had forgotten you and all else that I know, 
 and I can remember yet the coldness that I felt in my 
 heart." 
 
 They talked for a time of the dream, but soon 
 forgot it to talk of love, which was the chief theme in 
 the world for them. In time they desired to sleep; 
 and the woman folded the man closer to her bosom. 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 159 
 
 and drowsily and happily told him that, when he 
 awoke in the morning, he must not forget her nor 
 again forget where he was. And the mists of forget- 
 fulness enwrapped their memories, and they slept. 
 
 The man again awoke. He was lying upon his 
 back; and, as he gazed upward, he saw the sky, and 
 the first faint, pale rays of the morning sunshine were 
 just beginning to diffuse color through it. For a little 
 time this did not seem strange to him; but soon he 
 remembered that he had gone to sleep in the couch 
 and the house of his bride, with a roof above him and 
 with walls protecting him. He put out his hand to 
 place it upon the form of his loved one, — whom he 
 supposed was sleeping by his side, — in order to assure 
 himself of her presence; but his hand came in contact 
 only with loose sand. He clutched a handful of the 
 sand, and held it up before his eyes and stupidly stared 
 at it. Then he looked about him, and found that his 
 body was imbedded in sand, and that many people 
 were near him, and all were sleeping under coverings 
 of sand. He arose to a sitting posture; and, spread 
 out on the sand by his side, he saw the matted hair 
 of a woman. He put his hand upon the hair, and the 
 woman awoke, and sleepily half arose and turned and 
 smiled into his face. And he seemed to know the 
 woman, although his mind was still clinging to the 
 
i6o ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 memory of the otlicr more beautiful woman who was 
 his bride. 
 
 ** Where am I? And what has befallen?" he 
 asked. 
 
 ** You are just awakening; and nothing has befallen 
 except that the sun is rising, and it is time for us to 
 arise and eat," answered the woman. She spoke 
 softly, and reached over and caressed him as she 
 spoke. 
 
 As the woman arose, the man observed that she 
 was very small, and that she was unclad save for a 
 skin girdle that she wore about her, and another un- 
 tanned skin which she drew over her shoulders. And, 
 when he also arose, he saw that he himself was small, 
 and that his garments were much as were those of the 
 woman. 
 
 One by one the other people arose, shook the sand 
 from their hair and their bodies, and began dig- 
 ging up roots and eating them. The women caught 
 beetles and lizards; and they, too, were eaten. Then 
 they all lay face downward in the sand, and drank 
 from the little stream that was there. 
 
 ** Why do you gaze at me and at all things so 
 strangely?" asked the woman. 
 
 '*l have dreamed," replied the man. ** I seemed 
 to have forgotten you and my people and this land. 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 
 
 and even myself, as I am in reality, and to have been 
 living another kind oi" life. I seemed to know the 
 clifF where we have our place of abode cut out of the 
 rock; but I, and the other people who dwelt there, 
 were much larger than we are, and they all had fine 
 garments and many great things that are unknown to 
 us. Those people were as great in stature as are the 
 new people who have come upon the earth, — those 
 terrible killers, who seek to drink the blood of men, 
 and who have caused us to cut our abiding places 
 high above the level of the valleys, so that we may be 
 safe from them. But the people of my dream were 
 not like the killers, and they were kind, and made not 
 war for blood. And on the top of our cliff was a 
 great building made of stones cunningly joined to- 
 gether, and it was so strong that the enemies of that 
 people feared to attack them. Those people never 
 hungered. They had great weapons that enabled 
 them to kill the great, fierce buffalo; and they had 
 many fields in which grew things good for food. Ah, 
 it was happiness even to dream of so much to eat! 
 But it was a dream, and it means nothing. So let us 
 catch beetles, in order that we may eat." 
 
 All day the man and the other people wandered, 
 hunting small animals, which they killed with stones, 
 and seeking edible roots, which they made into 
 
ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 bundles and bore upon their heads as they walked. 
 They had been hunting for two days; and, as their 
 bundles had grown to be as heavy as they could bear, 
 they were journeying again toward the cliffs where 
 they dwelt. One man walked on ahead of the rest; 
 and once a sharp hiss of warning came from him, as 
 he leaped behind a great tufa rock that had fallen from 
 a mesa-top into the valley. The others silently crept 
 behind the great rock, and they trembled as a great 
 bear passed down the valley. Again during the day 
 the scout warned them; and they all hid in shaking 
 fear as a tall, naked Indian — one of the new race of 
 Killers who had lately come into the world — was 
 seen at a little distance. At night they came to the 
 cliffs of the Pu-Ye, in the faces of which their little 
 houses had been cut out. They had chosen this 
 place, and carved out their homes high in the cliff, in 
 order that they might be safe from the large, fierce men 
 who had invaded their land, and before whom they 
 could no more stand than a fawn could stand before 
 the fierce puma of the mountains. 
 
 Their cliff-burrows were small. Each had but a 
 single room, and they were empty save for a few 
 rabbit skins and some dry leaves. As soon as they 
 were within these places, they ate of the food they 
 had brought with them; and then they lay down and 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 163 
 
 slept. In the morning they awoke, ate again, and 
 again slept. 
 
 As the sun was sinking from the zenith, the man 
 and woman, being surfeited with sleep, arose, climbed 
 down the perilous niches that served them as a ladder, 
 and, having drunk from the stream, they sat down in 
 the sand to talk. 
 
 ** What of the dream you had last night?" asked 
 the woman. 
 
 ** I know nothing of it, except that which I told 
 you yesterday," answered the man. *' It was a 
 strange thing, though, that I forgot you in it. That 
 was the strangest of all; for you are dearer to me than 
 all else, and it is not natural that I should forget you 
 even in a dream. It is a wondrous thing that you 
 and I are so dear to each other. The other men and 
 women seem to care little for each other, but to you 
 and me the other of us is all the world. Our lives 
 are so full of want and hunger and fear of our enemies 
 and terror of the great animals and of the evil spirit, 
 that, if it were not for you and for your love, I think 
 I would not care to live." 
 
 The man placed his arm about the woman, and 
 pressed his cheek to hers. And he told her again 
 that he loved her and would always love her. And 
 she nestled in his arm and fondled him, and the light 
 
1 64 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 of the joy of love was in her eyes. But, aside from 
 the love they bore each other, Hfe held nothing for 
 these people except the pleasures of eating and drink- 
 ing and sleeping. 
 
 They wandered together throughout the little valley 
 that lay under the frowning cHfF where they lived. 
 They prattled to each other like two children at play, 
 and they laughed and were glad because they lived 
 and loved. That night they lay down together in the 
 narrow little room of rock that they had carved out of 
 the cliff; and, as the man's eyes began to grow heavy 
 with sleep, he remembered the strange dream he had 
 had of a broader life and a greater love. And he 
 slept; and by him slept his loved one, her matted, 
 unkempt hair mingling with his own, and her hand 
 fast clasped in his. 
 
 Again the man awoke. The sun had travelled far 
 past the meridian and was sinking toward the west. 
 He remembered that he always slept where he chanced 
 to be when night came, so he did not think it strange 
 that he was out-of-doors. But it seemed unusual to 
 him that he should sleep until the day had grown so 
 old. He reached out his hand to feel for the woman's 
 hair, as his first act upon awakening always was to 
 place his hand upon her matted tresses. He did not 
 feel the hair, and sat up in surprise; for she always 
 
AT THE PU-YE CLIFFS 165 
 
 slept near him, and her hair was always near his 
 head. 
 
 He arose, and stretched his arms out; and, when 
 he chanced to gaze down upon himself, he saw that 
 his body was of unusual size, and that it was clad in 
 strange garments. He looked at his hands, and saw 
 that they were white. And then he remembered. 
 
 The sun was sinking behind the Sierras de los 
 Valles, and the blue shadows cast by the peaks seemed 
 to jeer at him and mock him. Lines of filmy mist 
 were forming above the foot-hills and over the valley 
 of the Rio Grande; and they seemed to call to him, 
 saying that he, and life, and the world, and love, were 
 only dreams, and phantasms, and mirages. He looked 
 about for the strange, beautiful woman who had put 
 him to sleep; but she was nowhere to be seen. He 
 would have been tempted to beheve that she had not 
 been there, and that she was but some unreal image 
 that had come to him in his dream, — or his series of 
 dreams within a dream, — but, lying on the gray rock 
 where she had sat, he found the soft, white, filmy 
 lace that she had worn upon her head. 
 
The Law of Seh-now-wuff 
 
 I KNOW a quiet nook in a picturesque valley where 
 dwells an Indian chief with his wife and some 
 of his grandchildren. Far to the west of the 
 valley, snow-capped mountains rise skyward to great 
 heights; and to the south is one of the broad mesas, or 
 table-lands, that are so characteristic of the lands where 
 the Indians dwell. A little river ripples and gurgles 
 past the place to the west, and back of the dwelling- 
 place of the chief is a wild meadow where horses and 
 sheep and goats are grazing. It is a quiet and pasto- 
 ral place; and the chief's home, instead of being 
 merely a brush wigwam, consists of a board house 
 with a tent at one side, and a rude barn and granary are 
 near at hand. Ploughs are seen about the place, and 
 wagons and harness and other farmer gear. And, in- 
 deed, the chief is now a farmer; and tilled fields are 
 all about his home, while a little acequia brings water 
 for irrigation from the noisy little river. 
 
 The chief himself is a quiet man with a grave face, 
 and the look of sadness so common to Indian faces in 
 repose with him amounts at times to a look of misery. 
 He is popular in his tribe, and is proud of his skill and 
 eloquence as an orator. The white men like him, and 
 the Indian agent is proud to call this man his friend. 
 His fields are fat, his herds and flocks are many, his 
 i66 
 
THE LAW OF SEH-NOW-WUFF 167 
 
 wife IS comely, his children and grandchildren are 
 among the best people in the tribe; and it would seem 
 that this man, growing old with honor, and possessing 
 fame with good repute, should be happy. But he is 
 so unhappy indeed that often he sits for long hours 
 under the shade of the little porch of his house, and 
 longs for the time of his death to come, when he can 
 be free from memory and sorrow. I learned the 
 cause of this man's sadness, and I will write down the 
 tale; but, beyond saying that he is a Ute, I shall not 
 identify him. The Ute-ah is a great nation, number- 
 ing thousands, and many chiefs and sub-chiefs rule 
 the nation. So it will not be easy for any of the few 
 who know these tribes to say what man this tale is 
 about. His name shall be written down here as Te- 
 Aguen, which, in the language of his people, means 
 "Friend "; and, indeed, it is a name often bestowed 
 upon him by his people in their common conversation. 
 The tale of Te-Aguen really begins in myth and 
 tradition and superstition. The Utes believe that in 
 the beginning of time there was darkness upon the 
 face of the earth and over the waters, and that no 
 living thing existed except the Great Spirit, whose 
 name is Seh-now-wufF, and his brother, the Evil 
 Spirit, whose name is Yo-woy-witch. The genesis 
 of this people relates that Seh-now-wufF created all the 
 
i68 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 red nations of the world, but gave his love and his 
 protection and his guidance only to the JJte-ahy v^'hose 
 very name means "A Chosen People," or **A 
 People Apart." In the glad days of the long, long 
 ago, this great god came to the earth and dwelt with 
 his people, and ruled them and gave them laws that 
 exist until this day, and that have been sacredly ob- 
 served until these evil later times when the lands have 
 been overrun by the white despoilers, who have 
 brought new laws and sore punishments for their in- 
 fraction. These ancient laws of Seh-now-wufF were 
 told to the first maker of medicine, and by him to 
 his successor, and so on down through all those count- 
 less generations of men that have been since the god 
 committed the great sin, and then went to dwell for- 
 ever in the bright land of the sun, and prepare there a 
 happy land for his people to journey to and dwell in 
 after death. The makers of medicine recite many 
 of these laws to the people in the councils, and even 
 in gatherings where women and children are. And 
 when he was young, which was before the white sol- 
 diers had come over the eastern mountains and plains, 
 often had Te-Aguen sat and listened to these sacred 
 rules, and resolved that all the days of his Hfe he 
 would fulfill them all to the uttermost tittle. To this 
 day he can close his eyes, and in memory he is again 
 
THE LAW OF SEH-NOW-WUFF 169 
 
 seated in the council wick-e-up, listening to old Ta- 
 rap-ah-wush droning off the laws and then making the 
 young men and boys repeat them after him word for 
 word. 
 
 **If a Ute man take away the wife of another Ute, 
 the one who is injured can go to the home of the one 
 who has despoiled him, kill a horse, and take away 
 another horse. The horse that is killed is a sign of 
 his sorrow for his bereavement, and the horse that he 
 takes is in payment for the loss of his wife." 
 
 So runs one section of the code, and Te-Aguen can 
 say it word for word to this day. 
 
 " If a wife is unfaithful to her husband, sinning 
 with another man of our own tribe, the injured hus- 
 band may beat his wife. If she sins with a man of 
 another tribe, the punishment shall be that the 
 woman's nose shall be slit so that she shall be there- 
 after branded as unfaithful all the days of her life. 
 But, if she shall sin with any man of another color 
 from that of the Indians, she shall surely be killed as 
 soon as the sin is known. And, if her sin is not dis- 
 covered until a child has been born, that child shall at 
 once be killed; for it is not lawful that the blood of 
 white men or black men or yellow men shall flow 
 with Ute blood." 
 
 So runs another of the old laws of Seh-now-wuff, 
 
lyo ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 and it is one that every Ute girl has recited to her 
 from the time she is old enough to talk. Many of 
 the laws are modified and hedged about with many 
 provisos, and so distorted that it is easy to condone 
 moral laxity and hard to establish conjugal sin; but 
 the law that relates to men of alien color and to chil- 
 dren of two bloods is immutable, and is even yet 
 above the law of the Indian agent. And it is be- 
 cause that law is in the Ute code that the chief Te- 
 Aguen often sits on his little porch until far into the 
 night, wishing that he were dead, that his body 
 might return to clay, and his spirit fly to the sun, 
 there to atone for the sin that he did. 
 
 When Te-Aguen vras young, he held much aloof 
 from the other young people of the tribe. Much 
 love-making went on among the youths and maidens, 
 but it was not for him. And, when the men sat to- 
 gether about the camp fire and related tales of their 
 conquests of the other sex, Te-Aguen drew his blan- 
 ket about him, and sat silent; for his mind was wholly 
 filled with thoughts of Keahnatch, whose eyes were 
 like stars shining through a mist, and whose hair was 
 as soft as the blossoms of the flowering trees in spring. 
 Often he sat silent, listening to hear if her name 
 should be vaunted by any of the vainglorious boasters, 
 resolved to kill the man who should say ill of her. 
 
THE LAW OF SEH-NOW-WUFF 171 
 
 But her name was never mentioned by the amorous 
 boasters; for the girl (whose name meant **The 
 Light-hearted One") was a good girl with a pure 
 mind, and she never went forth among the people 
 unless accompanied by her mother. 
 
 Then the power of the white men began to be 
 shown, and in time came the dread decree that Ute 
 children and young men and maidens should go to the 
 schools that were in far places, there to learn the 
 harsh speech of the whites, and the boys be taught to 
 plough and reap, and the girls be instructed in sewing 
 and new ways of cooking. The commissioners who 
 came to make the selections chose *'The Light- 
 hearted One " to go with the others. Te-Aguen 
 was older than the girl, so much so indeed that he 
 could not have gone to the school if he had desired; 
 but his shyness, which until then had kept him mute, 
 was now overcome by his grief because the girl was to 
 go aw^ay, and he told her, in simple words, the tale 
 of his love for her. The maid was very glad that she 
 had won the love of the young brave, and she prom- 
 ised that as soon as she returned from school she 
 would become his wife. Then, clad in her finest 
 dress, made of the tanned skin of mountain goats, and 
 with new beaded moccasins on her feet, Keahnatch 
 went away to school. 
 
172 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 After she was gone, time hung very heavy on the 
 hands of Te-Aguen. He tired of the councils, of the 
 hunts, and even of listening to the tales told by the 
 old men; and it was not long until he went away 
 down the valley, to the very place where he lives to 
 this day, and began to make a home to which Keah- 
 natch should be welcomed upon her return. He 
 built a wick-e-up out of strong branches and brush; 
 he cut new tent poles, and built a new tent; and he 
 made a fireplace out of clay. Then he traded among 
 the men, and got Navajo blankets and kettles that had 
 come from traders as far away as Santa Fe, and jars 
 and pottery that had been brought by the Pueblo 
 Indians. And at night he lay down in his new tent, 
 on his bed of blankets, and dreamed of the happiness 
 that would be his when ** The Light-hearted One" 
 should be his wife. 
 
 Months passed, — long, weary months of loneliness 
 for Te-Aguen. And then, one day, from over the 
 eastern mesas came a caravan of ponies, bearing home 
 the young Utes who had passed so much weary time 
 at the hated school. Te-Aguen saddled his fleetest 
 pony, and rode out to meet his sweetheart; and he 
 was very proud as he entered the camp, riding by her 
 side. That night a great dance and a feast were 
 given to welcome the wanderers home again, and 
 
THE LAW OF SEH-NOW-WUFF 173 
 
 Te-Aguen and Keahnatch frolicked together in the 
 dances and games Hke two children. And, when the 
 dance was over and the feast had been eaten, and 
 little children were sleeping by the wood fire built in 
 the open, Te-Aguen led Keahnatch to his new home 
 as his wife. 
 
 Keahnatch seemed very happy. She caressed her 
 husband, and whispered soft words of love into his 
 ear, and never seemed to tire of telling him how glad 
 she was to be away from the despised school and 
 back with him in the valley, where her life could be 
 free and there were no hateful books to study. But 
 often a look of sadness would pass over her face, and 
 often she would gaze wistfully and even timorously 
 into the eyes of her husband. And so two days 
 passed, — the two happiest days that have ever been 
 in the life of Te-Aguen, the Ute. On the third day 
 after his marriage, Te-Aguen said to his wife that on 
 that night they would go to the main encampment of 
 the tribe to hear an old man expound the sacred laws 
 of their nation. And, at night, as they sat in the circle 
 of solemn listeners about the blazing fire, Te-Aguen 
 gently pressed the hand of his wife as the old man 
 who was talking droned out the law referring to the 
 sins of Ute women with men of another color. Ke- 
 ahnatch looked troubled, and trembled, and a shudder 
 convulsed her frame. 
 
174 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 In time the meeting was over; and the young man 
 and his wife returned to their home, walking down 
 the valley hand in hand. Te-Aguen kindled a fire, 
 and Keahnatch procured cold meat and other food for 
 a lunch. 
 
 ** Now let us sleep, dear one, for the night grows 
 old,'* said the man, 
 
 Keahnatch unrolled the blankets and skins that 
 served as a bed, took ofF her fine garments that had 
 been worn to the meeting, and prepared to retire, her 
 husband gazing upon her fondly the while. 
 
 *' Do you think the laws left upon earth by the 
 Great Spirit, Seh-now-wufF, are just and true laws, 
 my husband.?" asked Keahnatch, falteringly. 
 
 ** Surely," answered her husband, in some surprise, 
 ** When I was a little boy, I talked with old men who 
 had lived for more than a hundred summers; and they 
 told me that the laws were known, word for word as 
 they are now, when they themselves were little boys. 
 And they said that other old men, who were old 
 when they were young, had told them that it was the 
 same in their childhood, and that it has been so from 
 the beginning of time. Surely, the laws of Seh-now- 
 wufF are true and just; for did he not in his wisdom 
 make laws about horses before any horses except his 
 own magic horse were known in the world? But 
 why do you ask? " 
 
THE LAW OF SEH-NOW-WUFF 175 
 
 **At the school I was told that the laws of 
 Seh-now-wufF are lies, and that they are also foolish/* 
 slowly answered the wife. 
 
 **The people at the school are liars, and they love 
 not the truth," replied Te-Aguen, sententiously. 
 
 ** But, if one believed the talk of the white people, 
 and thus unknowingly sinned against Seh-now-wufF 's 
 law, would the sin be the same? " asked she who 
 might now have well been called the ** Heavy-hearted 
 One." 
 
 ** Surely, dear heart. But why do you worry 
 about the old laws? I have made a law for you; 
 and it says that you are to hold me close in your arms 
 and press kisses upon my lips, and that you and I 
 must be happier than two people ever have been since 
 the time Seh-now-wufF created the races of men." 
 And he stooped and kissed his wife upon her cheek, 
 
 Keahnatch feebly returned the caress, and then 
 remained silent. Soon they lay down upon their 
 couch; and there was silence in the tent, and no light 
 save that made by the smouldering embers of the fire 
 that was in the centre. After a while the man 
 asked: — 
 
 " Why are you so silent and sad to-night, wife of 
 mine? Are you not happy to be home again, and to 
 be my wife, and to be here in your own can-nee? " 
 
176 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 ** My heart is very heavy, husband, because of the 
 law of Seh-no\v-\vufF. 
 
 ** What law of Seh-now-wufF? " asked her husband. 
 
 Keahnatch rose to a sitting posture, her long black 
 hair falling about her shoulders. She gazed wildly at 
 her husband for a moment, and then said: — 
 
 ** Te-Aguen, I have sinned and I have been sinned 
 against. I have broken the law of Seh-now-wufF, 
 and the medicine men will kill me if they know. 
 I should have told you sooner, but I wanted to steal a 
 day or two of happiness. But is not your love for 
 me strong enough and great enough, so that you will 
 protect me and have me sent safely back to the school.? " 
 
 ** What law have you broken? What speech of the 
 insane is this that you are using? What mean you, 
 woman? " asked the man, springing to his feet with a 
 look of fear in his eyes. 
 
 ** I have broken the law, husband," replied the 
 wife, her head sinking into her hands. 
 
 **But what law?" asked her husband, almost 
 fiercely. 
 
 " The law that says it is death for a Ute woman to 
 sin with a man of another color. I have sinned, — I 
 have been deceived, — and — and ruined, and by a 
 white man of the school. And — and, in time, a 
 child will be born unto me, — and it will be of mixed 
 blood, — and it must be killed." 
 
THE LAW OF SEH-NOW-WUFF 177 
 
 The woman hid her face, and sobbed. 
 
 The face of Te-Aguen froze into granite. His 
 eyes shone like the eyes of a mountain lion that is 
 about to spring. His blood surged hotly through his 
 veins, he clenched his hands so tightly that his nails 
 brought blood from his palms, and he ceased to be a 
 lover or a husband or a man, and became a wild 
 beast, — an animal thirsting for blood. 
 
 **And you have done this thing to me!" he 
 hissed, grasping the shrinking woman rudely by her 
 bare shoulder. ** To me who have watched you 
 grow from infancy, who have guarded you and fought 
 for you when you were a little child, who have had 
 no other loves or lovers, in order that I might wait 
 until you reached the years of womanhood, and then 
 take you for my only wife! Woman, speak! Unsay 
 the lie you have said, and tell me you have but jested! " 
 
 " I have spoken truth, my husband. Forgive, 
 forgive!" moaned the woman. 
 
 ** Forgive, and make myself the butt of every fool 
 in the tribe who can fashion his mouth to a rude jest? 
 Forgive, and break the sacred and ancient law of our 
 god? O woman, fool, beast, prostitute! I will not 
 forgive, I will not forget! I have loved you, and 
 now I hate you. I have trusted you: now I shall 
 kill you! Have you any incantation to say to soothe 
 
178 ADOBELAND STORIES 
 
 the wrath of the Great Spirit? If so, sav instantly; 
 for your life shall go out as quickly as the melting of a 
 snow-drop." 
 
 The woman fell forward on her face, crying aloud 
 in terror, and feebly holding up her hands to ward off 
 her danger. The stone face of the man melted from 
 its rigidity, and writhed and worked in passion. He 
 sprang upon the prostrate w^oman, caught her long 
 hair fiercely in his hands, wound it in a noose around 
 her throat, and pulled' upon the strands like a mad- 
 man. The woman's breath gurgled in her throat, her 
 eyes stood out from her face, her tongue turned black 
 and protruded from her mouth, and her fingers 
 clutched and writhed in a paroxysm of pain and 
 terror and supplication. 
 
 "The law of Seh-now-wufF," muttered the mad- 
 man, "the law of Seh-now-wuiF shall be avenged! 
 Die, you reptile, you breaker of laws! " 
 
 He drew the strands of hair tighter and tighter about 
 the blackened throat of the suffocating woman, he 
 held her head down in the dust of the floor, and 
 finally he threw the quivering body away from him so 
 savagely that it struck the opposite wall of the tent. 
 He stood for a moment glowering down upon the 
 body of her who had been his sweetheart and his 
 wife. He saw the quivering of her limbs and hands; 
 
THE LAW OF SEH-NOW-WUFF 179 
 
 and then another burst of red fury ran through his 
 savage blood, and he sprang upon the dying form and 
 trampled the writhing face into the ground with his 
 feet. And the law of Seh-now-wufF had been 
 avenged. 
 
 That was all in the time of the long ago, before 
 the Indians had heard any laws but the cruel ones of 
 their own savage god; but it is the memory of that 
 dying face, of the protruding eyes, of the swelling 
 tongue, and of the quivering limbs, that has been 
 before the mental vision of Te-Aguen ever since, and 
 that causes him to be miserable, even in spite of the 
 fact that he has become a chief and is noted for his 
 eloquence. When he is alone and silent, always 
 there comes to his mind the memory of a dimly 
 lighted tent, of the cold moonbeams shining through 
 a slit in the tent wall, of a smouldering fire, and of a 
 hideous, horrible, crazed being — that is himself — that 
 has killed all that the world held that he loved or that 
 was dear to him. 
 
i