LIBRARY 
 
 UNlVERSfTY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 Stories and Sketches of the Southwest 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES F. LUMMIS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1891 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1891, 
 BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS. 
 
PS 
 
 3533 
 U5 5 
 
 PKEFATOKY NOTE. 
 
 THESE true pictures of the wonderful and almost unknown 
 Southwest are part of the fruits of years of residence and 
 study, and several hundreds of thousands of miles of travel 
 on foot, on horseback, and by rail, through this strange land. 
 They are not the impressions of a random tourist across its 
 bare, brown waste, but are drawn from intimacy with its 
 quaint peoples, its weird customs, and its dangers. As such, 
 I shall be glad if they interest my young countrymen, for 
 
 whom they were drawa 
 
 C. F. L. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A NEW MEXICO DAVID 1 
 
 How I LOST MY SHADOW 12 
 
 'QUITO'S NUGGET 25 
 
 THE ENCHANTED MESA 39 
 
 A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT 54 
 
 PABLO APODACA'S BEAR 68 
 
 THE Box S ROUND- UP 79 
 
 THE COMANCHE'S REVENGE 94 
 
 IN THE PUEBLO ALTO 101 
 
 LITTLE LOLITA 115 
 
 THREE LIVE WITCHES 123 
 
 HOW TO THROW THE LASSO 134 
 
 " OLD SURELY " 141 
 
 THE GALLO RACE 148 
 
 ON THE PAY-STREAK 157 
 
 THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE 174 
 
 A NEW OLD GAME 183 
 
 A NEW MEXICAN HERO 190 
 
 vii 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 THE AUTHOR ON HIS LONG WALK Frontispiece. 
 
 FACE PAGE 
 
 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF ACOMA, WITH THE ENCHANTED MESA 
 
 IN THE DISTANCE 40 
 
 AT THE CHUCK WAGON 80 
 
 PUTTING ON THE Box S BRAND 92 
 
 PUEBLO WOMEN 116 
 
 THROWING THE LASSO THE AIM, AND MANNER OF HOLD- 
 ING RIATA 138 
 
 RUINS OF OLD CONVENT AT SAN ILDEFONSO 174 
 
 RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH AT TAOS 190 
 
 ix 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 
 
 I DOUBT very much if Lucario Montoya had 
 ever heard of that wonderful fight of long ago 
 between the shepherd stripling and Goliath of Gath. 
 Certainly he had never read of those things, for a 
 book would have been the most incomprehensible 
 of mysteries to Lucario. But in the great and 
 wonderful volume of Out-of -Doors ho was an apt 
 schoTarTfor in that he had had the most learned of 
 schoolmasters his Mexican father and his Indian 
 acquaintances. 
 
 He could go out into the travelled road and read 
 from the strangling hieroglyjihics of the dust how 
 long it had been since the last party passed ; 
 whether they were Mexicans or Indians, men or 
 women, travelling ...fast or slowly, by night or by 
 day. lie could not read it half so well as an 
 Indian, but he was a famous trailer none the less. 
 In all out-door sports, too, that were tnown then 
 and there, he was an expert. When, on their 
 feast-days, the young men of Cebolleta used to bury 
 a rooster to its wattles in the sand, and mounting 
 their horses two hundred yards away ride down in 
 a whirlwind gallop, swinging low from the saddle 
 
 1 
 
2 A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 
 
 to pluck up that tiny mark as they thundered past, 
 it was Lucario oftener than any other who swept 
 triumphant down the valley with half a hundred 
 reckless riders in mad pursuit ; with shrill yells 
 swinging that feathered club about his head to 
 beat off those who grappled him. Pistols there 
 were none in New Mexico in those days, and of 
 guns only the old Spanish flintlock muskets. But 
 with bow and arrows Lucario won many a pony 
 and gay blanket in matches with the Navajos and 
 Utes. With the^eata he was equally skilful, and 
 more than once had lassoed antelope in the prairies 
 along the ^guaAz^l, a feat of which the most 
 practiced " rop'er*^ might well feel proud. 
 
 Above all, he could throw the knife. It was the 
 favorite weapon of his race, and one in the deadly 
 use of which they have never been excelled. Many 
 an Indian had bitten the dust in the hand-to-hand 
 struggles which were then so common between 
 the settlers and their savage neighbors pierced 
 through and through by the shining cuchillo largo 
 of some brave Cebolletan. Ever since his boyhood 
 Lucario had practised throwing his knife, and now 
 from forefeet away he could drive it-quivering 
 tw^inche^deep jnto a foot cjxcle. ofjwood. With 
 the arm hanging at full length, he placed the knife 
 point forward in the open palm. Then he shoved 
 his arm suddenly forward, with a sort of scooping 
 motion, and off flew the glittering missile. 
 
 All this Lucario was at home in ; but if you had 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 3 
 
 shown him a book, with those funny little black 
 things chasing each other across the white paper, I 
 am sorry to say he would have been quite lost. 
 
 Lucario was a shepherd, and tended one of the 
 flocks of ^ Don Refugio when the Indians were suf- 
 ficiently quieTtcTacrimt of any sallying forth from 
 the little walled town. Though known for his 
 athletic accomplishments, he was neither tall nor 
 very muscular, but an ordinary lad of seventeen, 
 who might weigh one hundred and twenty pounds, 
 but making up in wiriness, skill, and agility what 
 he lacked in brute strength. His straight," jet hair 
 fell below his shoulders ; his face just showing 
 a faint, dark fuzz was thin, but with a vivid 
 red shining through the olive skin, and his black 
 eyes were large and wonderfully bright. 
 
 It was in 1840 eigh^e^sJbejore_New Mexicjcx. 
 became part of the TTmtedTStates. It was then 
 the Province of New Mexico a colony of Old 
 Mexico, and governed by a Viceroy sent thence. 
 
 Of our race, who arrogate to themselves distinc- 
 tively the name " Americans," there were hardly 
 any in the province perhaps a dozen in all. But 
 of the descendants of the hardy Spanish pioneers 
 who became Americans long before any English- 
 speaking people did, there were many thousands. 
 But they were heavily outnumbered by the In- 
 dians, of whom there were many powerful hostile 
 tribes. The Pueblos, a race of quiet farmers who 
 dwelt in as good houses as the Mexicans them- 
 
4 A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 
 
 selves, had made their last protest, more than a 
 century before, against the occupancy of the Span- 
 ish, and were now excellent neighbors. But the 
 Apaches, the Nayajos, the Utes, the Piutes, the 
 Uncompahgres, and the Comanches had never been 
 conquered, and were incessantly warring upon the 
 settlers. Lucario's father, mother, grandfather, 
 great-grandfather, five uncles, two older brothers, 
 and I know not how many more distant relatives, 
 had all been killed by the Indians, and his was by 
 no means an unparalleled case of bereavement. 
 
 This year the Utes had been doing their cruelest 
 work in Western New Mexico. They had sur- 
 prised several hamlets and massacred all in them, 
 had cut off many shepherds, stolen many thousand 
 sheep, and made unsuccessful but disastrous as- 
 saults upon Cebolleta and other small fortified 
 towns. It had become unbearable, and the chief 
 men throughout New Mexico had met and sub- 
 scribed money to send out against the Indians a 
 thousand volunteers under the command of the 
 brave Manuel Chaves. Lucario's only surviving 
 uncle -Ju_f ather's eldest brother was second in 
 command ; and LucariOjJo^^^great delight, was 
 allowed to join the expedition. 
 
 The force marched far northward, past the Ca- 
 bezon (" BigJHfead ") a strange peak of rock 
 apparently larger at the top than at the bottom. 
 Two days later, they camped in the plains below 
 the giant range of Jemez, having sighted a large 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 5 
 
 force of Utes in the timber ahead. The New 
 Mexicans, who were outnumbered four to one, 
 entrenched themselves as best they might, to await 
 the attack. The Utes came skimming about the 
 camp on their fleet horses, with taunting gestures, 
 but taking good care to keep beyond the range of 
 the flintlocks. 
 
 One gigantic savage, mounted upon a large and 
 snow-white mustang, made himself particularly 
 conspicuous. He was plainly a chief. His buck- 
 skin suit of soft black was beautifully fringed, and 
 resplendent with silver buttons. He was fully 
 seven feet tall, and immensely broad across the 
 shoulders. His horsemanship was wonderful, and 
 the brave New Mexicans, who could appreciate 
 the good points of even an enemy, were lost in 
 admiration. 
 
 " ^ Q^LJL^^- " 1 ^ ne y cr i e( ^ as ne swept 
 past them like the wind, now vaulting to his feet 
 in the saddle, now altogether disappearing on the 
 farther side of his horse, and shooting arrows at 
 them from under the horse's neck with astonishing 
 force and accuracy, and now leaping from saddle v \ 
 to ground and back from ground to saddle, all f 
 without a break in his mad gallop. 
 
 " Who dares come out into the plain and fight 
 me alone ? " he cried, suddenly wheeling his horse 
 and riding broadside past them, not more than a 
 hundred yards away. " If you have any great 
 
 1 " What a strong, fine man ! " 
 
G 
 
 A NEW MEXICO 
 
 
 warrior, let him come. If I kill him, you shall 
 go back to your homes and follow us no more. 
 But if he kills me, then my people will return to 
 the country of the Utes, and end the war." 
 
 There were brave men in plenty among the New 
 Mexicans, and I doubt not that many volunteers 
 might have been found to take up the huge Ute's 
 challenge. But before any one else had stirred, 
 Lucario ran to his uncle, who was talking with 
 Colonel Chaves. 
 
 "Uncle," he said, "I am young, and the last 
 of the family. Let me go out to this boastful bar- 
 bar o ! If I die, there are none to mourn ; but if I 
 kill him, with the help of San Esteban, then we 
 .are relieved from war, and you shall feel proud 
 of your brother's son." 
 
 Don Jose was a man of rough exterior, though 
 of a good heart. Brave himself, he admired brav- 
 ery and loathed cowardice. 
 
 " Go, then," he said gruffly, " but look that frhou 
 kill him ! Come back without his head, and I will 
 Eillthee!" 
 
 "And if thou bring his head," said Colonel 
 Chaves, "I will make thee a captain this very 
 day!" 
 
 Lucario waited to hear no more. Running to 
 where his pet pony Alazan was picketed, he pulled 
 up the picket-pin and removed it from his long 
 reata of braided horsehair. Having taken all the 
 kinks out of the rope and seen that the noose would 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 7 
 
 run easily through its loop, he coiled and hung it 
 upon his saddle-bow. He loosened the heavy knife 
 in its sheath, which was sewed upon the side of his 
 buckskin breeches, tested the arrows in his quiver 
 to be sure that they were all well feathered ; and, 
 leaping lightly to the saddle, rode slowly out into 
 the plain with a quiet " Good bv, jny friends 1" 
 
 When the Utes saw how small was the horse, 
 and what a slender stripling its rider, they set up 
 yells of derisive laughter. The giant chief was par- 
 ticularly merry, and rode down toward Lucario 
 slowly, showing his large white teeth, and calling, 
 " Are there no men among you, that you send 
 out ;i child to me for a mouthful?" 
 
 Most of the New Mexicans were somewhat 
 familiar with the language of the Utes, and Lu- 
 cario understood the taunt perfectly. " Truly, I 
 am but a small mouthful," he called back, "but 
 perhaps a bitter one ! We shall see." 
 
 "WKenTie TwalTwithin fifty yards, he sent a sud- 
 den arrow whistling at his huge foe. The motion 
 was so cat-like and unexpected that the Ute had 
 scarce time to " duck " to the side of his horse, and 
 the arrow pierced his ear. 
 
 With a grunt of mingled astonishment and 
 appreciation of the lad's skill the Indian drew his . 
 " own heavy bow, giving the string a tug that would 
 have sent its shaft through a buffalo. But Lucario 
 was watching, and when the arrow came, it passed a 
 foot above the saddle, and found nothing there. 
 
8 A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 
 
 His own second arrow merely grazed the Ute's 
 horse ; and now, seeing that he had no ordinary 
 marksman to deal with, the Indian clung to his 
 horse's side and began galloping around and around 
 Lucario, shooting at him from under the horse's 
 neck, but never exposing so much of himself as a 
 whole hand. Lucario adopted the same tactics, 
 and so skilfully, that in a few minutes each had 
 spent all his arrows, and neither was more than 
 scratched. 
 
 The Utes had all ridden out from the timber, 
 and were drawn up in an irregular line a few hun- 
 dred feet away, watching the curious fight with 
 intense interest. About as far away on the other 
 side were the New Mexicans, who had also 
 mounted to get a better view. 
 
 Lucario swung erect into his saddle. " With 
 the reata ! " he shouted, uncoiling his own rope, 
 and running it rapidly through his hands till he 
 had the long running-noose ready and trailing 
 from his right hand back upon the ground. The 
 Lite understood, and did likewise. Then they 
 went galloping around each other, wheeling, charg- 
 ing, dodging, swinging the long nooses around 
 their heads, and watching their chance. The 
 horses understood this game as well as their riders, 
 and played as important a part in it. Both were 
 jmighjiaired; but their deer-like legs, small fine 
 heads, and arching necks bespoke their descent 
 from the noble Arab steeds brought here by the 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 9 
 
 Spanish Conquistadores in 1541 the first horses 
 in America, and ancestors of all the " wild horses" 
 of the plains. 
 
 Lucario soon found this a very different busi- 
 ness from lassoing even antelope. It took all his 
 quickness of eye and all his agility to keep that 
 deadly noose from settling down over his own 
 neck. At last the Indian let the reata fly suddenly 
 as he was passing, at the same instant wheeling his 
 horse inward to gain the necessary distance. He 
 had calculated wonderfully well, and the move 
 was too quick for Lucario, but Alazan had seen 
 it and made a mighty sidewise bound. The noose 
 swept across his flanks and fell empty to the 
 ground, and Lucario, as his intelligent horse 
 wheeled back with wonderful rapidity, dropped 
 his own rope deftly over the head of the Indian 
 before the latter had recovered himself. Giving 
 a quick turn of the rope around his saddle-bow, 
 the boy touched the spurs to Alazan. 
 
 For an instant it looked as though he "had" 
 the Indian, and would unseat and drag him to 
 death, and the New Mexicans yelled exultantly. 
 But the vast strength of the Ute, and the quick- 
 ness and superior weight of his horse, saved him. 
 ^n^tcTiing~lBe taut rope rwftJThis" brawny Urnis, he 
 gave it a turn around his saddle-bow, lifted the 
 relieved noose over his head, and cut it with his 
 knife. 
 
 His face was no longer smiling, but contorted 
 
10 A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 
 
 with savage passions. He forgot his challenge to 
 a fair combat, and now thought only of killing 
 this saucy boy and saving himself from disgrace, 
 if not death. 
 
 He began circling again around Lucario, all the 
 time stealthily edging nearer to his people. Sud- 
 denly one of them dashed out from the line and 
 tossed him a long, sharp lance. He caught it 
 deftly, and brandishing it aloft came charging 
 down upon Lucario like a thunderbolt. 
 
 For an instant the boy was dumbfounded by 
 this treachery. His arrows gone, his reata useless 
 should he fly ? No ! He knew well that his 
 stern uncle had meant every word ; he would 
 rather see him dead than in flight. 
 
 Ah ! His knife ! He whipped it from its sheath 
 and held it down beside him, putting Alazan to a 
 gentle canter toward the Ute. They were not 
 more than fifteen yards apart in an instant the 
 shock must come. And then, his big eyes shining 
 like coals, Lucario rose suddenly in his stirrups 
 with a flashing, overhead motion of his right arm, 
 and dug the rowels into Alazan's flanks, twisting 
 his head sharply to the left. 
 
 The Ute giant swayed in his saddle and lurched 
 heavily to the ground, while his scared horse went 
 on down the valley like the wind. The New 
 Mexicans dashed forward, and snatching the faint- 
 ing Lucario from his saddle, carried him into 
 camp. The Ute had hurled his heavy lance at the 
 
A NEW MEXICO DAVID. 11 
 
 same instant, and it had passed through Lucario's 
 arm, making a ghastly hole. But when they went 
 tojhe fallen giant, he was guite dead. The boy's 
 heavy knife had smitten him squarely between the 
 eyes ; and stout Patricio had to press his heel upon 
 the Ute's throat before he could tug out the bedded 
 blade. 
 
 According to the compact, the Utes were already 
 galloping a\vay ; and it was many months before 
 they made another foray into that portion of New 
 Mexico. 
 
 Lucario recovered from his wound, and distin- 
 guished himself as a captain in several subsequent 
 Indian wars. He bade fair to become one of the 
 noted men of New Mexico ; but in January, 1850, 
 he was among the victims of that bloody night at 
 Sail Miguel, when the lurking Apaches surprised 
 and massacred the flower of New Mexican soldiery 
 " the Brave Thirty of Cebolleta. 1 ' 
 
HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 
 
 " The Man Who Lost His Shadow " in an old 
 and well-known story was no relative of mine ; 
 but there was a time when I lost my shadow, and 
 it seemed to me a much more serious affair than 
 the mythical gentleman of that ingenious story 
 suffered. Surely no sun-cast shadow was ever so 
 worthy to be mourned as was the one I lost, for 
 mine was faithful flesh and blood. 
 
 It was in the early autumn of 1884 that I started 
 alone on what was perhaps the longest pedestrian 
 trip ever undertaken for pure pleasure, without 
 wager or reward a walk from Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 to Los Angeles, California, by a circuitous route 
 which made the entire length of the journey thirty- 
 five hundred and seven miles ; and occupied more 
 than one hundred and forty days. 
 
 Really to learn a country and its people, the 
 traveller should be on foot and unhurried, as 
 ample experience with bicycle, horseback, and car- 
 riage tours had long ago convinced me. It was a 
 glorious trip, always brimming with interest, fre- 
 quently spiced with danger, and full of hardship, 
 and it has left me some of the brightest and some 
 of the saddest memories of my life. 
 12 
 
HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 13 
 
 One crisp evening late in November I came 
 down from a rabbit-hunt in the hills to the lonely 
 section-house of San Carlos, a dozen miles south of 
 the rough iron city of Pueblo, Colorado. The sec- 
 tion-men were lifting the hand-car from the track, 
 and the welcome smell of supper was in the air. 
 As I came up, a tall, clean-built young greyhound 
 flew out at me, and one of the men gave him a 
 savage curse and kick that sent him away howling. 
 
 "Whose dog is that?" I asked sharply. 
 
 "Nobody's. Anybody 's'll take him kin hev 
 him." 
 
 " I'll take him," said I ; but it was more easily 
 said than done. It cost me two hours of coaxing 
 after supper to get the poor, starved pup even to 
 snap a morsel from my hand and fly again ; but at 
 last we tolled him into the bunk-house, shut the 
 door and tied him, after a lively fight in which 
 several of us were slightly bitten. 
 
 He was a fine pup, nearly full-blooded, black as 
 a coal, thirty inches tall, and not over four months 
 old. His owner, a well-to-do but kinless contrac- 
 tor, had recently died, leaving the dog to the 
 rough mercies of the section-men, from whom he 
 had never had " a square meal " nor a kind word. 
 
 Next morning we had another half-hour fight 
 when I tried to lead him by a stout cord ; but at 
 last he yielded to the inevitable, and followed me 
 under protest, frequently jerking hard at the wrist 
 to which I had tied his cord. That very afternoon 
 
14 HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 
 
 he lost me a fine antelope buck by leaping aside 
 just as I fired, and jerking my Winchester so that 
 the bullet struck a hundred yards from its aim. 
 
 Three days later, as we toiled up the rugged 
 vertebrae of the Rocky Mountains by a trail a few 
 miles south of the celebrated Veta Pass, he was 
 tagging along so contentedly at my heels, and my 
 rifle and blankets so fully claimed my attention, 
 that I gave him his liberty. He came crouching 
 up to me, still mindful of the brutalities he had 
 known before we met, and licked my hand appeal- 
 ingly. It was the first time he had shown affection 
 or seemed to enjoy a caress, but now he was 
 unmistakably happy, though he still " rejoiced with 
 trembling." When I had patted him and rose to 
 go on, he fell dutifully into line at my heels and 
 trotted automatically there, never swerving save 
 now and then to poke his long, cold nose into my 
 swinging hand, as if to say, " Here I am. Don't 
 forget me ! " 
 
 We passed that night in the log-cabin of a queer 
 old miner in Wagon Creek Canon, and the dog 
 voluntarily curled up against my chest, and slept 
 with his nose thrust under my chin. Thenceforth 
 he was really mine, and for over fifteen hundred 
 miles I had as true a friend as ever followed, a 
 companion who always thought my way the best 
 way, who shared with equal content my joys and 
 my hardships, never whined at long marches and 
 short rations, and loved me as only the great, hon- 
 
HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 15 
 
 est heart of an intelligent dog can love his master. 
 It is only in such companionship, too, that a man 
 can fully appreciate the value of a dog's friendship. 
 When every day revealed to me the selfishness 
 and dishonesty of man, I learned to value the 
 unselfish loyalty, the honor, of my dog. 
 
 Because of his gauntness, his color, and his per- 
 sistence at my heels, I named him " Shadow." He 
 was the only shadow I ever knew that did not 
 desert its owner when darkness came on. 
 
 A detailed story of Shadow's eventful career 
 would be a record of the tramp, and would fill a 
 large volume. It is only the salient points in his 
 short, faithful life that I can outline here. 
 
 It was the very next clay after passing Wagon 
 Creek that Shadow saw so far as I have knowl- 
 edge his first jack-rabbit. We were pacing 
 smartly down the abandoned government trail to 
 Fort Garland, a spiteful snow-squall driving in our 
 faces, when a black streak shot past me with a 
 funny yelp. 
 
 There was Shadow flying frantically down the 
 smooth road, his straining nose perhaps a foot be- 
 hind the heels of the "kangaroo of the West," 
 which loped along as if troubled with rheumatism. 
 Finding his neighbor too attentive, the jack sud- 
 denly doubled to the left into the sage, with the 
 dog " a good second." Ah, what a sight it was, as 
 the chase swept broadside by me and off down the 
 long slope ! I watched with tingling blood and 
 
16 HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 
 
 swelling chest that superb strain of fleet, buoyant, 
 dextrous muscle. The jack seemed to be sailing 
 over the two-foot chapparo like a great bird, so 
 continuously was he in the air. I could not really 
 tell when he touched the ground with those elastic 
 hind legs, they bounced him into sight again so 
 instantly. 
 
 Ten minutes afterward Shadow came limping 
 back very shamefacedly, as if afraid I might not be 
 aware that no greyhound of four months could 
 run down a full-grown jack-rabbit. 
 
 He sat down in front of me and lifted one of his 
 paws with a wistful little whine. No wonder ! The 
 pads were pin-cushions now a-bristle with hun- 
 dreds of the maddening needles of the nopal, or 
 prickly-pear cactus, each as painful as the sting of 
 the bee. It took me two solid hours to pick them 
 all out, and he stood it like a hero. 
 
 His reward came that night in the lonely camp 
 of two beaver-trappers on the Trincheras, where he 
 ate fresh antelope meat until he looked as if he 
 had swallowed a young balloon. 
 
 We tramped on down the upper valley of the 
 blue Rio Grande, vastly interested in the quaint 
 Mormon and Mexican settlements, and equally 
 prejudiced against the half-score of snapping curs 
 of every degree of mongreldom, and unanimous 
 only in ugliness and treachery that swarmed 
 about every house. 
 
 One moonlight night that week, in a deep ravine 
 
HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 17 
 
 above Embudo, Shadow who had dropped well 
 behind came suddenly bolting up between my 
 legs and upset me. He had good reason to seek 
 help. A hundred feet behind us came a long, dark 
 figure, crawling with that inimitable, deadly grace 
 that only a cat has. It was a cat the hugest cat 
 of the Western Hemisphere, the " mountain-lion," 
 or cougar of the Rockies. Terrible as it is when 
 wounded, the cougar does not voluntarily attack 
 man, and when I stood with my rifle at a ready 
 but unable to see the sights and shouted, the 
 great brute made an incredible leap up the side of 
 the arroyo and disappeared in the brush. All the 
 rest of the walk Shadow clung to my side, and 
 when I spread my blanket sleeping-bag in a Mexi- 
 can hovel at Embudo, he was still shivering. 
 
 Quaint old Santa FC*, where we lingered a week, 
 was the first town Shadow had ever been in, and 
 he was duly awed. The market, however, delighted 
 him. The first time we passed it he seized a sus- 
 pended rabbit and brought it to me with a proud 
 air that said, " Ah, ha ! Here they have jacks that 
 I can catch, anyhow ! " And he was greatly puz- 
 zled and pained to learn that marketed rabbits 
 were not fair prey. 
 
 For a fortnight he followed me faithfully, but 
 with evident misgivings, through the mines of 
 Golden and San Pedro. We were now literally 
 inseparable. If I changed my chair in a room 
 while he slept on the floor, he must get up and 
 
18 BOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 
 
 lick my hand before he could continue his nap. 
 He seemed to be haunted by a fear that the only 
 one who had ever shown him kindness would 
 escape from him. 
 
 Going out of Golden in two feet of snow, with 
 twenty miles to make before dark, we waded labo- 
 riously across the wooded hills our only guide 
 the trail of a single horse. Presently a strong 
 wind began to dry and drift the snow, and soon 
 had absolutely obliterated our trail. 
 
 It was a fearful day we passed there, lost in the 
 mountains, floundering through the heavy snow, 
 tumbling into drift-hidden arroyos, faint with 
 hunger, expecting death, and kept up only by 
 trained muscles and stubborn will. 
 
 At last Shadow could go no farther, but fell, 
 howling dismally, under a spreading pinon whose 
 piny branches partially averted the bitter storm. 
 I took him up on my shoulders as one carries a 
 sheep his long legs on either side my neck 
 and struggled desperately on. Just as the sun 
 sank behind a hill I saw a human form in silhou- 
 ette against the fiery disk, and a few minutes later 
 fell fainting across a hospitable threshold in San 
 Antonito. 
 
 Among the rough mountains and lava beds of 
 Western New Mexico we found many hardships 
 and many pleasures. Our hosts were miners, cow- 
 boys, section-men, Mexicans, and Indians ; our 
 food uncertain ; our bed generally the ground or 
 
HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 19 
 
 the snow, sometimes the adobe paving of a Pueblo 
 Indian house, or a floor of American boards. 
 
 But our eyes were clear, our lungs drank glori- 
 ous draughts of mountain air, our muscles rejoiced 
 in their free play, and our spirits fairly bubbled 
 over. 
 
 Shadow kept me in a daily roar by his wild 
 reaching after the unattainable rabbit. The per- 
 formance never lost its humor. Once in a while 
 he caught a cotton-tail the smaller rabbit and 
 always came proudly to me to share his victory. 
 Once, too, he overtook a prairie-dog before it could 
 reach its hole. But when those chisel-teeth shut 
 on his nose, his appreciation of the joke faded. 
 He was " game," however, and seizing his little 
 butter-ball of a foe again he snapped it a dozen 
 feet in the air by a quick jerk of his head, and as 
 it came down caught it with a vicious crunch that 
 settled the matter. 
 
 He came off less happily with a couple of coy- 
 otes that kindly allowed him to catch up with 
 them and how he wished he hadn't ! Very 
 effective teeth have these cowardly little wolves 
 of the plains. He was never afraid to try conclu- 
 sions with any one dog, and took his defeats man- 
 fully ; but when a score jumped on him, as they 
 frequently did in the Pueblo towns, he would roll 
 over on his back with all four long legs ludicrously 
 aloft, and fairly yell for help which you may be 
 sure he always got. I fell into some very pretty 
 
20 HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 
 
 scrapes by discouraging strange curs from lunch- 
 ing on poor Shadow. 
 
 Just over the line into Arizona, we were follow- 
 ing a deer one day, when the breaking of a treach- 
 erous ledge dropped me twenty feet down a cliff. 
 Shadow was watching me from below, and I can- 
 not tell how he escaped being crushed ; but when 
 I recovered consciousness, to find the large bone 
 of my left forearm projecting through the flesh, 
 the poor dog was licking my face plaintively. 
 
 He watched me while I set the fracture by put- 
 ting my canteen-strap around my wrist and a tree, 
 and pulling the bone into place, there was no 
 doctor within a hundred miles, and while I 
 made a rude splint of chapparo branches ; and 
 then walked soberly beside me through all that 
 awful walk to Winslow. Thereafter he was or 
 seemed to me more affectionate than ever ; not 
 with the natural effusiveness of his puppyhood, 
 but in a quiet, watchful, unobtrusive way that was 
 fairly human. 
 
 We trudged on and on, nearly the whole length 
 of desolate Arizona, faring roughly, but finding 
 it easier to keep on than to give up to the pain. 
 We waded another heavy snow in the noble San 
 Francisco range, explored the Grand Canon of 
 the Colorado, God's masterpiece on this planet, 
 and strode on down the long slope toward The 
 Needles, where the road crosses the Colorado from 
 Arizona to California. We were now in the vast 
 
HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 21 
 
 Colorado Desert, where, even in winter, the noon- 
 day heat is fearful, though the nights are very 
 cold. It is as true a desert as the Sahara a bar- 
 ren, hideous waste, broken by contorted ranges of 
 savage peaks ; thirsty, forbidding, deadly. Hun- 
 dreds of poor wretches, straying too far from water, 
 have left their bones to bleach upon those blister- 
 ing sands. 
 
 We hugged the railroad, thus making sure of 
 water every night and morning. But how long 
 the days were, with the one little quart I was able 
 to carry with my other load ! I shared it with 
 Shadow as if he had been a man, pouring it into 
 my hat, from which he lapped greedily. But he 
 was still an impulsive puppy. He could not forego 
 the chase when an emaciated jack unlimbered be- 
 fore him, and he was nearly always running. I 
 was walking over thirty miles a day, and he must 
 have averaged at least fifty. Many a time we 
 crawled up at night to a water-tank the water 
 being brought on trains from great distances 
 with swollen tongues projecting beyond our teeth, 
 dry and rough as files. 
 
 We came thus one evening to the " station " of 
 Yucca a tank and two tiny shanties of shakes. 
 I had found the blanket too much to carry, now 
 that my strongest arm was in a sling, and had 
 shipped it home. Our only bed and cover that 
 night were two ragged gunny-sacks on the floor. 
 The chill night wind leaked through a hundred 
 
22 HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 
 
 yawning cracks. As usual now, I lay upon my 
 side, hugging Shadow to my stomach for mutual 
 warmth. He acted strangely all night, groaning 
 and twisting ; but I was too tired to reflect. 
 
 Next morning we had travelled a couple of miles 
 down the track, when Shadow suddenly turned 
 and started back on a run, with his tail between 
 his legs. Stupid with astonishment, I followed 
 him back to Yucca. He was lying in the shade of 
 the tank, and growled when I drew near. I took 
 off my knife-belt, looped it around his neck, and 
 began leading him. He came along quietly 
 enough, and in a mile or so I had quite forgotten 
 about him. 
 
 But suddenly there was a horrible snarl, such as 
 I never heard before nor since ; and there was 
 Shadow's face within six inches of my own. In 
 that awful instant his look was burned upon my 
 memory forever. His eyes were bloodshot, his 
 open jaws dripped foam, his white fangs gleamed 
 merciless in the sunshine as they sought my throat. 
 
 My dog was mad ! 
 
 We were on a long, high fill perhaps thirty feet 
 above the bed of a little wash. Instinctively I 
 gave a jerk on the strap and a thrust with my foot, 
 and he went rolling down the steep bank. The 
 instant he reached the bottom, he was up and 
 springing fiercely toward me again. I threw my 
 hand back for my " navy six," but it had worked 
 around to the middle of my back, under the long, 
 
IIOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 23 
 
 stiff duck coat, whose pockets were heavy with 
 ores, petrifactions, food, water-bottle, and writing- 
 materials. 
 
 Before I could even loosen it in its scabbard, he 
 was within a yard of where I stood. I put all my 
 strength and all my skill into one desperate kick. 
 It caught him glancingly under the chin, and rolled 
 him down the bank again ; and again I tugged at 
 the heavy revolver. He was too quick for me, and 
 once more I had to throw him off with my foot, 
 and down he went again into the bed of the wash. 
 
 As he rallied for the third attack, I wrested the 
 six-shooter loose, and levelled it at those murder- 
 ous jaws I saw them in my dreams for months 
 afterwards. 
 
 Thus far my movements had been purely in- 
 stinctive the sure, safe instinct Mother Nature 
 teaches those who live close enough to her heart. 
 There had been no time to think. But now that 
 the grip of that well-tried weapon in my hand 
 brought its sense of security, a wave of recollection 
 swept through me. 
 
 I was going to kill Shadow ! To kill the dear, 
 faithful comrade who had shared so much of suf- 
 fering and danger with me ! The thought un- 
 nerved me ; and the long, black muzzle wavered. 
 
 It was not till he was within ten feet that the 
 strong instinct of self-preservation came rushing 
 back, and I pulled the trigger. 
 
 The tongue of cloudy flame seemed to lick his 
 
24 HOW I LOST MY SHADOW. 
 
 very face. He tumbled backward, and rolled over 
 and over to the foot of the bank. The heavy ball 
 had creased his head, and buried itself in his flank. 
 In a second he was on his feet again, and fled 
 shrieking toward the hills. I knew what the des- 
 ert was, I knew the tortures of a gunshot wound ; 
 and the thought of my poor dog dying by inches 
 the most hideous death the mind can conceive, 
 struck me like a douche of cold water. The trem- 
 bling nerves froze into steel. 
 
 I dropped on one knee, and took a careful aim. 
 I must not miss him I would not ! He was now 
 a full hundred and fifty yards away, running 
 rapidly from me on three legs. 
 
 I got his course, and calculated his speed. The 
 desert echoes rang again ; and poor Shadow, whirl- 
 ing a somersault from his own momentum, lay still 
 forever. 
 
 With my heavy knife I scooped a little grave 
 in the sand, under the tattered shade of a yucca 
 palm; piled lava bowlders above that quiet form 
 to cheat the prowling coyote ; and then, un- 
 ashamed, stood wistfully there awhile, with hot 
 tears dropping slowly on the thirsty sand. 
 
 And to this day, when I pass the desert, I sit 
 up far into the night, peering out the Pullman 
 window for a passing glimpse of the little wash 
 and the blazed yucca ; and there is a strange burn- 
 ing in my eyes and throat at the recollection of 
 my parting with one of the truest friends I ever 
 had the time I lost my Shadow ! 
 
'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 A GREAT cloud of dust was drifting above the 
 twisted cedars on the eastern slope of the Tuerto 
 Mountains one sunny August morning, nearly fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 A brown-faced woman, standing in the door of 
 her adobe hut in the New Mexican mining camp 
 of Guadalupe, ten miles away, saw it, and mur- 
 mured happily, " There comes Juan ! He will be 
 home to-night, and then he has three whole days 
 more to get to Bernalillo for the shearing. How 
 proud he will be that Juanito can walk ! " and she 
 turned to set the house in order, and to make some 
 of the sweet galletitas that Juan liked so well. 
 
 It was indeed Juan, but he was not kicking up 
 all that dust with his own clumsy, moccasined feet. 
 Oh no ! Ten thousand sharp little hoofs on as 
 many slender, woolly legs, were scuffling along be- 
 hind him down the dry mountain-side, carrying a 
 dense gray jam of fleeces, beneath which they 
 twinkled like spokes in an interminable buggy- 
 wheel. 
 
 Juan was one of the partidarios of Don Jose* 
 Leandro Perea, the great sheep king of Bernalillo, 
 
 25 
 
26 'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 who then owned two hundred thousand sheep, and 
 was a far more influential man than the Spanish 
 governor, for this was before New Mexico belonged 
 to the United States. 
 
 In order to save trouble, Don Jose used to give 
 his sheep out " on shares " to poor people, who 
 were called his partidarios. They took all the ex- 
 pense and care of the flock during the year, and 
 got half the lambs and half the wool, but had to 
 make up to him any loss in the original number. 
 Juan had been out in the mountains away from 
 home for three months, with two half-grown boys, 
 two big, shaggy dogs, two solemn burros, and the 
 twenty-five hundred sheep, and now that it was 
 almost time for the fall shearing, he was going to 
 stay at home a day on his way to the general ren- 
 dezvous. 
 
 He was a small, withered fellow, whose furrowed 
 face was half hidden by a straggly beard now turn- 
 ing fast to gray. He never would be called "nice- 
 looking," but after all there was a kindly twinkle 
 in his little, dark eyes. His rough clothing was 
 very ragged and dirty, and the heavy flintlock he 
 carried was so battered that there might be some 
 doubt whether it would be more dangerous to stand 
 at the muzzle or the breech of it. 
 
 The two ragged boys had muskets also, but 
 theirs were slung in sheepskin fondas on their 
 backs, while the old man carried his in his hand. 
 They were driving the flock, with the assistance 
 
'QUITO'S NUGGET. 27 
 
 of the dogs, but Juan walked well ahead, looking 
 sharply through the scattered trees. He had 
 crossed the fresh trail of four Indian ponies that 
 morning, and felt uneasy. After fifty years in New 
 Mexico, there was little need to tell him anything 
 of the dangers of Indian warfare. 
 
 As the flock wound round a spur to a side-wash 
 which sloped into the canon by which they were to 
 gain the valley, Juan stepped out to the edge of the 
 low cliff and looked down. 
 
 " God help us ! " he cried. " Los Comanches ! " 
 and letting himself down a little fissure, he crawled 
 rapidly but carefully from rock to rock, until he 
 stood on the smooth, parched sward in the bottom 
 of the canon, beside the object which had elicited 
 his exclamation of horror. 
 
 Truly the handiwork of the dreaded Comanches 
 was there. Two lean oxen, from one of which a 
 great chunk of flesh had been hacked, lay across 
 the broken pole of a clumsy old carreta, whose two 
 wheels had been made by sawing cross-sections 
 from a huge sycamore log. 
 
 A little behind, in the rough road, lay the figure 
 of a stalwart man, with six arrows bristling in his 
 back. He had evidently been walking at the head 
 of the oxen when he was shot, for one of the pon- 
 derous wheels had passed over him as the fright- 
 ened brutes had run a few rods before they fell. 
 His broad-brimmed sombrero was off, showing that 
 he had been scalped. In the rough cart a woman 
 
28 'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 lay dead across a pile of sheepskins, her babe pinned 
 to her heart by one murderous arrow. She, too, 
 had been scalped. 
 
 Juan, with the help of the boys and their axe, 
 dug a shallow grave, in which he laid the mangled 
 bodies. Then, while the boys built up a little 
 pyramid of stones, Juan smoothed two straight 
 pin on branches, and with a thong of buckskin 
 lashed them together in the shape of a cross, 
 which he planted firmly among the topmost stones, 
 repeating a prayer as he did so. 
 
 Among the lonely ranges of New Mexico to this 
 day the traveller may see hundreds of these little 
 stone cairns, each surmounted by its rude cross. It 
 means " Killed by Indians. Pray for me ! " and each 
 devout native, as he passes such a spot, will say a 
 Padre nuestro, and toss a stone upon the pile. 
 
 The boys were pushing their stupid wards for- 
 ward again, and Juan was about to follow them, 
 when his sharp eye detected a motion among the 
 sheepskins in the cart. He pulled away three or 
 four, and there peeped out at him a little, round, 
 dirty face, naturally nut-brown, but now a sickly 
 gray. 
 
 A moment later he was holding a trembling boy 
 of four years in his arms. 
 
 "Whence comest thou, pobrecito?" asked the 
 old man, tenderly; but the boy could only sob, 
 " Los Indios ! " He did not know whence he had 
 come, nor whither he was going. 
 
'QUITO'S NUGGET. 29 
 
 His name was Francisquito ; no more. When 
 he saw the Indians killing his tata, he had crawled 
 under the sheepskins, and there he had stayed. 
 
 " Thou sayest the truth, Ascencion," said Juan 
 to his wife that night. " We have already many 
 mouths to feed, and there will be little grass for 
 the sheep this winter; but I do not think we 
 shall grow rich by turning away this pobrecito that 
 has been sent to our care. We will keep him." 
 
 So the boy became one of the crowd of young- 
 sters that played around the door, fetched leathern 
 sacks of water from the clear rivulet a few rods 
 away, gathered dead branches from the hillsides 
 to fire the big mud beehive of an oven outside the 
 house, where Ascencion baked bread and roasted 
 chili, and made themselves generally helpful. 
 
 Mexican boys and girls are useful almost from 
 the time they begin to walk, and they do not seem 
 to find toil a kill-joy. On the contrary, I doubt if 
 any children in the world enjoy life more thor- f 
 oughly. They know nothing whatever about books, 
 or toys, or cities, but they play with Mother Nature, 
 and love her well. In practical self-reliance, a ' 
 barefoot paisano boy of twelve is ahead of very $ 
 many grown men in the cities. To sleep alone^' 
 out among the mountains, to ride wild and vicious 
 horses, and to take care of themselves pretty cleverly 
 under almost any circumstances, these are things 
 which New Mexican boys do as a matter of course. 
 The out-door life, the hardships and the responsi- 
 
30 'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 bilities to which they are trained, make them sturdy 
 and self-reliant. 
 
 The years crawled along slowly in quiet Guada- 
 lupe. Francisquito grew larger and stronger than 
 any of his foster-brothers. Juan and Ascencion 
 had come to love him as their own, and called him 
 by the affectionate abbreviation " 'Quito," by which 
 he soon became known to every one. 
 
 Ascencion would not have known what to do 
 without him, for he was more help about the house 
 than all her own boys. He was more thoughtful, 
 more affectionate, but more quiet not dull nor 
 slow, but " older for his age " than the others. 
 He seemed to have lost his childishness that awful 
 morning in Tuerto Canon. 
 
 When there was no more to be done at home, 
 'Quito liked best to stroll a mile up the hilly road 
 to the placers, where hundreds of Mexican miners 
 were delving away for the precious flakes of gold. 
 On a broad, gentle slope of the mountain's flank 
 were scores of well-like holes which ran down 
 through the gravel to the underlying bed-rock 
 twenty to forty feet below. Over these holes were 
 rude windlasses by which the miners let themselves 
 down to " gopher-out " the rich " pay-dirt " along 
 the bed-rock, and by which they sent the gravel 
 up in leathern buckets, to be "washed out" in 
 broad wooden bowls. 
 
 'Quito loved to watch the men rotating these 
 bowls in little clay-lined puddles of water, with 
 
' QUITO'S NUGGET. 31 
 
 a dextrous motion that gradually swept out the 
 gravel, and left the heavier yellow particles of gold 
 in shining procession along the bottom of the bowl. 
 And when one of those rough-looking fellows 
 would say, "Wouldst thou like a 'prospect,' 
 'Quito?" and give him a panful of that fascinat- 
 ing gravel to wash out for himself, he was as 
 happy as a boy could be. 
 
 He got in time so that he could tilt the pan as 
 deftly as need be, and save nearly every tiny 
 golden grain. Once in a while he found a little 
 nugget of perhaps half a dollar's value. What- 
 ever showed up in the pan was his, and in a little 
 rawhide bottle he had made, with a clumsy wooden 
 stopper, he carried home his small treasures and 
 gave them always to Ascencion. New Mexican 
 boys knew nothing of pocket-money, and 'Quito 
 would have found little chance to spend it if he 
 had kept what he found. 
 
 When 'Quito was ten years old, Juan took him 
 out with the sheep after the September shearing. 
 The next few months he spent guiding the stupid 
 flock to the best grass and water, and bringing 
 them down once a month to the river to eat alkali, 
 getting up at all hours of night to drive off the 
 coyotes or to rally the flock, scattered for miles by 
 some fearful storm. 
 
 In all that time he did not see a house, nor take 
 off his clothes at night. His bed was one heavy 
 Navajo blanket, spread on the ground or the snow 
 
32 'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 close by the camp-fire around which the sheep lay 
 in a white huddle. His food was boiled beans, 
 roasted sheep-ribs, and tortillas. But 'Quito did 
 not complain. He was helping Juan, and that 
 kept him content. 
 
 But one sad day the old man slipped on the icy 
 rocks and fell. His leg was broken at the hip, 
 and he would be a cripple for life. The boys 
 lifted him upon one of the burros which carried 
 their blankets and food; and 'Quito led it care- 
 fully home, while Tircio and Antonio brought in 
 the flock. 
 
 From that day all went wrong. Juan was abso- 
 lutely helpless. Don Jos6 would not trust the 
 flock to mere boys, and turned it over to another 
 partidario. The winter had been a very hard one. 
 Hundreds of sheep had died, and when it came to 
 the count, Juan had not a dozen to call his own. 
 
 Then his oldest son was killed by the Navajos 
 on his way to Cubero to work as a shepherd, and 
 another of the boys had a long fever. Had it not 
 been for 'Quito, who managed to pick up a few 
 cents' worth of gold-dust daily at the placers, it 
 would have gone hard with the family. But it 
 was slow work. 
 
 " Oh, if I could only find a big nugget," thought 
 'Quito a hundred times a day, " such as they say 
 Pablo Turrieta washed out when the placers were 
 new!" 
 
 When the men would let him, he would swing 
 
1 QUITO'S NUGGET. 33 
 
 down the rope into some deep shaft and scrape 
 out the gravel from the hollows in the bed-rock, 
 where nuggets were likeliest to have settled ; and 
 one day he found a little lump of gold worth a 
 couple of dollars, which comforted him consider- 
 ably. 
 
 But still he dreamed of great nuggets that should 
 light up Juan's poor little room with their yellow 
 sheen; for 'Quito had caught that strange fever 
 which never fully deserts one who once really 
 learns the fascination of gold-digging, and which 
 has kept in poverty a thousand times as many 
 men as it has made rich. And at last he found 
 his nugget. 
 
 " 'Quito," said Juan one day, " go thou to my 
 Cousin Ciriaco and borrow his oxen to drag some 
 logs from the canon, for we have no more wood." 
 
 'Quito was soon driving the oxen along the 
 crazy road which led past the placers and up into 
 the deep, narrow gorge from which all that vast 
 bed of auriferous gravel had been patiently shov- 
 elled out by the rains of countless centuries. 
 
 Far up there were some shafts sunk in the solid 
 rock by restless prospectors in search of the great 
 mother vein of gold from which all that golden 
 dust below had originally come ; but near its 
 mouth the canon was wider, and its bed, where 
 the road crossed from side to side, was a shallow 
 layer of gravel on a lap of solid rock. 
 
 Snow half a foot deep was melting fast in the 
 
34 'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 canon as 'Quito urged along the deliberate oxen. 
 Here the road was bare for a rod or so, and there 
 a belt of snow stretched across it. As the oxen 
 plodded through the wet snow, it balled up under 
 their hoofs in low, clumsy stilts, which caked off 
 reluctantly when they struck the wet gravel again. 
 'Quito dropped behind to make a snowball, and 
 started to catch up again, whereat the oxen fell 
 into a lazy, lurching trot. 
 
 The old pinto stumbled a bit, as the big cake of 
 hard-packed snow broke from one of his hind 
 hoofs. The sugar-loaf lump had pressed deep into 
 the gravelly mud; and with its lower surface 
 covered with sand and pebbles, it lay half turned 
 up on the side of the cup-shaped cavity it had 
 made, into which the sunlight slanted. 
 
 A queer, dull glitter caught 'Quito's eye, and he 
 kicked away the snowball. 
 
 An instant later he was on his knees in the mud, 
 trembling and crying, and scratching the shallow 
 gravel from a little crevice in the bed-rock. For 
 there, caught in a crack three inches deep, and 
 wedged between smooth pebbles of porphyry, was 
 a rough, irregular, water-worn lump, of that pecu- 
 liar waxy yellow which distinguishes Guadalupe 
 gold from that of many other placers a lump 
 bigger than 'Quito's dirty, brown fist ! 
 
 Ah, where would Pablo Turrieta be now ? After 
 this they would say in camp, " But 'Quito found 
 the biggest of all." And how Juan's eyes would 
 
' QUITO'S NUGGFT. 35 
 
 shine ! Ascencion should go up to Santa Fe and 
 buy a gay Chihuahua head-shawl for Sundays. 
 And what mountains of beans and corn and chili 
 and dried meat they would heap up on the floor of 
 the dark storeroom ! 
 
 He dug the oak handle of his whip into the 
 crevice, and pried out the pebbles which the spring 
 torrents had packed like paving-cobbles, and at 
 last out came the great nugget. 
 
 Oh, how heavy it was ! He was fairly sobbing 
 now as I have seen strong men sob over a 
 smaller nugget than that, when it meant relief 
 from suffering. 
 
 He held the precious mass up where its brother, 
 the sunlight, could twinkle over it, and gloated on 
 its queer lumps and hollows. 
 
 Just then a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, 
 and a croaking voice said, " What hast thou, horn 
 brote?" 
 
 'Quito looked up into the evil face of the last 
 man in the world he wished to see there. It was 
 Juan "Ronco," Hoarse John, who never worked 
 except enough to buy the fiery mescal with which 
 he kept besotted, and who now and then returned 
 to camp, after a week's absence, bringing a strange 
 horse or burro, which he was ready to sell cheap 
 for cash or drinks. 
 
 'Quito had thrust his hand like lightning into 
 the bosom of his ragged woollen shirt, and, dodg- 
 ing like a hunted rabbit, he flew down the canon. 
 
36 'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 But Juan Ronco had caught a golden glimpse that 
 set his thievish heart afire, and when he coveted 
 anything he would have it, if he could get it. 
 
 " Madre de Dios ! " he exclaimed. " It's worth 
 four hundred dollars if it's worth a centavo ! It's 
 mine ! " And with a great bound he was after the 
 fugitive. 
 
 It was a cruel and an uneven race upon which 
 the canon's walls looked grimly down, that fresh 
 December morning. Ahead, the agile, boyish 
 figure flying madly along, with loose black hair 
 streaming back upon the wind, and eyes that shone 
 like two dying coals with terror and excitement ; 
 and leaping close behind, in long, heavy strides, 
 the black-faced ruffian with fist upraised. 
 
 But 'Quito soon saw there was no further hope 
 in flight ; and doubling swiftly to the right, he ran 
 up a long, narrow bench of gravel that rose against 
 the cliff from the bed of the canon. Whirling, with 
 the heavy nugget raised in his hand, he screamed, 
 " If you come any nearer, I will give it to you in 
 the eye ! " 
 
 Ronco stopped. He wanted that two pounds of 
 gold, but not in that way. 
 
 " Oh, don't be a stupid ! Give it to me, and I 
 won't hurt you ; but if you don't, I'll cut you in 
 little pieces ! " And, with a fearful Spanish oath, 
 he whipped out a huge knife and twisted it sig- 
 nificantly. 
 
 The boy turned ghastlier gray than ever, but 
 
' QUITO'S NUGGET. 37 
 
 still held his strange weapon poised above his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " No ! " said he huskily. " It is for my padrino 
 Juan, and you shall not have it. He is very sick, 
 and there is nothing in the house." 
 
 " Give it to me, little dog, or I will feed you to 
 the crows ! " growled the thief, advancing step by 
 step, and sawing the air with his machete. Step by 
 step the boy backed off, his eye fixed on his burly 
 pursuer, holding the nugget uplifted to strike the 
 ruffian, if he came too near. 
 
 " Never ! never ! It is for Ju " and before the 
 word was out of his mouth, he had fallen backward 
 out of sight. 
 
 Juan Ronco stood peering down the dark open- 
 ing of a deserted prospect-hole. He could see noth- 
 ing down there, but he would go home and get a 
 rope. As he turned, he saw Anastacio, the bravest 
 man in Guadalupe, running up. 
 
 " Thou common ! " cried Anastacio, " I saw ! 
 We will make one less dog in camp ! " 
 
 But the cowardly Ronco fled down the canon, 
 and was gone in the wooded hills before Anastacio 
 could overtake him. His face was never seen in 
 Guadalupe again. 
 
 Half an hour later, three strong men were pay- 
 ing out a rawhide rope over the edge of the pros- 
 pect-hole, and on the end swung Anastacio. Ten, 
 twenty, thirty feet and the rope stopped. 
 
 " Pull ! " came in a hollow voice from below ; 
 
38 'QUITO'S NUGGET. 
 
 and hand over hand they lifted away till one could 
 help Anastacio to scramble out with his limp bur- 
 den, which he laid gently upon the gravel, while 
 they stood silently around. 
 
 The dark little face was bruised, and the slender 
 neck drooped unnaturally to one side. The little 
 heart had stopped, but the grimy, blood-stained 
 fist still clutched a yellow something which made 
 those four men catch their breath a something 
 which is talked of in New Mexico to this day by 
 "the old-timers." 
 
 It was 'Quito's Nugget. 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 A LEGEND or NEW MEXICO IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 " HEAR ye, people of Acoma, for I, the Gover- 
 nor, speak. To-morrow, go ye down to the fields 
 to plough ; already it is the month of rain, and there 
 is little in the storerooms. Let all go forth, that 
 we build shelters of cedar and stay in the fields. 
 The women, also, to cook for us. Take ye, each 
 one, food for a month. And pray that the Sun- 
 Father, Pa-yat-yama, give us much corn this year." 
 
 As white-headed Kai-a-tan-ish passed deliberately 
 down in front of the houses, the soft Queres words 
 rolling sonorously from his deep throat, the people 
 stopped their work to listen to him. The ruddy 
 sun was just resting over the cliffs of the Black 
 Mesa, which walled the pretty valley on the west, 
 and the shadows of the houses were creeping far 
 out along the rocky floor of the town. 
 
 Such quaint houses as they were ! Built of 
 gray adobe, terraced so that the three successive 
 stories receded like a gigantic flight of steps, they 
 stood in three parallel rows, each a continuous 
 block a thousand feet long, divided by interior 
 walls into wee but comfortable tenements. There 
 
 39 
 
40 THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 were no doors nor windows in the lower story, but 
 tall ladders reached to the roof, which formed a 
 sort of broad piazza before the second-story door. 
 Women were washing their hair with the soapy 
 root of the palmilla, on the yard-like roofs, or com- 
 ing home from the great stone reservoir with gayly 
 decorated tinajas 1 of rainwater perched confidently 
 upon their heads. Children ran races along the 
 smooth rock which served for a street, or cared 
 for their mothers' babies, slung upon their patient 
 young backs. The men were very busy, tying up 
 bundles in buckskin, putting new handles on their 
 stone axes and hoes, or fitting to damaged arrows 
 new heads shaped from pieces of quartz or volcanic 
 glass. 
 
 As the Governor kept his measured way down 
 the street, repeating his proclamation at intervals, 
 a tall, powerfully made Indian stepped from one 
 of the houses, descended the ladder to the ground, 
 and walked out toward the sunset until he could 
 go no farther. He stood on the edge of a dizzy 
 cliff. From its beetling top the old cedars in the 
 plain below looked like dark green moss. For in 
 those days the Queres city of Acoma stood on the 
 Rock of Katzimo a great round, stone table, two 
 miles in circumference, and with perpendicular 
 walls a thousand feet high. The level valley, five 
 miles wide, was hemmed in by cliffs, forming a 
 
 1 Large earthen jars. 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 41 
 
 gigantic box ; and in the very centre rose the red 
 Rock of Katzimo. 
 
 Sh6-ka-ka stood looking out at the fiery sunset 
 with a sad and absorbed expression. He did not 
 hear the patter of bare feet on the rock behind 
 him, nor did he turn till a small hand nestled in 
 his own, and a hoy's clear voice said : 
 
 " Ah, Tata ! To-morrow we go to the planting ! 
 The "Governor has said it. And perhaps I may 
 kill rabbits with the new bow thou didst make me. 
 When I am bigger, I will use it to kill the wicked 
 Apaches." 
 
 The man laid his muscular hand upon the boy's 
 head and drew it to his side. " Still for war and 
 the chase ! " he said fondly. " But it is better to 
 kill rabbits and deer than men. Think thou of 
 that, A'-chi-te. We Queres fight only to save our 
 homes, not for the sake of fighting and plunder, 
 as do the Apaches. But thy mother is very sick 
 and cannot go to the fields, and it is not kind to 
 leave her alone. Only that I am a councillor of the 
 city and must give a good example in working, I 
 would stay with her. A hundred children will go 
 to the fields, but thou shaU be a man to keep the 
 town. Two other women lie sick near the estufa, 
 and thou shalt care for thy mother and for them." 
 
 The boy's lips quivered for an instant with dis- 
 appointment ; but Pueblo children never even think 
 disobedience, and he shut his teeth firmly. 
 
 " Poor Nana ! " (mother) he said, " poor little 
 
42 THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 Mamma ! Truly she cannot be left alone. And, 
 if the Apaches come, I will roll down such stones 
 on them that they shall think the Hejx) T Brothers 
 have come down from the Sun-Father's house to 
 fight for Acoma ! " 
 
 "That is my brave. Now run thou home and 
 grind the dried meat and put it in my pouch, that 
 I may be ready to start early. All else is done. If 
 thou dost well while I am gone, I will make thee 
 the best bow and quiver of arrows in all Acoma." 
 
 A'-clii-te started homeward, running like a deer. 
 He was fifteen years old, tall for his age, clean- 
 limbed and deep-chested. His heavy black hair 
 was cut straight above his big, black eyes, and be- 
 hind fell below his shoulders. He had the massive 
 but clear-cut features of his father a face of re- 
 markable strength and beauty, despite the swarthy 
 skin. 
 
 Sho-ka-ka sighed, as the boy ran off. " It is in 
 an ill time that we start for the planting. I saw 
 an owl in the cedars to-day, and it would not fly 
 when I shouted. And when I smoked the holy 
 smoke I could not blow it upward at all. Perhaps 
 the spirits are angry with us. It is good that we 
 make a sacrifice to-night, to put their anger to 
 sleep." And he strode thoughtfully away to the 
 great, round estufa, where the councillors were to 
 smoke and deliberate upon the morrow's work. 
 
 When the Sun-Father peeped over the eastern 
 mesas in the morning, he looked in the eyes of his 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 43 
 
 expectant children. Motionless and statuesque 
 they stood upon the housetops awaiting his coin- 
 ing ; and now they bowed reverently as his round, 
 red house rose above the horizon. A solemn sac- 
 rifice had been offered the night before, and all the 
 medicine men deemed the omens favorable, save 
 old P6o-ya-tye, who shook his head but could not 
 tell what he feared. 
 
 Already a long procession of men, women, and 
 children, bearing heavy burdens for the packs, was 
 starting toward the southern brink of the cliff. A 
 deep, savage cleft, gnawed out by the rains of cen- 
 turies, afforded a dangerous path for five hundred 
 feet downward ; and then began the great Ladder 
 Rock. A vast stone column, once part of the 
 mesa, but cut off by the erosion of unnumbered 
 ages, had toppled over so that its top leaned against 
 the cliff, its base being two hundred feet out in a 
 young mountain of soft, white sand. Up this 
 almost precipitous rock a series of shallow steps had 
 been cut. To others, this dizzy ladder would have 
 seemed insurmountable ; but these sure-footed Chil- 
 dren of the Sun thought nothing of it. It gave 
 the only possible access to the mesa's top, and a 
 well-aimed stone would roll a climbing enemy in 
 gory fragments to the bottom. They could afford 
 a little trouble for the sake of having the most 
 impregnable city in the world these quiet folk 
 who hated war, but lived among the most desper- 
 ate savage warriors the world has ever known. 
 
44 THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 The seeds, the provisions, the stone hand-mills, 
 the stone axes and hoes, the rude ploughs, each 
 made of a young pine, with one short, strong 
 branch left near the butt for a share, were packed 
 in convenient bundles upon the backs of the men ; 
 and the women had each a child clinging behind her. 
 As Sho-ka-ka strode away, he turned to look up 
 once more at the rock, and at the tiny figure out- 
 lined against the sky. It seemed no more than a 
 wee black ant, but he knew it was his son, A'-chi-te, 
 and waved his hand as he yelled back, " Sha-wa- 
 ts6sh ! " from lungs as mighty as those of Mon- 
 tezuma. 
 
 In half an hour the long procession had melted 
 into the brown bosom of the valley; and even 
 A'-chi-te's keen eyes could distinguish it no longer. 
 He drew a deep breath, threw back his square 
 young shoulders, and walked away to his mother's 
 house. Alone with three sick women, the only 
 man in Acoma no wonder the boy's head was 
 carried even straighter than usual. Truly, this 
 was better than going to the planting. All the 
 boys had gone there, but he was trusted to guard 
 alone the proudest city of the Queres ! He ran 
 up the tall ladder and entered the house. At one 
 side of the dark little room lay his mother on a low 
 bed of skins. The boy put his warm cheek against 
 the wasted face, and a thin hand crept up and 
 stroked his heavy hair. " Little one of my heart," 
 she whispered, "are they all gone?" 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 45 
 
 " All gone, Nana, and I am left to guard thee 
 and the town. Now await me while I make thee 
 a drink of atole" l 
 
 A'-chi-te went over to the big lava metate, 2 at the 
 other side of the room, drew from a buckskin bag 
 a handful of blue corn that had been parched in 
 the big beehive of an oven, and laying the hard 
 kernels on the sloping block, began to scrub them 
 to powder with a small slab of lava, flat on one 
 side and rounded on the other to fit the hand. 
 When the corn was reduced to a fine, bluish meal, 
 he brushed it carefully into a little earthen bowl, 
 and with a gourd-cup dipped some water from a 
 cajete? This he poured slowly upon the meal, 
 stirring with a stick, till the bowl was full of a 
 thin, sweet porridge. 
 
 " Drink, Nana," he said, holding the bowl to her 
 lips, and supporting her head on his left arm. 
 " Then I will carry atole to Stchu-muts and Kush- 
 eit-ye." 
 
 When he had fed his three charges and carried 
 a supply of gnarled cedar sticks into each house to 
 feed the queer little mud fire-places, for at that 
 altitude of over seven thousand feet, it was cold 
 even in summer, A'-chi-te turned his attention to 
 the duty which naturally seemed to his boyish ambi- 
 
 1 A gruel made by boiling Indian corn meal in water or milk. 
 
 2 A curved stone in the shape of an inclined plane, used for 
 grinding corn. 
 
 3 A flat bowl of clay. 
 
46 THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 tion the most important, to guard the town. He 
 slung over his shoulder his bow and arrows, in a 
 case made from the skin of mo-keit-cha, the moun- 
 tain lion. Then he went scouring over the pueblo, 
 gathering up all the stones he could find, from the 
 size of his fist to that of his head, and carried them 
 down to the foot of the great cleft where the 
 Ladder Rock began. Here he stowed them in a 
 little recess in the rock ; and as they were not so 
 many as he thought desirable, he added to them 
 several score adobe bricks from ruined houses. 
 When this was done he viewed his battery with 
 great satisfaction. " Now let the Apaches come ! 
 Truly, they will find it bitter climbing!" And 
 indeed, it was so. So long as his rude ammunition 
 should hold out, the boy alone could hold at bay a 
 thousand foes. No arrow could reach to his lofty 
 perch, nor could the strongest climber withstand 
 even his lightest missile on that dizzy " ladder." 
 
 A'-chi-te now brought down some skins and made 
 a little bed beside his pile of stones. There was 
 no danger that the Apaches would come in the 
 daytime, and he could sleep with his weapons by 
 his side, so that they should not surprise him by 
 night. During the day he could devote himself to 
 the sick. 
 
 Two days went by uneventfully, and A'-chi-te 
 was disappointed. Why did not the Apaches come, 
 that he might show his father how well he could 
 guard Acoma? The third day dawned cloudy, 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 47 
 
 /' 
 and a ragged, sullen drift hid the Peak of Snow 
 
 away to the north. In the afternoon the rain 
 began to sweep down violently, a savage wind 
 dashing it against the adobes as if to hurl them 
 from their solid foundations. Little rivers ran 
 down the streets and poured from the edges of the 
 cliff in hissing cataracts. A perfect torrent was 
 running down the cleft and spreading out over 
 the great Ladder Rock in a film of foam. Luck- 
 ily, A'-chi-te's missiles and bed were out of its 
 reach. 
 
 " Surely thou wilt not sleep in the Ladder to- 
 night," said his mother, as she listened to the roar 
 of the storm. 
 
 " Yes, Nana, it must be. On such a night the 
 Apaches are likeliest to come. I am not salt, that 
 the rain should melt me, and my bed is above the 
 running water. What would Tata say if he came 
 home and found I had let the Apaches in for fear 
 of getting myself wet?" 
 
 When he had fed the sick, A'-chi-te took his bow 
 arid quiver and started for his post. It was already 
 growing dark, and the storm showed no sign of 
 abatement. It was a fearful climb down to his 
 little crow's nest of a fort. The narrow, slippery 
 path was at an average angle of over fifty degrees, 
 and was now choked with a seething torrent. He 
 had at one time to climb along precarious ledges 
 above the water, and at another to trust himself 
 waist d^ep in that avalanche of foam keeping 
 
48 THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 from being swept down to instant death only by 
 pressing desperately against the rocky walls of the 
 gorge, here not more than three feet apart. But 
 at last, trembling with exhaustion, he drew himself 
 up to his little niche and sank upon his drenched 
 bed, while the white torrent bellowed and raved 
 under his feet, as if maddened at 'the loss of its 
 expected prey. Deeper and deeper grew the dark- 
 ness, fiercer and fiercer the storm. Such a rain 
 had never been seen before in all the country of 
 the llano Oshatch. It came down in great sheets 
 that veered and slanted with the desperate wind, 
 dug up stout, cedars by the roots, and pried great 
 rocks from their lofty perches to send them thun- 
 dering down the valley. To the shivering boy, 
 drenched and alone in his angle of the giant cliff, 
 it was a fearful night ; and older heroes than he 
 might have been pardoned for uneasiness. But he 
 never thought of leaving his post ; and, hugging 
 the rocky wall to escape as far as he could the 
 pitiless pelting of the cold rain, he watched the 
 long hours through. 
 
 " A'-chi-te ! A'-chi-te ! " 
 
 Surely that could not be his mother's voice ! 
 The gray dawn was beginning to assert itself on 
 the dense blackness of the sky. The rain and the 
 wind were more savage than ever. She could not 
 be heard from the house, he thought and yet 
 
 "A'-chi-te! A'-chi-te!" 
 
 It was her voice ; and in surprise and consterna- 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 49 
 
 tion A'-chi-te started up the cleft. It was still dark 
 in that narrow, lofty walled chasm; the torrent 
 was deeper and wilder than before. It was easier 
 to go up than down in such a place, but it was all 
 his lithe, young limbs and strong muscles could do 
 to bring him to the top. There stood his mother, 
 her soft, black hair blown far out on the fierce 
 wind, her great eyes shining unnaturally in their 
 shrunken settings. 
 
 " Sashe mut-yet-saj The house is fallen ! It 
 has broken my arm, and Kush-eit-ye ic buried to 
 her head under a wall. The White Shadows have 
 come for us ! Thou must run to thy father, and 
 bring him home before we die ! Run, my brave, 
 soul of my heart ! " 
 
 The boy looked at her, then down the roaring 
 chasm. It was far worse than when he had de- 
 scended before. And the Ladder Rock could 
 he do it? He put his arm across his mother's 
 shoulder and drew her head against his cheek, pat- 
 ting her back gently, the quaint embrace of his 
 people. 
 
 " Get thee into a house, Nana. I go for Tata. 
 ShcMVOrUfaUJ." And in another moment he had 
 disappeared between the black jaws of the abyss. 
 
 The horror of a lifetime was in that few hun- 
 dred feet. Blinded by the rain, deafened by the 
 hoarse thunder of the stream, he let himself down 
 foot by foot with desperate strength. Once the 
 flood swept his feet from under him and left him 
 
50 THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 hanging by the clutch of his hands upon the walls. 
 It took two full minutes to bring his feet back to 
 the rock beneath. But at last he came to where 
 the cleft widened and the frantic stream spouted 
 out and went rolling down the precipitous slope of 
 the Ladder Rock. Here he stood a moment to 
 catch his breath, and then turning, began to back 
 down the slippery rock, his hands dug fiercely into 
 one foot-notch, while his toes groped in the hissing 
 water for the notch below. His teeth were set, his 
 bronze face was a ghastly gray, his eyes were like 
 coals. The wet strands of his hair whipped his 
 face like scourges, his finger-ends were bleeding 
 as he pressed them against the sandstone. But 
 slowly, automatically as a map-ftine* he crept down , 
 down, fighting the fierce water, clinging to the tiny 
 toe-holes. Once he stopped. He was sure that h^, 
 felt the rock tremble, and then despised himself 
 for the thought. The great Ladder Rock tremble ! 
 Why, it was as solid as the mighty mesa! 
 
 It was half an hour before he reached the bot- 
 tom of the rock; and when he looked downward, 
 over his shoulder, he cried out aghast. The 
 cataract had had its way with the great hill of fine 
 sand on which the base of the rock rested; and 
 where the path had been was now a great gully 
 fifty feet deep. To drop was certain death. He 
 thought for a moment. Ah ! the pinon ! l And he 
 
 1 A small pine which bears an edible nut. 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 51 
 
 crawled to the side of the rock, which was here 
 only a gentle slope. Sure enough there was the 
 pinon tree still standing, but on the very edge of 
 the chasm. It was fifteen feet out and ten feet 
 below him an ugly jump. But he drew a long 
 breath and leaped out. Crashing down through 
 the brittle branches, bruised and torn and bleed- 
 ing, he righted himself at last and dropped to the 
 ground. A moment's breathing spell and he was 
 dashing down the long sand-hill and then away up 
 the valley. The fields were eight miles away. 
 Would his strength last, sorely tried as it had been? 
 He did not know ; but he pressed his hand against 
 his bleeding side and ran on. 
 
 Suddenly he felt the ground quiver beneath his 
 feet. A strange, rushing sound filled his ears; 
 and, whirling about, he saw the great Ladder Rock 
 rear, throw its head out from the cliff, reel there 
 an instant in mid-air, and then go toppling out 
 into tlic plain like some wounded Titan. As those 
 thousands of tons of rock smote upon the solid 
 earth with a hideous roar, a great cloud went up, 
 and the valley seemed to rock to and fro. From 
 the face of the cliffs, three miles away, great rocks 
 came leaping and thundering down, and the tall 
 pinons swayed and bowed as before a hurricane. 
 A'-chi-te was thrown headlong by the rock, and 
 lay stunned. The Ladder Rock had fallen the 
 unprecedented flood had undermined its sandy 
 bed! 
 
52 THE ENCHANTED MESA. 
 
 And the town his mother ! The boy sprang 
 to his feet and began running again, stiffly, and 
 with an awful pallor on his set face. 
 
 When the men of the Acoma came running 
 home, it was in deathly silence. And even when 
 they stood beside that vast fallen pillar of stone, 
 looking up at the accursed cliff, not one could 
 speak a word. There was Acoma, the City in the 
 Sky, the home of their forefathers ; but their feet 
 would never press its rocky streets again. Five 
 hundred feet above their heads opened the narrow 
 cleft; and five hundred feet higher, against the 
 sullen gray sky, flitted two wan figures whose 
 frantic shrieks scarce reached the awe-struck 
 crowd below. No ladder could ever be built to 
 scale that dizzy height. The cliff everywhere was 
 perpendicular. And so, forever exiled from the 
 homes that were before their eyes, robbed of their 
 all, heart-wrung by the sight of the doomed 
 women on the cliff, the simple-hearted Children 
 of the Sun circled long about the fatal Rock of 
 Katzimo. Council after council was held, sacrifice 
 after sacrifice was offered ; but the merciless cliff 
 still frowned un pity ing. It became plain that 
 they must build a new town to be safe from the 
 savage tribes which surrounded them on every 
 side ; and on a noble mesa, three miles to the 
 south, they founded a new Acoma, where it stands 
 to-day, five hundred feet above the plain, and safe 
 from a similar catastrophe. 
 
THE ENCHANTED MESA. 53 
 
 For weeks the two women haunted the brink 
 of their aerial prison, and daily Sh6-ka-ka and 
 A'-chi-te went to its foot with sympathizing neigh- 
 bors to weep, and to scream out words of hopeless 
 encouragement. Then Stchu-muts came no more, 
 and Nai-chat-tye was alone. Back and forth she 
 paced, like some caged beast chafing at the bars, 
 and then, throwing U]3_hgr wasted arms, sprang 
 out to her death. 
 
 Full four hundred years have passed since then, 
 and the land of the Pueblos is filling with a race 
 of white-skinned strangers. Scientific expeditions 
 have exhausted the ingenuity of civilization to 
 scale the Rock of Katzimo, and recover its archaeo- 
 treasures, but all in vain. The natives 
 believing it accursed. 
 
 And to-day, as I sit on the battlements of the 
 Acoma that now is, watching the sunset glory 
 creeping higher up that wondrous island of ruddy 
 rock to the north, an old Indian at my side tells 
 the- oft-repeated story of the Enchanted Mesa, 
 lie is the many-times-great-grandson of A'-chi-te. 
 
A PUEBLO EABBIT-HUNT. 
 
 IT is curious how much more we hear of the 
 marvellous customs and strange peoples of other 
 lands than of those still to be found in our own 
 great nation. Almost every schoolboy, for instance, 
 knows of the Australian boomerang-throwers ; but 
 very few people in the East are aware that within 
 the limits of the United States, in the portion long' 
 est inhabited by Caucasians, we have a race of ten 
 thousand aborigines who are practically boomerang- 
 throwers. It is true that they do not achieve the 
 wonderful parabolas and curves of the Australians ; 
 and, for that matter, we are learning that many of 
 the astounding tales told of the Australian winged 
 club are mere fiction. It is true, however, that 
 while the Bushmen cannot so throw the boome- 
 rang that it will kill an animal and then return to 
 the thrower, they can make it return from a sport- 
 ive throw in the air ; and that they can impart to 
 it, even in a murderous flight, gyrations which seem 
 quite as remarkable as did the curving of a base- 
 ball when that " art " was first discovered. 
 
 The Pueblo Indians, who are our American 
 boomerang-throwers, attempt no such subtleties. 
 54 
 
A PUEBLO EABBIT-HUNT. 55 
 
 Their clubs are of boomerang shape, and cannot 
 be excelled in deadly accuracy and force by the 
 Australian weapon ; but they are thrown only to 
 kill, and then to lie by the victim till picked up. 
 Even without the " return-ball " feature, the Pue- 
 blo club-throwing is the most wonderful exhibition 
 of marksmanship and skill within my experience 
 and that includes all kinds of hunting for all kinds 
 of game on this continent. Under the circum- 
 stances in which these clubs are used, rifles, never 
 so skilfully handled, could not be more effective. 
 
 The Pueblos are a peculiar people. Quiet, 
 friendly, intelligent, industrious farmers, they 
 dwell in quaint villages of neat and comfortable 
 adobes, which are a never-failing wonder to the 
 intelligent traveller in New Mexico. Their primi- 
 tive weapons, of course, gave place long ago to 
 modern firearms. All have good rifles and six- 
 shooters, usually of the best American makes, and 
 are expert in the use of them. But there is one 
 branch of the chase for which the guns are left at 
 home and that is the rabbit-drive. The outfit 
 of each of the throng of hunters out for a rabbit- 
 hunt consists merely of three elbow-crooked clubs. 
 
 When that forgotten hero, Alvar Nunez Cabeza 
 de Vaca, beside whose privations and wanderings 
 those of all other explorers seem petty, first set 
 foot in the interior of the country now called the 
 United States, more than three and a half centuries 
 ago, he found the Indians already using their 
 
56 A PUEBLO BABBIT-HUNT. 
 
 boomerangs. Returning to Spain after his unpar- 
 alleled journey of nine years on foot through an 
 unknown world, Vaca wrote in his journal, about 
 1539: 
 
 "These Indians were armed with clubs which 
 they threw with astonishing precision, and killed 
 with them more hares than they could consume. 
 There were hares in great abundance. When one 
 was seen, the Indians would surround and attack 
 him with their clubs, driving him from one to 
 another till he was killed." 
 
 Two varieties of rabbits are still wonderfully 
 abundant in New Mexico. Many are shot in the 
 winter by the Pueblos, casually, but rabbit-hunting 
 in earnest is confined to the warm months, gener- 
 ally beginning in May. 
 
 I had lived a long time in the pueblo of Isleta 
 before the twelve hundred Indians who are " my 
 friends and fellow-citizens " decided upon^ a rab- 
 bit-drive. We had had dances, strange in sig- 
 nificance as in performance, superb foot-races 
 and horse-races, and other diversions on the holi- 
 days of the saints ; but no hunting. One day, 
 however, I saw a boy digging a root which he 
 whittled into significant shape ; and later in the 
 afternoon wrinkled Lorenzo, my next-door neigh- 
 bor, left his burro and his ponderous irrigating 
 hoe outside the door, and stepped into my little 
 adobe room with an air of unusual importance. 
 He seated himself slowly, reached for my tobacco 
 
A PUEBLO BABBIT-HUNT. 57 
 
 and a corn-husk, and rolled a cigarette with great 
 deliberation ; but all the time I could see that he 
 was swelling with important news. 
 
 " Que hay, compadre ?" 1 I asked at last, passing 
 him a match. 
 
 " Good news ! Perhaps to-morrow we hunt rab- 
 bits. There are many on jhollano t^wajaLth&JiiU 
 of the Wind. This evening you will know, if you 
 hear the tombe and the crier." 
 
 Sure enough, just before the sun went down be- 
 hind the sacred crater, the muffled " pom ! pom ! " 
 of the big drum floated across the plaza to me; 
 and soon the Isleta Daily Herald, as I might call 
 him, a tall, deep-chested Pueblo with a thunder- 
 ous voice, was circulating the news. He stalked 
 solemnly through the uncertain streets, his great 
 voice rolling out now and then in sonorous sylla- 
 bles which might have been distinguished at half a 
 mile. A convenient newspaper, truly, for a popu- 
 lation which does not read ! The governor ordered, 
 he said, a great hunt to-morrow. After mass, all 
 those who were to hunt must meet at the top of 
 the mal pais mesa? west of the gardens. And 
 Fraliciscd~D f uran had been chosen capitan of the 
 hunt. 
 
 At ten o'clock next morning Juan Rey brought 
 me the very laziest horse in the world. Old Lo- 
 renzo was already astride his pinto burro, with 
 
 1 What is it, friend ? 2 The mesa of the bad land, or lava. 
 
58 A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 
 
 three clubs lashed behind the dumpy saddle, and 
 in his hand the customary short stick wherewith 
 to guide Flojo by whacks on both sides of the 
 neck, for burros are not trained to bridles. 
 
 We poked across the level river-bottom, wound 
 through the beautiful gardens and orchards, 
 splashed across the roily irrigating ditches, and at 
 last, after a short, sharp " tug," stood upon the top 
 of the mesa, which with its black lava cliffs hems 
 the valley on the west. We were early, but the 
 arrival of a boy with a spade to be used in 
 evicting such rabbits as might seek their burrows 
 enabled us to beguile the hot hour of waiting 
 by digging and eating the aromatic root of the 
 cliimajar. 
 
 Presently the hunters came swarming 1 over the 
 huge yellow sand-hill to the south, and rode 
 toward us in a shifting patch of color, the units of 
 which danced, revolved, and mingled, and fell 
 apart like the gay flakes of a kaleidoscope. There 
 were a hundred and fifty of them, from white- 
 headed men of ninety to supple boys of twelve. 
 Their white, flapping calzoncillos?- red print shirts, 
 maroon leggings and moccasins, with the various 
 hues of their animals, made a pretty picture 
 against the sombre background. Most of them 
 rode their small but tireless ponies, descended, as 
 are all the "native" horses of the plains, from 
 
 1 Trousers. 
 
A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 59 
 
 the matchless Arab steeds brought from Spain 
 by the Conquistador es. A few were perched 
 upon solemn burros, and a dozen ambitious young 
 men were afoot. Only three beside myself carried 
 firearms. Just as the crowd neared us, a big jack- 
 rabbit leaped up from his nap behind a tiny sage- 
 bush, and came loping away toward the cliff. The 
 clubs had not yet been unlashed from the saddles, 
 but handsome Pablo's six-shooter rang out, and 
 the " American kangaroo," whirling half a dozen 
 somersaults from his own inertia, lay motionless. 
 
 Five minutes later we were all huddled together 
 on the edge of the cliff, facing to the brown roll- 
 ing uplands westward. In front was the withered 
 capitan, consulting with the other old men. Then 
 a few grandsires dismounted, and squatted upon 
 the ground ; the captain called out a brief com- 
 mand in Tegua, and off we went loping in two 
 files, making a huge V, whose sides grew longer 
 and farther apart as the old men at the angle grew 
 smaller and smaller behind us. At every hundred 
 yards or so, the rear man of each file dropped out 
 of the procession and sat waiting, his horse's head 
 facing the interior of the V. 
 
 When we had ridden a mile and a half, the fore- 
 most men of the opposite file were nearly as far 
 from us. We could barely see them against the 
 side of a long swell. Then a faint, shrill call from 
 the captain floated across to us, and we began to 
 bend our arm of the V inward, the others doing 
 
60 ' A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 
 
 the same, till at last the ends of the two arms met, 
 and instead of a V we had an irregular O, two 
 miles in its longest diameter, and marked out on 
 the plain by the dot-like sentinels. 
 
 Now sharp eyes could detect that the oval was 
 beginning to shrink inward from the other end. 
 The old men were walking toward us; and one 
 after another the sentinels left their posts and 
 began to move forward and inward. Sharp and 
 shrill their " Hi ! -i-i ! " ran along the contracting 
 circle. Some of the hunters were still mounted, 
 some led their horses by the lariat, and some 
 turned them loose to follow at will. Suddenly 
 there was a babel of shouts away down the line. 
 We who were waiting patiently on our little rise 
 at the head of the " surround," saw a sudden scur- 
 rying at a point in the circle a quarter of a mile 
 away. The excitement ran along the line toward 
 us as waves run along a rope when an end is shaken. 
 One after another we saw sentinels dashing forward, 
 with uplifted arms. 
 
 "Alii viene!" 1 called Lorenzo to me, leaping 
 from Flojo and running forward with two clubs 
 grasped in his left hand, and one brandished aloft 
 in the right. The third man to the left doubled 
 himself like a jack-knife with the effort which sent 
 his club sJi-sJi-ing through the air; but the long- 
 eared fugitive had seen him, and floundered twenty 
 
 1 There he comes ! 
 
A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 61 
 
 feet aside in the nick of time. Old Lorenzo's arm 
 had been "feinting" back and forth as he ran; 
 and now, on a sudden, the curved missile sprang 
 out through the air, rose, settled again, and went 
 skimming along within a yard of the ground a 
 real "daisy-cutter," as a ball-player would have 
 called it. The distance was full fifty yards, and 
 the rabbit was going faster than any dog on earth, 
 save the fleetest greyhound, could run. It would 
 have been an extraordinary shot with a rifle. I 
 was opening my mouth to say, "Too far, corn- 
 padre ! " but before the three words could tum- 
 ble from my tongue, there was a little thud, a 
 shrill squeal from out a flurry of dust, and seventy- 
 year old Lorenzo was bounding forward like a 
 boy, only to return, a moment later, with a big 
 jack, which he proudly lashed behind his saddle. 
 The club had hit the rabbit in the side, and had 
 torn him nearly in two. 
 
 In a few minutes the first round was over, with 
 a net result of only three rabbits, and we were all 
 huddled together again in a little council of war. 
 Then the white-headed chief stepped out in front, 
 and those who had hats removed them, and all 
 listened reverently while his still resonant voice 
 rose in an earnest prayer to the god of the chase 
 to send us more rabbits ! The old men took 
 from secret recesses the quaint little hunting- 
 fetich a stone image of the mountain lion, most 
 successful of hunters and did it reverence. 
 
62 A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 
 
 "Hai-ko!" shouted the captain at last, and off 
 went the divergent lines again, over the ridge and 
 down the gentle ten-mile slope toward the foot of 
 the Hill of the Wind. At the head of the loping 
 horses of each file ran the boys, tireless and agile 
 as young deer, and they kept their place during 
 the seven hours of the hunt. The old men sat as 
 usual in a row, while the long human line ran out 
 on either side, tying a sentinel knot in itself at 
 every few rods. The ground was now more favor- 
 able. The sage and chaparro were taller and 
 more abundant, and where the shelter was so good 
 there were sure to be rabbits. There is a peculiar 
 fascination in watching those long arms as they 
 reach out for the "surrounds." When I have a 
 good horse I always seek an elevation whence to 
 take in the whole inspiring scene, and then gallop 
 back to the cordon in time to be "in at the 
 death " ; but to-day I had to be content if I could 
 Iteep Bayo in the procession at all. But even 
 from^felielevel it was a gallant sight, that long 
 array of far^rff-centaurs skirting the plain, unmis- 
 takably Indian in every motion, the free rise and 
 fall of the bronco lope, distinguishable even when 
 the figures had dwindled to wee specks on the 
 horizon; and before and beside me swart faces 
 and stalwart forms, sweeping on in the whirlwind 
 of our hoof -beats. 
 
 The second " surround " was much larger than 
 the first, the sentinels having been placed at greater 
 
A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 63 
 
 intervals. Just as the ends of the three-mile circle 
 came together, a gaunt jack sprang from the earth 
 at our very feet, and dashed through the line 
 before the hunters could even grasp their clubs. 
 Ambrosio, a young Apollo in bronze, wheeled his 
 big gray like a flash, and dashed in pursuit so 
 quickly, indeed, that I had to throw my gun in 
 the air to avoid giving him a dose of shot intended 
 for the rabbit; whereupon the waggish old ex- 
 governor, Vicente, called out to me: " Cuidado! 1 
 This is not to hunt Cristianos, but rabbits ! " 
 
 Ambrosio's mount was one of the fleetest in the 
 pueblo, victor in many a hard-fought gallo race ; 
 and now he went thundering down the plain, 
 devouring distance with mighty leaps, and plainly 
 glorying in the mad race as much as did his rider. 
 Ambrosio sat like a carven statue, save that the 
 club poised in his right hand waved to and fro 
 tentatively, and his long jet hair streamed back 
 upon the wind. Todillo had found a foeman 
 worthy of his hoofs. Grandly as his sinewy legs 
 launched him across the llano, away ahead gleamed 
 that strange animate streak of gray-on-white, whose 
 wonderful " pats " seemed never to touch the 
 ground. And when the thunderous pursuer was 
 gaining, and I could see for I was chasing not 
 the rabbit but the sight that Ambrosio drew 
 back his arm, there came a marvellous flash to the 
 
 1 Be careful ! 
 
64 A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 
 
 left, and there was the jack, flying at right angles 
 to his course of an instant before, and now broad- 
 side toward us ; I say " flying," for so it seemed. 
 The eye could scarcely be convinced that that 
 astounding apparition sailing along above the 
 dwarfed brush was really a quadruped, forced to 
 gather momentum from mother earth like the rest 
 of us. It appeared rather some great hawk, skim- 
 ming close to the ground in chase of its scurrying 
 prey. Try as I would, my eyes refused to realize 
 that that motion was not flight but a series of 
 incredible bounds. 
 
 There is none of this fascinating illusion about 
 the ordinary run of the jack-rabbit ; and yet, fol- 
 lowing one in the snow, when he had no more 
 pressing pursuer than myself on foot, I have meas- 
 ured a jump of twenty-two feet. What one can 
 do when pressed to his utmost, I have never been 
 able to decide definitely ; but it is much more than 
 that. 
 
 Had Todillo been unused to the sport, the race 
 would have ended then and there ; but he knew 
 rabbits as well as did his master. If he could not 
 match and no other animal ever did match 
 the supreme grace and agility with which his pro- 
 voking little rival had doubled on the course, the 
 tremendous convulsion of strength with which he 
 swerved and followed was hardly less admirable. 
 It seemed as if the effort must have broken him 
 in twain. 
 
A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 65 
 
 Again the tall pursuer was gaining on the pur- 
 sued. Fifty feet forty-eight forty-five and 
 Ambrosio rose high in his stirrups, his long arm 
 flashed through the air, and a dark streak shot out 
 so swiftly that for an instant the horse seemed to 
 have stopped, so easily it outsped him. And in 
 the same motion, at the same gallop, Ambrosio was 
 swooping low from his saddle, so that from our 
 side we could see only his left arm and leg ; and in 
 another instant was in his seat again, swinging the 
 rabbit triumphantly overhead. 
 
 We galloped back to the " surround," which was 
 slowly closing in, and now not a quarter of a mile 
 across. The inclosed brush seemed alive with 
 rabbits. At least a dozen were dashing hither and 
 yon, seeking an avenue of escape. One old fellow 
 in the centre sat up on his haunches, with ears 
 erect, to take in the whole situation. But his 
 coolness cost him dear. " Cuidado ! " came a yell 
 from across the circle ; and we sprang aside just 
 before Bautisto's rifle flashed, and the too prudent 
 rabbit fell, the ball passing through his head and 
 singing shrilly by us. 
 
 Now the rabbits began to grow desperate, and 
 to try to break through the line at all hazards. As 
 soon as one was seen bearing down on the line, the 
 twenty or thirty nearest men made a wild rally 
 toward him. Sometimes he would double away, 
 and sometimes try to dodge between their very 
 legs. Then what a din of yells went up ! How 
 
66 A PUEBLO RABBIT-HUNT. 
 
 the clubs went whizzing like giant hail ! Surely 
 in that frantic jam of madmen something besides 
 the rabbits will be killed! One of those clubs 
 would brain a man as surely as it would crack an 
 egg-shell. But no ! The huddle breaks, the yells 
 die out, and the " madmen " are running back to 
 their places, while one happy boy is tying a long 
 gray something behind his saddle. No one is even 
 limping. Not a shin has been cracked much less 
 a head. In all my long acquaintance with the 
 Pueblos, I have never known of such a thing as 
 one getting hurt even in the most furious mele*e of 
 the rabbit-drive. Strangest of all, there is never 
 any dispute about the game. They always know 
 which one of that rain of clubs did the work 
 though how they know, is beyond my comprehen- 
 sion. 
 
 Yonder is another rush. The first club thrown 
 breaks the jack's leg ; and realizing his desperate 
 situation, the poor creature dives into the basement 
 door of his tiny brother, the cotton-tail for the 
 jack never burrows, and never trusts himself in a 
 hole save at the last extremity. Our root-digger 
 rushes forward, sticks his spade in the hole to mark 
 it, and resumes his clubs. When the " surround " 
 is over, he will come back to dig eight or ten feet 
 for his sure victim. 
 
 So the afternoon wears on. Each " surround " 
 takes a little over half an hour, and each now nets 
 the hunters from ten to twenty rabbits mostly 
 
A PUEBLO BABBIT-HUNT. 67 
 
 jacks, with now and then a fuzzy cotton-tail. 
 Once in a while a jack succeeds in slipping through 
 the line, and is off like the wind. But after him 
 are from one to twenty hunters ; and when they 
 come back, ten minutes or half an hour later, with 
 foaming horses, it is strange, indeed, if the fugitive 
 is not dangling at the back of one of them. 
 
 On the slope of the crater we strike a " bunch " 
 of quail, the beautiful quail of the Southwest, 
 with their slate-colored coats, and dainty, fan-like 
 crests, and not one escapes. I have seen the 
 unerring club bring one down even from a flock 
 on the wing. 
 
 The " surrounds " are now making eastward, and 
 each one brings us nearer home. It has been a 
 good day's work thirty-five miles of hard riding, 
 and fourteen " surrounds " ; and on the cantle of 
 every saddle bumps a big mass of gray fur. 
 
 The evening shadows grow deeper in the canons 
 of the far-off Sandias, chasing the last ruddy glow 
 up and up the scarred cliffs. And in the soft New 
 Mexican twilight our long cavalcade goes ringing 
 down the hard Rio Puerco road toward our quaint, 
 green-rimmed village beside " the fierce river of the 
 North." 
 
PABLO APODACA'S BEAR. 
 
 PABLO APOD AC A was the strongest man in New 
 Mexico in his day. That was thirty years ago ; 
 but still, in the quaint little Mexican towns, if you 
 join the lazy groups squatted against the brown 
 adobe walls, smoking their corn-husk cigarettes, 
 and ask the old men who is the strongest wrestler 
 thereabout, they will say : 
 
 " Who knows ? Juan can knock down a horse 
 with his fist, and Domingo can carry the heaviest 
 cross of the Penitentes all day ; but you ought to 
 have known Pablo Apodaca ! He was the strongest 
 man that ever was. May God give his soul rest ! " 
 
 If Pablo could have been seen in Boston or New 
 York, the whole police force of the city hardly 
 would have sufficed to keep a mob of astonished 
 boys from following in his wake whenever he went 
 upon the street, for they never saw such a queer 
 sight as he would have presented. 
 
 A short, heavy man, whose long, black hair and 
 bushy beard hid his great neck so that his head 
 seemed grown fast to his shoulders ; a chest like a 
 barrel, and legs so bowed that his friends used to 
 say that he could not hold his baby in his lap with- 
 68 
 
PABLO APODACAS BEAR. 69 
 
 out letting it fall through ; a big Mexican blanket 
 falling nearly to his knees on all sides, and with 
 his head stuck through a hole in the middle of it ; 
 flapping pantaloons of rough cloth, and feet covered 
 with clumsy teguas he certainly was a queer 
 object. And when he thrust out his arms from 
 under the blanket, and rolled up his sleeves as 
 he was rather fond of doing the full, blue veins 
 stood out like knotted whipcords over great gnarls 
 and lumps of muscle that Atlas himself might have 
 envied. 
 
 Pablo lived in Cebolleta, one of the tiniest towns 
 in New Mexico ; but small as it is, none has a more 
 heroic history. Pablo's father was one of the 
 thirty Mexican men who came from the Rio 
 Grande with their families in the year 1800, and 
 founded their little town, seventy-five miles west 
 of any other settlement, and in the very midst of 
 the murderous Navajos. They built a strong stone 
 wall, ten feet high, all around the few houses, and 
 had but one gate thereto a clumsy but lasting 
 affair of thick planks hewn from the trunk of an 
 enormous pine. Several times the hamlet was be- 
 sieged by Indians, but the brave people, behind 
 their stout ramparts, held the savages at bay. 
 
 It required brave people to hold such a place. 
 For more than half a century the little town rarely 
 knew a month of peace, and in 1850 the very 
 bravest and best of its soldiers were massacred in 
 their sleep at San Miguel by the Apaches ; but the 
 
70 PABLO APODACAS BEAE. 
 
 survivors remained at their post, and Cebolleta 
 still dreams away on the rugged flank of Mt. 
 San Mateo, the ruins of its old wall crumbling 
 around it. 
 
 It was among such scenes of danger that Pablo 
 grew up, along with a little company of other 
 self-reliant young Mexicans. It would have been 
 hard to tell who was bravest, but as to strength 
 there was no question. Pablo could lift more and 
 carry more than any other man in the town, and 
 when it came to wrestling, no one cared to try his 
 skill twice. No matter how expert they were, 
 when once that iron clutch fastened upon them, 
 they were powerless as children; and Pablo was 
 as quick as he was strong. Then he began to 
 travel to the feasts with which the various hamlets 
 celebrated the days of their patron saints, and in 
 the wrestling-matches, which were part of the 
 sport, Pablo made all comers bite the dust. So by 
 the time he was a mature man, his name was a 
 proverb throughout the Province of New Mexico 
 which had not yet become a territory of the 
 United States. 
 
 All this exercise, with the simple food he ate and 
 the rugged outdoor life he led, kept his knotted 
 muscles growing larger and harder. When he 
 was thirty years of age, he used to catch a five- 
 year-old steer by the horns, and hold the great 
 brute so firmly that it seemed as if lashed to some 
 mighty oak. 
 
PABLO APODACA'S BEAE. 71 
 
 Strength is a quality that always commands 
 admiration, and, rightly used, ought also to com- 
 mand respect ; but Pablo came to have too much 
 strength for his own good. That is hardly a fair 
 way to put it, either, for it was not the strength 
 which was at fault, but rather Pablo's own igno- 
 rance how to use it wisely. From never meeting 
 an opponent that he could not conquer, he came 
 to believe that nothing could stand against him ; 
 and I have no doubt that he would cheerfully have 
 undertaken a wrestle with a locomotive, if they 
 had had such strange monsters in New Mexico 
 then in place of the clumsy old ox-carts. 
 
 In his young manhood Pablo married a pretty 
 Mexican girl, after her father had kept him at 
 work in dangerous expeditions for a whole year to 
 see if he was as industrious as he was strong. 
 They lived together happily. Pablo tended his 
 little flock of sheep, while Juanita carded the 
 wool, wove homely but durable blankets, carpets 
 and clothing, and attended to her other household 
 duties. 
 
 In one of his campaigns Pablo had captured a 
 strong Navajo girl, and brought her home as a 
 present for his prospective bride as the custom 
 of New Mexico then required all young men to do 
 before they could expect to marry. When Pablo 
 was away fighting the Indians which was a great 
 deal of the time Juanita and the Navajo girl, 
 who had grown to be very fond of each other, took 
 
72 PABLO APOD AC A' S BEAR. 
 
 all the care of things at home. A great many 
 white men would turn pale at the thought of 
 doing w,hat those two brave young women did 
 for life on the Southwestern frontier in those days 
 was full alike of hardship and of danger. 
 
 As the years went by the little household grew. 
 If you could have stepped into the small plaza, or 
 square, on which all the houses of Cebolleta faced, 
 you might have seen Pablo sitting in his doorway 
 mending his teguas with an awl and some threads 
 of deer-sinew. The soles were of rawhide, the 
 uppers of sheepskin with the wool inside. Near 
 him Juanita was very sure to be, perhaps twisting 
 her wool for weaving, or scrubbing blue corn into 
 a pulp on the lava metate. And around the door 
 played a trio of strong, healthy boys, with whom 
 Pablo good-natured as such strong men gener- 
 ally are sometimes took a rough romp. 
 
 One time when the Navajos were quiet, Pablo 
 took it into his head to stroll over the mountain 
 to the newer village of San Mateo, and to take 
 his oldest boy with him. Few American boys of 
 twelve years would have enjoyed tramping twenty- 
 two miles over that fearfully rough and steep foot- 
 path, but Pablito, besides being delighted with the 
 rare chance to go anywhere with the father of 
 whom he was so proud, was a sturdy boy, and not 
 easily tired. So while Pablo was carefully loading 
 his ponderous escopeta as the Mexican flint-lock 
 musket was called Pablito poked his head 
 
PABLO APOD AC AS SEAR. 73 
 
 through the gay red blanket his mother had woven 
 for him, and filled a buckskin pouch with pounded 
 dry meat and a sweet flour made from pop-corn. 
 The meat was all ready to be eaten ; and by mix- 
 ing the pinole with water they would have a sort 
 of sweet mush, itself nutritious enough to support 
 life for a long time. 
 
 It was a cool, fresh day in May May days in 
 Cebolleta, over seven thousand feet above the sea- 
 level, are always cool and Pablo and Pablito 
 were in great spirits as they climbed the steep, 
 winding path up the mesa or tableland. Pablo 
 had never been so strong as he was that day, and 
 he knew it. The deep satisfaction of his lungs, 
 the conscious swelling of his muscles, all told him. 
 He felt as if he would like to pluck one of those 
 gnarled cedars up by the roots and hurl it far down 
 the mountain. 
 
 Up, up they climbed. The cedars gave place to 
 noble pines. Though the sun was at its height, 
 the air was growing cooler; and upon the giant 
 peak at their right they could see the vast white 
 drifts which would lie there until the earlier heat 
 of July. The path was fearfully rugged. It 
 wound around enormous bowlders, dived into dark 
 ravines, and struggled up precipitous banks. 
 
 A needle-pointed dagger of the soaproot went 
 through Pablito's clumsy tegua and deep into his 
 foot; but his herculean father took him upon his 
 back as if he had been a feather, and strode on. 
 
74 PABLO APODACAS BEAR. 
 
 They were passing the brink of a great bluff, 
 nearly three hundred feet high and very precipi- 
 tous, when a turn in the narrow path brought 
 them face to face with a young grizzly bear cub. 
 Pablo dropped Pablito gently from his back, and 
 gave him the ponderous musket, which he could 
 hardly hold up. 
 
 " Hold, my boy," said Pablo, " and I will tie that 
 cub so that we may get him when we come back. 
 He is young enough to tame." 
 
 Pulling two strong buckskin thongs from his 
 bolsa, he rushed upon the cub, threw it, and began 
 to knot its four clumsy paws together. The cub 
 scratched and snapped like a little fiend, but Pablo's 
 gigantic strength enabled him to draw up the 
 knots, which he wet with his mouth, that they 
 might tighten as they dried. 
 
 But he had not tied the young grizzly's mouth, 
 and from those little long jaws there issued a steady 
 shriek. It is one of the strangest sounds in nature, 
 the yelling of an enraged bear cub a grotesque 
 mixture of pig-squeal, hoarse steam whistle, sputter, 
 and bark. 
 
 Other ears heard it than Pablo's and Pablito's. 
 Suddenly the bo}^ screamed, " La osa ! La osa ! " 
 There was a great scuffling in the gravel around 
 the point and a wild rush. 
 
 Before Pablo could stand straight, the huge old 
 mother-bear had dealt him a cuff on the back of 
 the neck that sent him spinning. He was up again 
 
PABLO APODACAS BEAR. 75 
 
 like a cat, dazed but undismayed, and in a flash 
 the shaggy monster was again upon him, but now 
 face to face. 
 
 There was no time to run ; and Pablo could not 
 get his musket, so, with the instinct of the prac- 
 tised wrestler, he ducked and caught a grip in the 
 bear's rough fur. He hugged her in a grip that 
 might have killed an ordinary man himself so 
 close that the bear could not strike him and kept 
 his head well down out of reach of the creature's 
 great jaws. 
 
 I fancy the bear was surprised by this unusual 
 state of affairs, but she kept her thoughts to her- 
 self. Throwing her huge, short " arms " around 
 Pablo, she returned his hug with interest. He had 
 grappled the strongest men scores of times, but 
 never had he felt such a pressure as that. It 
 seemed to be crushing his very life out. But 
 Pablo's heart was as strong as his body, and he 
 never thought of giving up. He put forth all his 
 gigantic strength, till the blue veins upon his fore- 
 head stood out like strong cords. He swayed his 
 huge foe from side to side as if her eight hundred 
 pounds had been but a man's weight. He tried 
 to trip her, and did once fling her upon her side. 
 But the odds of weight and they were fearful 
 odds were against him, and he found his breath 
 failing under his own enormous efforts and that 
 superhuman hug. And still he struggled. In that 
 blind, savage mele'e they tore up the rocky path, 
 
76 PABLO APODACAS BEAB. 
 
 and broke off a young pine ; and on a sudden, over- 
 stepping the narrow battle-field, man and bear 
 went rolling down the precipitous bluff, locked in 
 deadly embrace. 
 
 Pablito had watched the fight with breathless 
 interest, and with firm faith in the triumph of his 
 father. But now he was horror-stricken ; and for- 
 getting his pierced foot, he dashed down the hill, 
 still hugging the musket with both arms, tumbling 
 headlong, cutting himself on the sharp rocks, but 
 bouncing up again like a rubber ball, and dashing 
 on. 
 
 Pablo and the bear had stopped rolling. The 
 three hundred feet of tumble had cut Pablo's head 
 fearfully, and half stunned him. His great strength 
 was almost gone, and he could no longer strain 
 himself to such close quarters as to escape the 
 bear's jaws. He was lying on his back, feebly 
 fighting the animal off with his right arm. The 
 left had been crushed by the bear's jaws, and lay 
 twisted beside him. Above him was the enraged 
 animal, her jaws dripping blood, and her wicked 
 little eyes snapping like firebrands. 
 
 " My boy ! " Pablo called, in a faint, ghostly 
 voice the boy hardly knew, " Shoot ! Shoot ! " 
 
 " But I am afraid of shooting you ! I don't 
 know how ! " shrieked Pablito, sobbing. The light 
 weapons of to-day were unknown then, and Pablito 
 had never fired a gun in his life. 
 
 " Don't mind me. Put the muzzle to her side 
 
PABLO APODACAS BEAR. 77 
 
 and fire," came Pablo's answer, so faintly it could 
 just be heard. With a mighty effort of the will 
 he struck the bear a blow on the nose that made 
 her snort with pain to distract her attention 
 from the boy. 
 
 Pablito was trembling and sobbing, but he was 
 of the stuff that men are made of. He pulled back 
 the heavy hammer, lifted the muzzle painfully, 
 held it forward till it touched the shaggy fur, and 
 pulled the trigger. 
 
 The bear lurched heavily forward, bit a great 
 mouthful out of the earth, struggled a few minutes, 
 and then lay motionless. The ounce ball had 
 passed through her heart, and also through Pablo's 
 right thigh. 
 
 Pablito ran madly down the long mountain side 
 for help ; and soon a score of rough men hastened 
 to the spot, and carried Pablo home on a rude litter 
 of boughs. For weeks the herb- wise old women 
 who helped Juanita to care for him were often in 
 doubt whether that faint pulse had not stopped. 
 And then his iron constitution asserted itself. The 
 pulse grew stronger, the yawning cavities in face 
 and chest began to close, and at last Pablo 
 Apodaca was a well man. 
 
 But when, for the first time, he hobbled outside 
 his own door, the neighboring children fled in ter- 
 ror at the sight of the scarred, disfigured face that 
 had been so strong and ruddy. His nose was gone ; 
 his cheeks and chin and forehead were robbed of 
 their covering. 
 
78 PABLO APODACAS BEAR. 
 
 Pablo never wrestled again, though he lived for 
 several years longer. But his fame still lasts. 
 And if you were to happen into Cebolleta of a 
 summer's evening you might see Pablito now 
 grown to manhood telling a black-eyed boy 
 "about your grandfather, and the time I killed 
 my first bear." 
 
THE BOX S KOUND-UP. 
 
 " So yo' want a job on the range, Santiago ? " 
 
 " Si, Senor. My father too sick, and I have to 
 leave home to gain money." 
 
 " But what can yo' do ? It's mighty hard work 
 yer, 'n' we can't have no loafers. Yo're lame, 'n' 
 I don't see how yo' cud get along." 
 
 " Pero, Senor, if I am lame of the feet I am not 
 lame of the saddle. Try me, and see if I am not 
 as good there as any." 
 
 They stepped outside the little stone ranch- 
 house of the Box S ranch on the long eastern 
 slope of the Zuiii Mountains. Santiago's wiry 
 little Navajo pony was standing patiently outside, 
 "hitched" by throwing the reins over his head 
 and letting them hang towards the ground. Juvero 
 was spirited enough, but it was part of his educa- 
 tion to require no securer anchorage than this. 
 Santiago could leave him thus in the middle of the 
 plain and be gone half a day, sure that on his 
 return he would find Juvero in the self-same spot. 
 
 Now, tossing back the reins, Santiago sprang 
 lightly into the saddle. A word to Juvero, and 
 off they went like the wind. Awkward and sham- 
 
 79 
 
80 THE BOX S ROUND-UP. 
 
 bling enough the ragged boy had seemed afoot, 
 but now he was fairly transfigured. Lithe and 
 confident, he sat his saddle like a Comanche, now 
 erect and moveless as if a very part of the horse, 
 now swinging low to scoop up a handful of sand, 
 or standing at full height as Juvero clattered 
 along the valley. Then turning, he galloped down 
 towards " the old man " as the manager of a 
 ranch is always familiarly called by his men 
 and reined Juvero back on his haunches not six 
 feet away. 
 
 " There's noth'n' the matter 'th yo'r ridin', San- 
 tiago ! Hain't seen better sense I struck the Ter- 
 ritory. 'F yo' can rope 's good 's yo' ride, I don't 
 want no better boy. There comes Anse V Jim, 
 now, 'th three wild steers fr'm Agua Frio. Get 
 out yo'r lariat 'n' lemme see what yo' can do." 
 
 Santiago untied the thong which held his coiled 
 reata at the saddle-bow, ran out the plaited raw- 
 hide through the honda (noose-loop) and, with the 
 long noose trailing behind, rode out to meet the 
 two big Texans who were driving in the steers. 
 As he approached, one of the wild broadhorns 
 lunged away to the right and galloped down the 
 vega. Juvero came around like a top and was off 
 after the steer like an arrow. Now the long loop 
 was circling slowly above Santiago's head. The 
 steer doubled and veered as the pursuit grew hot, 
 and his pace was tremendous, but Juvero matched 
 his every turn with wonderful quickness. Sud- 
 
THE BOX S ROUND-UP. 81 
 
 denly the rope shot out horizontally, the broad 
 noose settled squarely over the spreading horns, 
 and Juvero dropped to a rocklike halt, all four 
 feet braced firmly. The rope had a double turn 
 around the saddle-bow, and the lumbering steer, 
 thus abruptly " snubbed," whirled a full somersault 
 and struck the sand with a great thump. Before 
 he could kick twice Santiago was off his pony with 
 the loosened rope, with which he deftly knotted 
 the four legs of his captive together, and then, 
 shambling back to Juvero, rode to " the old man." 
 
 " Good's old wheat ! Jes' two minutes fr'm 
 start to tie ! Thet's jes' the kind o' boy we want 
 on the Box S. Hev yo'r stuff here to-morrow, 'n' 
 yo' shall hev a steady job." 
 
 " Grracias, Senor ! To-morrow I come," and San- 
 tiago galloped away towards the little adobe hut 
 in San Rafael which he called home. 
 
 A week later the Box S outfit was starting out 
 on the round-up, which in New Mexico generally 
 begins with July. The big canvas-covered " chuck- 
 wagon " was grumbling over the jagged lava frag- 
 ments that strewed the road to Agua Frio. On 
 the high seat was perched " Old Jimmy " Crane, 
 the best cook in a hundred miles, whose " frying- 
 pan bread " and other round-up fare was famous 
 throughout the Territory. Fastened in the rear 
 of the wagon was a huge box Jimmy's pantry 
 and in the front were a dozen bundles of blan- 
 kets, each rolled in a canvas wagon-sheet, which 
 
82 THE BOX S BOUND-UP. 
 
 served to keep the sleeper dry above and below. 
 Scattered along the road for several miles before 
 and behind were cowboys loping by twos and 
 threes some thirty men of them in all. At 
 Agua Frio, the first camp, they would be joined 
 by nearly as many more " boys " who had come, 
 some of them two hundred miles, to gather at the 
 round-up, and drive home such of their cattle 
 as had strayed so far as the Box S range. A 
 rough-looking set they were ; mostly tall, brawny 
 Texans, long-haired, unshaven, with flapping som- 
 breros on their heads, clumsy leathern chapparejos 
 over their blue overalls, boots with high, pointed 
 heels, and each with a big six-shooter leering from 
 the scabbard on his cartridge-belt. And yet, with 
 all their rough appearance and rough speech a 
 queer dialect of Southwestern slang delivered with 
 the Southern utterance learned from negro "mam- 
 mies" they had many manly traits. Santiago 
 found himself treated with unsentimental but prac- 
 tical kindness. He was the only Mexican in the 
 "outfit," and while Texans are not overfond of 
 Mexicans, his youth, his lameness, and his really 
 wonderful skill with horse and reata won him all 
 the consideration he could have desired. 
 
 It was a little before sundown when they camped 
 at Agua Frio. Santiago thought he had never 
 seen so beautiful a place. Away up near the top 
 of the Zuni Mountains lay this tiny green valley, 
 whose grass was already knee-deep. At the upper 
 
THE BOX S BOUND-UP. 83 
 
 end rose a low, black wall of indescribable rugged- 
 ness. From the strange bowl-peak to the north a 
 stream of liquid rock had poured roaring down 
 the valley unnumbered centuries before, until, 
 spent and cooling, the fiery river had stopped 
 short here, its last wave frozen to jet rock before 
 it could curl and break upon the smooth slope 
 below. Where huge air-bubbles had formed in 
 the lava were now dark, ragged caves ; and from 
 one in the very centre of the wall poured a strong, 
 clear rivulet, cold as ice, which fed the valley, and 
 gave it its name of Agua Frio ("cold water"). 
 
 The " chuck-wagon " drew up beside the spring, 
 and its four powerful mules now hobbled by 
 their forelegs with Navajo manillas of twisted raw- 
 hide were turned loose to graze. The door of 
 the big box in the back of the wagon was let 
 down, forming a table, and Jimmy's pots and 
 pans were huddled thereon in preparation for 
 supper. 
 
 " Hullo, greaser ! " called a coarse voice from 
 the knot of men up in the edge of the pines, where 
 they were stretching reatas from trunk to trunk to 
 form a corral for the horses. 
 
 Santiago started. He had never before been 
 called by that opprobrious name, which is used 
 only by rough and mannerless Americans in speak- 
 ing of Mexicans. A stalwart Texas six-footer of 
 hard face stepped out from the knot of cowboys 
 and swaggered down towards the spring. He 
 
84 THE BOX S BOUND-UP. 
 
 was one of the newcomers from a distant Arizona 
 ranch. 
 
 "Wot yo' duin' yer?" he demanded gruffly. 
 " Down on our range we don't 'low no greasers 
 'round. Yo' best skip fr'm yer. I cain't bear 
 no greaser, nohow." 
 
 "I am not one greaser," said Santiago quietly 
 but proudfy. He knew that, poor as he was, the 
 blood that ran in his veins was that of one of the 
 bravest of the Spanish heroes who had conquered 
 the New World more than three centuries before. 
 Though that blood boiled now at the insolence of 
 the Texan, Santiago had learned unusual self-con- 
 trol for his years, and continued quietly : 
 
 " I am work for Senor Hall. I am right to be 
 here. Perhaps I am as good vaquero as you." 
 
 "Don't yo' give me none o' yo'r back talk," 
 shouted the bully with an oath ; " 'r I'll shoot yo' 
 so full o' holes yo' cain't throw a shadow." And 
 he reached his hand back to his heavy revolver. 
 But just then the coffee-pot fell clattering upon 
 the ground, and old Jimmy had caught his Win- 
 chester from its hooks alongside his pantry. 
 
 " Yo' Bill Buxton ! 'F yo' monkey 'th thet boy, 
 I'll give the sun a chance to tan yo'r fool brains. 
 Cain't yo' never mind yo'r own self 'thout pitchin' 
 onto somebody smaller'n yo' be ? The boy's a good 
 boy, 'n' he shain't be buffalered while I'm 'round. 
 Yo' know me goin' on fifteen year, 'n' yo' know 't 
 I know yo're a coward 'n' a bully. Yo' hear me ? " 
 
THE BOX S BOUND-UP. 85 
 
 Buxton turned without a word, and walked back 
 to his companions, but his hard face wore a look 
 of awful malignity. All the evil in his perverted 
 nature was boiling over at what he deemed an insult 
 and a thwarting of his authority. 
 
 Before sunrise the next morning the little gray 
 mounds scattered here and there among the pines 
 began to heave. From each crawled out a tousled 
 cowboy, who speedily made his mound into a fat, 
 gray roll and tossed it into the front of the wagon. 
 While Jimmy's kettles were singing over the hot 
 little fire the boys were saddling their horses with 
 the fifty-pound " cow-saddles " necessary for such 
 heavy work as theirs in which the responsibility 
 of not only the dead weight, but the momentum, 
 too, of a ponderous steer might at any moment be 
 thrown on the horn, or the tremendous slow strain 
 of hauling a "bogged" animal from a shoulder- 
 deep quicksand be trusted to the same little knob 
 of wood and iron. Some, holding a reluctant 
 hoof between their knees, were replacing a lost 
 shoe, and others were whipping out their reatas to 
 evict stray kinks. 
 
 The frying-pan bread a crisp, delicious baking 
 in a covered iron pot set beside the fire was 
 done. So were the fried bacon, the boiled beef 
 and potatoes, and the violently black coffee. The 
 boys squatted on the ground round about, each 
 having fished from the dish box a tin plate, cup, 
 and spoon, and an iron knife and fork, and then 
 
86 THE BOX S BOUND- UP. 
 
 filled his dishes from the various pots. Little 
 time was wasted. Rough but good-natured jokes 
 and chaff flew around the circle, and no one seemed 
 particularly in a hurry ; but it was marvellous how 
 much food disappeared in so little time. In ten min- 
 utes the last plate had gone into Jimmy's dishpan, 
 and the last cowboy was hobbling away to his pony, 
 with that ridiculous gait caused by the high-heeled 
 boots. A couple of minutes for cinching up the 
 broad horse-hair girths, a free swing into the sad- 
 dle, and away they clattered up the rocky slopes. 
 John, the black-browed range foreman, had given 
 them their specific orders the night before, and as 
 they left camp they scattered in all directions to 
 scour the woods and bring all the cattle to a com- 
 mon point on the shore of " Big Pond," where the 
 " chuck-wagon " would be awaiting them at night- 
 fall, and where branding would begin next day. 
 
 That morning Old Jimmy banged his dishes 
 about with unnecessary and unusual roughness, 
 and was grumbling to himself in a low tone which 
 even the mules, that had known him so long, could 
 not fully catch. Something was evidently rubbing 
 him "agin' the grain," as he would have put it. 
 When the last tin, shiny as scrubbing could make 
 it, reflected his grizzled face from the shelf, Jimmy 
 slammed up the hanging door and locked it with 
 an air that was almost vicious, and sat down upon 
 a rock. 
 
 " No, I cain't say's I like the looks on't at all ! " 
 
THE BOX S BOUND-UP. 87 
 
 he broke out with such vigor that old Pete, the 
 off leader, pricked up his ears and came hopping 
 down the slope as fast as his hobbles would allow. 
 " I heerd John tell Santiaygo to take in the lava 
 beds yan side o' the south crater ; 'n' ef ever any- 
 thing was plain 'twus thet Bill Buxton 'lowed to 
 foller him. Tain't fur no good, nuther after 
 las' night. Santiaygo's a good boy, 'n' he hain't 
 got no gun ! Thet's wot ! I'll jes' light out theta- 
 way myself, 'n' see 't there ain't no crooked work." 
 Jimmy unslung his Winchester, jumped to 
 Pete's back with surprising agility, and went off 
 on a lope. Five miles west on the stony trail he 
 turned to the left, and crossed a high ridge the 
 Continental Divide, from whose eastern slope the 
 rivulets find their way to the Gulf of Mexico and 
 the Atlantic Ocean, while those from the western 
 slope roll through burning deserts to rest at last in 
 the Gulf of California and the blue Pacific. In a 
 few moments he reached the foot of a huge, black 
 cone of frightful steepness, rising five hundred feet 
 above the lofty valley, itself eight thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea. The cone looked im- 
 possible of ascent, but Pete, long used to the asperi- 
 ties of territorial travel, zigzagged patiently up, and 
 in a few minutes stood panting at the top. They 
 were on the rim of a stupendous bowl, whose bottom 
 lay black and barren nearly a thousand feet below 
 the crater of a long-extinct volcano. The bowl 
 was perfect save at the southern side, where a great 
 
88 THE BOX S BOUND-UP. 
 
 V-shaped gap split it from the top half way to the 
 bottom. For twenty miles along the dark plain 
 could be traced the black, frozen flood which had 
 once burst its mighty dam and gone seething down 
 the valley. 
 
 Jimmy rode slowly around the narrow rim, in 
 places not more than a yard wide, looking care- 
 fully down upon the surrounding country; but 
 not until he reached the very brink of the great 
 gap, and looked down six hundred feet to the black 
 channel which the lava had gouged in the living 
 rock, did he see the object of his search. The lava 
 bed was there three or four hundred feet wide, its 
 sullen crust upheaved in strange swells and fantas- 
 tic crags and needles, and split by unfathomed 
 crevices. In the middle was the great rock-hewn 
 gutter of the outflow, fifty feet deep and one hun- 
 dred wide. From his high perch the old cook could 
 see a figure sprawled behind a boulder in the bed 
 of this channel. The waiting attitude was one 
 which an eye so practised as Jimmy's had no diffi- 
 culty in interpreting, and that glint of the hot sun 
 on something in the right hand was even more in- 
 telligible. 
 
 " The coward ! " muttered Jimmy, slipping lightly 
 off Pete's back, and creeping cautiously down the 
 slope, rifle in hand. "He's layin' fur Santiaygo 
 knows he'll come up here to see ef ther's cattle 
 in the canon. Dassen't even tackle thet boy to his 
 face ! But I'll spile his dough ! " 
 
THE BOX S ROUND-UP. 89 
 
 Just then the old man stopped short and caught 
 his breath. A ragged, brown, shambling figure 
 stepped from behind a ridge of lava, and stood look- 
 ing up and down the cleft. It was Santiago. Not 
 a hundred feet away was the rock behind which 
 Bill Buxton was lying. Jimmy opened his mouth 
 to yell a warning, but saw the boy start suddenly, 
 look intently up the gully, and begin running out 
 the reata which he was carrying coiled in his hand. 
 In the same instant Buxton sprang up from behind 
 the rock, and levelled his revolver, not at the boy, 
 but at a point fifty feet away. Jimmy could see 
 the boy's jump at the sight of his enemy there, and 
 heard him yell " Cuidado ! " But before he could 
 recover from his astonishment at this strange state 
 of things, Buxton's six-shooter rang out spitefully 
 among the echoing rocks, just as a huge, tawny 
 length sailed birdlike out into the air towards him. 
 
 "A mount'n lion after Buxton, V thet shot 
 missed ! " was the thought that flashed through the 
 old man's brain, even while his eyes were following 
 a sinuous gray thread that leaped out, overtook 
 that yellow bolt, writhed around it, grew taut for 
 an inconceivable instant, and then loosening, dis- 
 appeared in the chasm, with a darker form at its 
 other end. 
 
 Five minutes later old Jimmy, with face grayer 
 than his hair, stood in the bottom of the gorge. 
 He looked at the two mangled forms at his feet, 
 and then at the cowering bully beside him. 
 
90 THE BOX 8 ROUND-UP. 
 
 " Wot yo' doin' yer, yo' Bill Buxton ? " he asked 
 in a quiet, dangerous tone. 
 
 "Nuthin'," answered the Texan sullenly. "I 
 wus plum played out with the sun, V I laid down 
 behind the rock to rest. 'N' then I seen that lion 
 startin' to jump onto me fr'm a shelf in the mal 
 pais? 'n' I fired, but missed him." 
 
 " Don't yo' tell me none o' yo'r lies, Bill Buxton ! 
 / know wot yo' was await'n' fur ! Now git to 
 camp, 'n' walk straight, 'n' ef yo' make one break, 
 the Lord hev mercy on yo'r miz'able soul ! " 
 
 The old man's Winchester was levelled, and there 
 was a yellow light in his little gray eyes. Buxton 
 sullenly gave up his six-shooter, and turned towards 
 the camp. 
 
 " Yer ! " cried Jimmy. " Yo' 'low we'll leave 
 this yer po'r kid to be ate by the Hotes 2 like a 
 dead sheep? Not any, we don't! Come, git him 
 on yo'r shoulder 'n' pack him in to be buried 
 decent." 
 
 The bully was about to demur at this most dis- 
 tasteful task, but a look at those merciless eyes 
 and at the dark-blue barrel were enough, and he 
 stooped, grasped the inanimate form, and swung 
 it upon his shoulder like a sack of flour. 
 
 " Gently, yo' cur ! Don't yo' go to treat thet 
 po'r thing like 'twas dead mutton ! " And Jimmy 
 tenderly lifted the limp burden around into the 
 
 1 lava: literally, "bad land." 
 
 2 coyotes : the small wolves of the plains. 
 
THE BOX S EOUND-UP. 91 
 
 Texan's arms. "Eh? Didn't it pull a breath 
 then? Lord o' love ! They is a pulse! They is! 
 I shore culdn't find none before, but now it's shore 
 there ! Now git, Bill Buxton ! Fo' camp 's fast 
 's the Lord'll let yo', V tote thet little rat like yo' 
 loved him. Move ! " 
 
 When the " boys " came loping down to Big 
 Pond at sunset, behind a thousand foaming cattle, 
 the white-topped wagon was drawn up beside the 
 muddy pool and old Jimmy was quietly getting 
 supper. As the foreman approached Jimmy 
 straightened up from the fire and stepped over 
 to him. 
 
 " John," said he, " ther's a ser'ous matter here. 
 I did 'low to settle it myself, but thet wouldn't be 
 squar' 'th the outfit. Yo' all 've got's much to 
 say 's I hev. Yo' seen thet muss 'twixt Bill Bux- 
 ton V Santiaygo las' night, 'n' yo' know wot 
 Buxton is. I 'lowed this mornin' there was some- 
 thin' up, 'n' I follered. Ketched Buxton hid up 
 in the mal pais canon waitin' to bushwack the boy. 
 Jest 's Santiaygo come up he seen a mount'n lion 
 scroochin' to pounce onto somebody, 'n' then he 
 seen 't the somebody was Buxton. He yelled to 
 look out, 'n' Buxton jumped up 'n' fired at the lion, 
 but missed. 'N' jest 's the lion went sailin' fur 
 Buxton the boy roped him, clean in the air ! Fine 
 work ? I never seen nothin' like it in twenty-eight 
 year o' cow work ! But the kid didn't hev no 
 time to take a turn round a rock, n'r nothin', 'n' 
 
92 THE BOX 8 ROUND-UP. 
 
 the weight o' the lion pulled him down. When I 
 got down to 'em both 'peared dead 's nails lion's 
 head broke all to smash V the kid all cut up 'th 
 the rocks. Teared like he'd gone 'n' give his life 
 to save thet scrub ez hed abused him 'n' wus layiii' 
 fur to murder him. But when I had Buxton take 
 him up to pack him to camp, I 'lowed I heerd a 
 gasp, 'n' shore enough when I looked ag'in they 
 was a pulse no bigger'n a minute. Comin' in we 
 struck two o' Salazar's boys 'th the sheep herd, 'n' 
 sooner'n bring the po'r thing out yer wher' they 
 ain't no shade, I put Jos to tend him in thet hut 
 in the pines till the old man gits yer to-morrow 'th 
 his buckboard, 'n' then he c'n take him home easy 
 on a bed. He perked up some, 'n' I 'low he'll git 
 well. Now what I want to know is wot'll we do 
 with Bill Buxton ? " 
 
 " Wher is he ? " asked the foreman with an 
 ominous look. 
 
 Jimmy stepped to the wagon and lifted the can- 
 vas in front. There lay Buxton, bound hand and 
 foot, pale and shivering. 
 
 " Yer, boys ! Come 'n' pull this thing out ! " 
 called John, and a dozen surprised men lifted the 
 burly bundle from the wagon. 
 
 The whole story was now told by Jimmy to the 
 crowd. Buxton doggedly denied, but guilt was 
 evident in his every look. A long, low-voiced con- 
 sultation was held among the men, and then John 
 came over to the prisoner. 
 
f 
 
THE BOX 8 BOUND-UP. 93 
 
 "Bill Buxton," said he sternly, "the boys did 
 low to rope yo' up to a tree, but we don't want 
 no onpleasantness 'th the Triangle A people, V 
 we've agreed to give yo' one hour to git. Ef ever 
 yo' shows up on the Box S range again yo'll never 
 know wot hit yo'. There (unlashing the reata 
 which bound him) git!" 
 
 The cowed desperado rose, straightened his 
 cramped limbs, turned and disappeared in the 
 cedars without a word. What became of him I do 
 not know, but he never was again seen in New 
 Mexico. As for Santiago, though he is lamer 
 than ever, and his left arm has an ugly knot which 
 will never allow it to grow strong again, the Box 
 S would as soon think of getting along without 
 old Jimmy as without him. 
 
THE COMANCHE'S EEVENGE. 
 
 IF the true story of New Mexico could be 
 written in detail, from the time when the brave 
 Spanish conquistador es planted there the first Euro- 
 pean civilization in all the vast area now embraced 
 by the United States, it would stand unparalleled 
 in all the history of the world. No other common- 
 wealth on the globe has met and conquered such 
 incredible hardships, dangers, and sufferings for so 
 long a time. 
 
 The story of New Mexico is a story written in 
 the blood of three hundred and fifty years. Unfor- 
 tunately, we shall never be able to compile its his- 
 tory fully; all we have are the salient points, 
 and they have been saved only by research the most 
 laborious. 
 
 There were no newspapers nor books to record 
 and perpetuate the sufferings and the heroism of 
 the Spanish pioneers in the New World. The 
 early Spanish explorers wrote " c'uentas" or ac- 
 counts of what they saw and found in the strange 
 new land, and much that was of great historic 
 value was preserved in the church records kept by 
 the priests. 
 94 
 
THE COMANCH&S REVENGE. 95 
 
 But in the red Pueblo uprising of 1680 most of 
 these precious documents were destroyed, and the 
 others were so scattered over the world that they 
 have not even yet been re-collected. So the writ- 
 ten history of the oldest and in many respects 
 the most interesting part of our country is, and 
 must remain, largely fragmentary. For not only 
 the traditions of the stirring events that took place 
 long ago in these regions, but also the old men 
 who remember the traditions, are fast dying out 
 together, and with them will be lost the material 
 for writing many a paper of exciting and impor- 
 tant history. 
 
 Some of the most romantic stories of New Mex- 
 ico in the last century cluster about the little 
 hamlet of Tome*, on the east bank of the Rio 
 Grande, some twenty-five miles below Albu- 
 querque. A quiet, sleepy spot it is, among the tall 
 cotton-woods that fringe " the Great River of the 
 North." Never large, it is now but the skeleton 
 of its former self, for the treacherous river ten years 
 ago swept away most of the town, leaving only the 
 big old church and half a dozen dwellings. The 
 visitor to-day finds in its rural doze little sugges- 
 tion of the stirring scenes through which it has 
 passed. 
 
 Tome* the name is a contraction of Abbe* Santo 
 Tomas was founded in 1769 by Don Ignacio 
 Baca, who came out from Spain at the head of 
 fifty families, and settled upon the grant of land 
 
96 THE COMANCHES EEVENGE. 
 
 ceded by the Spanish crown. The colonists built 
 their little adobe houses upon the rich bottom-lands 
 of the Rio Grande, which they irrigated, as is 
 necessary in this arid climate, by ditches from the 
 river. 
 
 They were in the midst of hostile Indian tribes, 
 and lived a life of constant harassment. They 
 were well fortified, however, and numerous enough 
 to hold their own ; their quaint old Spanish esco- 
 petas (flint-lock muskets) putting them on an 
 equality with a far larger force of bow-armed 
 Indians. 
 
 The Comanches were just then inclined to peace, 
 and Don Ignacio, who was shrewd as well as cour- 
 ageous, soon established friendly relations with 
 them. They began to come regularly to Tom to 
 trade, and were always hospitably received. 
 
 Between them and the Navajos an immemorial 
 and implacable hostility existed, and the wiser 
 citizens of Tome* began to wish that some alliance 
 might be made with the Comanches which should 
 forever protect Tome from the common foe. 
 
 About this time an event occurred which gave 
 reason to hope that the wish might be realized 
 suddenly. The Comanche chief was a tall, su- 
 perbly built Indian, in the prime of life, and of 
 mental power commensurate with his vast physical 
 strength. He formed a strong friendship for Don 
 Ignacio, and at last brought his son, a fine-looking 
 boy of ten, to visit his new Spanish friends. Senor 
 
THE COMANCH&S EEVENGE. 97 
 
 Baca had a very pretty little daughter, Maria, then 
 about seven years old, and the two children took 
 a great fancy to each other. 
 
 "Amiga" said the Comanche chief to Sefior Baca 
 one day, " see the children, how they play together. 
 Is it not well that when they grow old enough we 
 marry them, and make "an eternal alliance between 
 my people and the people of Tome ? " 
 
 " It is well," said Senor Baca. " We will do so." 
 And he made a solemn compact. 
 
 The Indians thereupon made a great feast, and 
 presently departed for their country, away to the 
 east of Tome*, in high spirits. Every year the 
 Comanche chief used to come with a number of 
 his people to Tome*, bringing to little Maria lavish 
 presents of horses, buffalo robes, buffalo meat, and 
 the like. 
 
 At last, when the boy was nineteen years old, 
 the whole tribe, decked out in their gayest blank- 
 ets and buckskins and feathers, accompanied him 
 to Tome* to celebrate the marriage. He had by 
 this time grown to be a tall, athletic young brave, 
 who showed much of his father's physical and 
 mental strength. 
 
 But Don Ignacio had changed his mind. The 
 colony was prospering finely, and the surrounding 
 Indians had given much less trouble of late. He 
 was less concerned for a politic alliance than in 
 the earlier, doubtful days, and thought it probable 
 that he might be able to retain the friendship of 
 
98 THE COMANCHWS REVENGE. 
 
 the Comanches without giving up his daughter, to 
 whom he was growing more and more attached. 
 
 The tradition of the day says that she was a 
 very beautiful girl. As to the sacred promise he 
 had made, he thought like many people of our 
 more enlightened days that a promise made to an 
 Indian "didn't count." So he arranged the matter 
 with the people of the town, and hid Maria in a 
 secure place. 
 
 When the Comanches arrived he put on a sor- 
 rowful face and said, " Alas ! My poor daughter ! 
 She died of small-pox this winter, and I am left 
 alone." 
 
 The Comanches received this news with great 
 sorrow, and turned homeward, lamenting bitterly. 
 A year passed without trouble. Then a party of 
 traders from the pueblo of Isleta, twelve miles up 
 the river from Tome', went over to the Comanche 
 country with a pack train of burros. During their 
 stay there, the death of Maria was spoken of by 
 the Comanches. 
 
 " But that is not true," said the Isletans. " The 
 girl is alive and well, for we saw her but a few 
 days before we started." 
 
 The Comanche chief questioned them closely, 
 and, upon finding that they told the truth, was so 
 much enraged at the trick that had been put upon 
 him, that he at once began to lay his plans for ven- 
 geance. 
 
 The 8th of September had come, the feast day 
 
THE COMAN CHE'S EEVENGE. 99 
 
 of Santo Tomas, the patron saint of Tome*, and 
 the busy little Spanish town was entering upon a 
 grand celebration. In the afternoon there were to 
 be horse-races and foot-races, "running the chicken," 
 and shooting-matches ; and in the evening a grand 
 ball. 
 
 Now, in the forenoon of this day, the good old 
 parish priest was saying mass in the big adobe 
 church, and every one was there in their holiday 
 finery. 
 
 On a sudden a terrible yell was heard outside, 
 and in another moment the Comanches, hideous in 
 their war-paint, were pouring into the church. It 
 was a complete surprise. The Tomeiios, after 
 long security, had laid aside their early vigilance, 
 and were all unarmed. Powerless to resist, they 
 were slaughtered like sheep, and not a man of 
 Tome' was spared to tell the ghastly tale. Even 
 the priest perished with the rest. Most of the 
 women and children were spared, and many were 
 carried off into captivity among them Maria, 
 the innocent cause of all this bloodshed. 
 
 The Franciscan priest of Albuquerque came 
 down to bury the dead, and console the survivors. 
 He wrote a very brief account of the affair in his 
 church records, naively adding, " How fortunate 
 that all had been to confession and communion the 
 day before." 
 
 Maria was carried to the Comanche country, with 
 great care, and there was married to the young 
 
100 THE COM AN CHE'S EEVENGE. 
 
 warrior who had waited for her so long. Tradi- 
 tion says that she soon became well content with 
 her new home, where she was treated with unusual 
 consideration. At all events, she passed the remain- 
 der of a long life there, and her descendants are still 
 to be found among the Comanches in the Indian 
 nation, still bearing her old family name of Baca. 
 
 Only fifteen years ago one of her ever-so-great- 
 grandsons, a stalwart and handsome brave named 
 Puercus, who was then the head chief of the Co- 
 manches, came down to Puerto de Luna to visit 
 Colonel Manuel Chaves, the most extraordinary 
 Indian-fighter and rifle-shot New Mexico has ever 
 produced. His prowess in war and his spotless in- 
 tegrity in peace made him feared, while he was also 
 esteemed by all the Indians in the Territory, and 
 some of them felt the warmest friendship for him. 
 
 The Navajos were just then being removed from 
 Fort Sumner to their present reservation, two hun- 
 dred miles to the west, and when Puercus and his 
 two wives left Puerto de Luna they were sur- 
 rounded by the traditional foes of their race. 
 They made a gallant resistance, the women fight- 
 ing like warriors, and held out for half a day be- 
 fore they were killed by the swarming Navajos, 
 over thirty of whom had bitten the dust during 
 that unequal struggle. 
 
 As for Tome*, which never fully recovered from 
 that fearful blow, the Indians know it to this day 
 as " The Town of the Broken Promise." 
 
IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 " Presto ! Pres-s-s-to-o ! " 
 
 A small and very ragged boy was running fran- 
 tically down one of the long, smooth slopes of 
 Western New Mexico, waving his tattered jacket 
 wildly above his head, and yelling the words at 
 the top of his lungs. A hundred yards ahead was 
 a dense huddle of dirty gray fleeces, upborne by 
 a maze of slender, scurrying legs. Two big, shaggy 
 dogs were running and barking vigorously on either 
 flank of the flock, keeping it compact and on the 
 gallop. 
 
 Truly, Pedro was in serious trouble. What 
 would the patron say, when he learned that his 
 flock had strayed into the Bewitched Cafion and 
 eaten of the dreaded yerba mala, the evil weed, 
 while Pedro slept? And who knew how many of 
 them would yet die? Ay de mi! It was a sad 
 day! 
 
 Pedro and his shrivelled old father, Esquipulo, 
 hardly bigger than the boy, had been given charge 
 of one of Don Ramon's improved flocks of twenty- 
 five hundred sheep only the month before. Es- 
 quipulo had now gone back to the village with 
 
 101 
 
102 IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 one of the two burros for supplies, leaving Pedro 
 in sole charge of the flock. The boy was only fif- 
 teen, a manly, hard-working, self-reliant little fel- 
 low. He had been up all night, collecting the 
 flock, which had been scattered by a prowling 
 bear, and his young eyes were heavy. Surely it 
 could do no harm if he lay down under this pinon 
 tree and snatched a wink of sleep. But the " wink " 
 was longer than he had intended, and when he woke 
 the flock was gone. 
 
 Hurrying along their broad trail, he had found 
 the sheep in the Bewitched Canon a spot shunned 
 by all shepherds on account of the poisonous weeds 
 which grew there. Thus ungrazed, it was full of 
 rank grasses, tempting enough to the unsuspicious 
 sheep, which were eating greedily. As the fright- 
 ened boy drew near, he saw some of them leaping 
 high in the air and falling back to rise no more. 
 
 Stripping off his jacket, and yelling a command 
 to the dogs, Pedro had started his flock on a mad 
 run down the canon and out across the valley into 
 which it opened. The only salvation, for any that 
 had eaten of the^weed, was to keep them running 
 till worn out ; and tired as he was, fear and excite- 
 ment now lent Pedro new strength. For miles he 
 kept the scared flock running, himself toiling on 
 behind with wild gestures and hoarse "prestos;" 
 but at last he fell exhausted. The sheep stopped 
 at once, and began grazing on the young sward, or 
 lay down for their noon rest. The dogs came 
 
IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 103 
 
 soberly back with lolling tongues, and lay down 
 beside Pedro. 
 
 Only a few sheep had fallen by the way, and 
 now the rest were safe. But to make up the dead 
 fifty to Don Ramon ah, it would be very hard ! 
 And he was such a harsh patron ! Pedro could 
 see him even now, white with rage, his enormous 
 body shaking, his huge fist sawing the air, and his 
 strong lungs rolling out anathemas against the 
 stupid shepherds. 
 
 But it could not be helped now. All that Pedro 
 could do was to redouble his vigilance for the 
 future. No more sleep till his father's return ! 
 He would be back in three days now; but that 
 would be too late to skin the dead sheep, and there 
 was another loss. 
 
 The day wore slowly on. The sheep did not 
 wander now, and Pedro sat under a cedar tree 
 throwing pebbles at the prairie-dogs to keep him- 
 self awake. A couple of coyotes came sneaking 
 over the hill so cunningly that they were fairly in 
 the flock before Pedro knew it. He unslung the 
 short Spencer carbine from his back, took a care- 
 ful aim, and tumbled a coyote dead at three hun- 
 dred yards for Pedro was a very fair shot, like 
 most lads of his age in that wild country. The 
 other coyote ran, with Borracho and Mundo in hot 
 pursuit; but as he dashed through the flock he 
 snapped in mere wantonness at woolly throats 
 here and there, and left four fat wethers dead. 
 
104 IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 The two big dogs presently returned, looking 
 vexed. They could have torn the animal to pieces 
 in a moment, but were no match for him in run- 
 ning, and even now Pedro could see him looking 
 back from the top of a mesa miles away. 
 
 " Ay! First it is the bad weed and then the 
 coyotes ! I will drive them to the mouth of the 
 Puerto del Aire and sleep them to -night at the Oji- 
 tos, for they are in want of water." 
 
 The patient burro loaded with the blankets, 
 an axe, a coffee-pot, a frying-pan, and a little coffee, 
 sugar, salt, and flour had by this time overtaken 
 his runaway master. Pedro dressed two of the 
 sheep which the coyote had killed, and loaded 
 them across the comical little pack-saddle. In a 
 few minutes he and the flock were pushing slowly 
 to the westward. 
 
 Just after sunset they halted in the pinons under 
 the cliffs at the mouth of the Puerto del Aire 
 the Pass of the Wind. It is a deep, narrow canon, 
 whose walls, fifteen hundred feet high, are seamed 
 with countless veins of coal. Getting out his flint 
 and steel, Pedro soon had a rousing fire, and began 
 to cook his simple supper. A pot of very black 
 coffee, a little flour mixed with water and cooked 
 in the frying-pan, and the roasted ribs of a whole 
 side of a sheep, comprised the meal, of which Pedro 
 left only the bones. 
 
 The sheep had huddled in a close circle around 
 the fire, shut themselves up like so many big four- 
 
IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 105 
 
 bladed jackknives, and gone to sleep. Pedro pulled 
 from his feet the clumsy teguas with raw-hide 
 soles and uppers of untanned sheepskin with the 
 wool inward, and taking his awl and some thread of 
 twisted sinews, mended a few incipient rents. 
 Then, laying the teguas on the ground, he spread 
 a blanket and stretched himself upon it, with his 
 bare feet to the fire. It was the nearest to bed or 
 undressing that he would get for weeks at all 
 events, until they should drive the flock down to 
 Alamitos, there to be sheared with Don Ramon's 
 thirty thousand other sheep. 
 
 Pedro dared not go to sleep when fortune 
 seemed so unkind, and the wakeful night wore on 
 wearily with him. There was no moon, but a thou- 
 sand stars twinkled up at him from the little pool 
 in the arroyo. Suddenly the boy raised himself on 
 his elbows, brushed the long hair back from his 
 ears, and bent his head sideways to listen intently. 
 
 Sharp ears had Pedro! Even the dogs were 
 sleeping quietly beside the fire Borracho and 
 Mundo, the two biggest and best sheep-dogs in all 
 Valencia County. But if they heard nothing, 
 Pedro felt sure he did, and now he fairly held his 
 breath to listen. 
 
 There it came again a faint, thin call, from 
 miles away. Pedro jumped to his feet, seized his 
 heavy blanket, and in a moment had the fire out. 
 Then he sat down to think a bit, beside the dogs, 
 which were now awake and growling low. 
 
106 IJV THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 " Los Navajoses ! What can they be doing, trav- 
 elling in the middle of the night ? Tata l told me 
 to be very careful of them, for they are warlike of 
 late, stealing many sheep and horses, and killing 
 many people. Quiza they are after the sheep ! It 
 is well that I go away from here quickly; but 
 where? They are coming from the way of San 
 Mateo, so I cannot go homeward on this side of 
 the mountains. Goats can go through the Puerto 
 by day, but sheep never. But Tata showed me, 
 one time, from the top of the mesa here, the ruins 
 of a strange city ten miles west. There I can 
 hide my sheep and myself till he comes, for the 
 walls of the Pueblo Alto are very strong. That is 
 the place ! Borracho ! Mundo ! Hechalos ! " 
 
 The intelligent dogs began running around the 
 flock and wakening it. The big woolly jackknives 
 slowly opened themselves, and the burro, rein- 
 vested with his pack, fell into place in the rear of 
 the procession. 
 
 Down the long "wash," around tall, yellow cliffs 
 and turrets of water-carved sandstone, over turtle- 
 back ledges, and at last out into the broad, broken 
 valley, the slow marchers wound. It was hard 
 travelling in the dark, and Pedro had never been 
 thus far west before ; but his sense of locality was 
 well developed, and, steering by the familiar stars, 
 he pushed bravely along. Great owls skimmed 
 
 i Father. 
 
IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 107 
 
 just above his head, hooting dismally; and now 
 and then, along the side of the vast mesa he was 
 skirting, shrilled the appalling cry of the moun- 
 tain lion. He carried the carbine in his hand, 
 now peering through the darkness at the dim, 
 white mass' ahead, and anon stopping to listen for 
 sounds from the rear. 
 
 A black peak on the right grew upon the dark- 
 ness, overshadowed them awhile, and then fell 
 behind. " We are going well. There is the Peak 
 of the Heart," said Pedro encouragingly to him- 
 self. " We must soon come now to the Valley of 
 the Deserted City." And he pushed the sheep to 
 a broken trot. 
 
 Just as the dawn blossomed to red in the east, 
 they descended a short, steep "draw," crossed a 
 deep but waterless river-bed, and emerged upon a 
 smooth, circular plain. In the very centre of it 
 Pedro could see the high, ragged walls of the mys- 
 terious Pueblo Alto, and in a few minutes more 
 the dogs were holding the sheep in a tired clump 
 at the foot of the ruins, while Pedro climbed up to 
 explore. 
 
 It was a wonderful place, the ruins of an ancient 
 Pueblo stone city, deserted before Columbus dis- 
 covered America. It lay in the great Navajo 
 reservation, fifty miles from the nearest settle- 
 ment. Few white men have ever seen it, even to 
 this day. The town was built in the shape of a 
 rectangle, two hundred feet long, with the houses 
 
108 IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 terraced and facing inward upon a common plaza 
 or square. The outer walls were still standing, 
 ten to twenty feet high, and on the west side part 
 of the fifth story of a great tower, square outside 
 and round within, rose nearly fifty feet aloft. 
 Doors and windows there were none, and the 
 ladders by which the walls were once scaled had 
 crumbled to dust centuries before. Luckily there 
 was a breach in the wall of one of the rooms, and 
 driving his flock in through this, Pedro walled up 
 the gap with the big flat rocks which had fallen 
 from the upper stories. A little bunch-grass grew 
 in the plaza and on the mounds of debris. Water 
 there was none, nearer than the pools in the Canon 
 de los Osos, six miles away, but the sheep had 
 been watered only a few hours before, and were 
 used to water only once in two days. On a pinch, 
 they could go without for four. 
 
 As for himself, there was water in the little keg 
 on the pack-saddle, and food enough for a week 
 with economy. Pedro cooked breakfast over a fire 
 of chapparo, and having eaten, sat down to wait. 
 
 There were no signs of danger as yet. Had he 
 been too timid and made a mistake ? If his fears 
 were groundless, it was a bad mistake to come to 
 the Pueblo Alto, for it was in the rightful country 
 of the surly Navajos, who would certainly make 
 trouble if they found him there. 
 
 But while these uncomfortable thoughts were 
 passing through his unkempt head, his sharp eyes 
 
IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 109 
 
 sighted a figure, outlined against the sky, on the 
 top of a swell six miles away. Civilized eyes, 
 which are little called upon for such use, could 
 hardly have discerned it at all, but Pedro saw 
 plainly that it was an Indian on horseback, and 
 coming toward him. 
 
 The figure disappeared, and another came in 
 sight, and then another and another, till the 
 frightened boy had counted twenty-seven of them. 
 He wiped his gun carefully with a piece of buck- 
 skin, and counted the long, heavy cartridges in 
 his belt just twenty-two. Truly, here was no 
 chance for poor shooting ! If the Indians attacked 
 him, he must make every bullet count. Esquipulo 
 had been a famous Indian-fighter in his day ; and 
 the boy had often listened to his stories of struggles 
 with Apache, Navajo, and Ute. 
 
 " There is one thing," the old man used to say, 
 "which thou must always remember. An Indian 
 is the most seeing man in the world. He will 
 know, as well and as quickly as thyself, if thou 
 art frightened. When he attacks thee in a strong 
 place, he will first make feints of charging, to see 
 what thou art made of. If thou art cool, and 
 waitest to make every shot count, he will at once 
 change his ways, and try to pick thee off from a 
 distance in which there is small danger, if thou 
 art watchful. But if thou miss a shot or two 
 at first, he will charge into thee and over thee, 
 and shoot thee down from near." 
 
110 IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 Pedro did remember all this, which he had 
 heard a hundred times ; and though he was trem- 
 bling with excitement and fear, he fully resolved 
 that he would show a cool front. But even if he 
 repulsed their immediate attacks what then ? 
 They could hold him besieged indefinitely, and 
 there was no chance of help except from his father. 
 Ah ! His father ! Alone and on foot, why, the 
 Navajos would have no trouble with him. 
 
 The more Pedro thought of this the more alarmed 
 he became. Esquipulo would be back now in a 
 day or two. He would follow the sheep-tracks, 
 and come unsuspectingly to his death. But how to 
 warn him ! 
 
 It was too late for Pedro to abandon the sheep 
 and sneak back unseen to warn his father as he 
 now would have been glad to do. The Indians 
 were already riding down the open valley in plain 
 sight, and not more than two miles away. 
 
 Ah ! The dogs ! " Here, Borracho ! " 
 
 Borracho came leisurely up and laid his huge 
 head in Pedro's lap. Borracho was very knowing. 
 He understood all that was said to him, he could 
 go home and carry a message. 
 
 Pedro could neither read nor write, but he had 
 not been in the school of Out-of -Doors for nothing. 
 
 He tore a rag from his shirt, knotted into it an 
 ear lopped from one of the sheep, and bearing Don 
 Ramon's ear-mark; a bit of the broken Pueblo 
 pottery which was strewn all over the ruins ; and 
 
IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. Ill 
 
 a rude picture drawn with a coal upon a tolerably 
 white bit of shirt, representing sheep inside a high 
 wall, and twenty-seven Indians outside. 
 
 Tying the parcel about Borracho's neck, he let 
 the dog down over the wall with repeated com- 
 mands and pointings, and a final " Por San Mateo ! 
 Vayate!" 
 
 Borracho seemed to understand his mission and 
 started off on a long lope. The Indians fired at 
 him as he passed, but he skulked up the arroyo 
 safely, and the last Pedro saw of him he was five 
 miles away and still running. 
 
 The Indians reined up at the ruins and dis- 
 mounted carelessly. They had seen the tracks of 
 but one small boy with the sheep, and anticipated 
 no resistance to their intended seizure of the flock. 
 
 " Stop ! " called Pedro, who had learned some- 
 thing of the Navajo tongue from the Indians who 
 were constantly coming to San Mateo. " Stop, or 
 I will shoot ! These sheep are of Don Ramon, 
 and I must keep them." 
 
 The Indians, yelling scornfully, prepared to 
 mount the wall. One, kneeling upon his saddle, 
 took another upon his back, and thus lifted him 
 high enough to reach the top of the wall where it 
 was lowest. The Indian pulled himself up lightly, 
 but just as he got his knees upon the top he fell 
 back upon his companion with a groan. The 
 shepherd boy had aimed well. 
 
 The Navajos at once began firing ; but Pedro kept 
 
112 IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 well hidden in the big tower, peeping only through 
 the loopholes through which the besieged Pue- 
 blos had shot their quartz-tipped arrow ages before 
 and waiting patiently his chance to shoot, for 
 now the Indians seemed to appreciate the shelter 
 afforded by the wall, and showed themselves but 
 little. 
 
 Suddenly four swarthy heads popped above the 
 wall; four Indians leaped into the enclosure and 
 made a rush for the tower, while several more were 
 climbing the wall. It was a trying moment, but 
 Pedro kept his head. Not till they were within 
 twenty feet did his loophole spit its blast of smoke- 
 Two of the Navajos were in line, and the heavy 
 ball, passing clear through the foremost, gave the 
 second a mortal wound. The other two hesitated a 
 second, and it gave Pedro time to throw in another 
 cartridge and drop the third Indian at the very en- 
 trance to the tower. The fourth ran and jumped 
 down outside, and his companions hastily dropped 
 back. 
 
 Pedro felt that he had make a good beginning, 
 and it gave him confidence. With sufficient 
 watchfulness he believed he could keep the In- 
 dians at bay till the arrival of the help which he 
 now felt sure would come. He crawled with pain- 
 ful care to the pack, mixed a little flour and water, 
 and ate it raw for there was no wood to make a 
 fire. The Indians had evidently learned to respect 
 his metal, and made no more assaults, though the 
 
IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 113 
 
 sharp pi-anng ! of a bullet close to his head, when 
 he exposed it at all, reminded him that they were 
 watching him closely. 
 
 So the day wore on ; and at last the dreaded 
 darkness began to close in upon him. Pedro 
 knew that now was the time of his utmost danger; 
 and, without thought of sleeping, watched like 
 a cat, creeping softly around to peer and listen. 
 In this way he was on hand to stop one attempt to 
 scale the wall, and pushed down big rocks upon the 
 Indians below. 
 
 About midnight he heard a strange, grating 
 noise, which puzzled him. Creeping around, he 
 found that the Indians were quietly removing the 
 stones with which he had filled the gap where the 
 sheep came in. The tower had a loophole on that 
 side, and aiming along the house-walls and about 
 a foot out, he fired at a guess. A yell of pain 
 told that he had guessed well, and directly he 
 heard the Indians moving off into the plain. There 
 was no further molestation that night, and when 
 morning came Pedro felt reasonably secure. The 
 Indians had camped just over a low ridge, whence 
 they could see without being seen, and there they 
 stayed all day, doubtless planning new strategy 
 for the night. 
 
 But just as the sun was setting toward the 
 Chaco Mesa, Pedro saw a body of horsemen rid- 
 ing hard from the east. As they drew near he 
 recognized in the lead Colonel Manuel Chaves, 
 
114 IN THE PUEBLO ALTO. 
 
 the terror of every hostile tribe in the Territory for 
 a generation, and with him were Esquipulo and a 
 score of well-armed neighbors. Away at the rear 
 toiled poor old Borracho, worn out with his jour- 
 ney of more than one hundred miles, but still un- 
 willing to desert his master. 
 
 The Indians were already in flight, and as they 
 were on the reservation, no pursuit was made. 
 All patted Pedro's shaggy head, and when the 
 famous Colonel Chaves said to him, " Pedrito, thou 
 art a brave boy. I wish I had an army like thee ! " 
 his cup of happiness was full. 
 
 The flock was escorted safely to San Mateo, and 
 Don Ramon was so well pleased with Pedro's pluck 
 that he gave him fifty sheep for his very own. 
 Pedro is a grown man now, and the fifty sheep 
 have increased to many thousand. Borracho is 
 still alive, and is made much of, though he ceased 
 to be useful years ago. He has lost all his teeth, 
 and can barely limp for rheumatism; but when 
 unmannerly dogs would impose on his age, there 
 is not a man or child in San Mateo but will stone 
 them off with, " Ill-said curs ! Would you tear 
 the brave dog that brought the message from the 
 Pueblo Alto, and saved Pedro and the flock ? " 
 
LITTLE LOLITA. 
 
 I WAS very much out of breath when I first 
 saw Lolita, and just had enough left to say " Quat- 
 zee" and take the little, brown, fat, dimpled hand 
 she shyly held out to me most of the other being 
 in her cunning little mouth. You would have 
 been out of breath, too, if you had been with me. 
 Just think of living in a town that you have to 
 climb a stone ladder of a thousand steps to get to ! 
 That is the sort of place Lolita lives in. It is 
 called Acoma, and I think it is the most wonderful 
 city in the world. The strongholds of Quebec and 
 Gibraltar are nothing beside it. It is in one of 
 the western counties of New Mexico, that most 
 interesting part of America, and one about which 
 very few people in the East know much. Its 
 people all have brown skins, long black hair, and 
 the strangest clothes you ever saw. They are 
 Pueblos, the children of that strange, quiet race 
 which had lived in this country for hundreds of 
 years before Columbus ever dreamed there was 
 such a place as America They live to-day just as 
 they lived then, in queer, neat houses made of big 
 mud bricks dried in the sun, with nice little farms 
 
 115 
 
116 LITTLE LOLITA. 
 
 and big flocks of sheep and cattle and horses. 
 They call themselves Hano Ohshatch, which means 
 " children of the sun," for they believe the sun is the 
 house of a god, whom they worship in some very 
 queer ways. They go to church, too, in the most 
 wonderful church in the world. It took them 
 forty years to build it, and forty more to make the 
 graveyard. You see, the town stands on top of 
 what they call here a mesa, or table of rock, five 
 hundred feet high, and with sides as steep as the 
 walls of a house. There are only three paths to 
 the top, and such dreadful paths as they are you 
 can't imagine. Once, long ago, a man and a woman 
 who lived in the town were coming up the worst 
 of these paths, and were nearly to the top, when 
 the man slipped and fell backward. As he fell he 
 hit the woman, and both tumbled together over 
 five hundred feet to the plain below, crushed into 
 horrible and shapeless masses. So you can see 
 how fearfully steep these stone ladders must be. 
 And when I tell you that the church covers far 
 more ground than any church in New York, and 
 the graveyard nearly as much more, and that these 
 patient people had to bring every timber and every 
 bit of mud for the church, and all the dirt for the 
 graveyard, which is a great stone box over two 
 hundred feet square and sixty-five feet deep, you 
 will understand why it is so wonderful. In the 
 same way they had to bring up all the material for 
 the houses in which eight hundred people live 
 
PUEBLO WOMKN. 
 
LITTLE LOLITA. 117 
 
 up dizzy precipices which few Americans dare to 
 climb with empty hands. As the great table of 
 seventy acres upon which the town is built is one 
 solid rock, of course they can have no wells ; but 
 there are three great natural cavities in the rook, 
 each large enough to throw a big house into, and 
 whenever it rains or snows a great deal of water is 
 caught in these. Back in the States, this water 
 would soon spoil ; but it keeps fresh and cool all 
 the year round in Acoma, which is a thousand feet 
 higher above the sea-level than the top of the tall- 
 est mountain east of Colorado. The beautiful 
 plain all around the foot of the mesa is green with 
 rustling corn and waving grass, and thousands of 
 sheep and cattle, horses and burros, are grazing all 
 around. Did you ever see a burro ? He is a sort 
 of pocket-size donkey, no larger than a young colt, 
 but very strong and useful, and with the queerest, 
 wisest expression of face you ever saw. To look 
 at him, you would fancy he had swallowed three 
 dictionaries, and knew them all by heart already. 
 But really all he knows is to look out for himself 
 pretty well, and to be very careful when he is in- 
 trusted with a burden. 
 
 Well, when I got to the top of the cliff, panting 
 and hot, there was little Lolita standing on the 
 edge, where she could look down five hundred 
 feet. I had seen her from the bottom, whence she 
 looked no bigger than a black ant standing on its 
 hind legs. But now I could see that she was 
 
118 LITTLE LOLITA. 
 
 about three years old, very plump, and with more 
 dimples than anybody else I know. Perhaps the 
 dimple-maker was a particular friend of hers. Her 
 hair was very long for such a little girl, and hadn't 
 a kink in it. It was perfectly straight, very fine, 
 black as a crow, and " banged " in front. I can 
 remember very well when an American girl with 
 bangs would have been a curiosity to the whole 
 country, common as the fashion is now; but the 
 Acoma women and children have been banging 
 their hair for hundreds of years. The Yankees 
 didn't invent everything. 
 
 Lolita had on a little loose calico gown which 
 came to her knees, and not another thing. She 
 never wore shoes or stockings in her life ; but 
 when she gets older, she will put on funny little 
 moccasins made of deerskin, with rawhide soles, and 
 a long band of deerskin wrapped around her leg 
 from foot to knee, until it looks like a very big 
 white boot. Neither has she ever worn a hat ; but 
 in place of it, on feast-days and to go to church, 
 she has a little red shawl that she puts over her 
 head and shoulders, so that it looks much like a 
 tight hood. No matter how cold it is,. she wears 
 no other clothes and really she doesn't mind the 
 winter half as much as many little Eastern girls, 
 with all their warm clothes, and cloaks, and muffs. 
 Her little body is as tough all over as your face is, 
 and for the same reason habit. 
 
 At first Lolita was very shy of me. She had 
 
LITTLE LOLITA. 119 
 
 never seen but one or two people in such clothes, 
 which looked as queer to her as her father's would 
 to you; and what she had seen were on rough 
 people, who didn't care for little girls. But I had 
 brought a very big sack of candy behind my saddle, 
 and it didn't take her long to find out what those 
 little sweet, striped sticks were for. She couldn't 
 speak a word of English or Spanish, and as I didn't 
 know a great deal of the Acoma language then we 
 couldn't talk together much. But we soon under- 
 stood each other famously, all the same, and really 
 didn't need to use our tongues. 
 
 So in a very short time you might have seen us 
 walking together over the rough rocks toward the 
 town, she holding my hand, and looking up at me 
 sidewise out of her big, dark eyes, while the stick 
 of candy grew steadily shorter and shorter between 
 the little, white teeth. "Ha-te cu-cha hobo ? " I asked, 
 which means in Acoma, "Where do you live?" 
 and Lolita led me around past the big church, and 
 stopped in front of a row of houses more than one 
 thousand feet long, all divided up into narrow 
 little dwellings, but solid and continuous, as if 
 carved out of one great block. And such queer 
 houses ! There are none in the States like them 
 which is a pity, as they are much more comfortable 
 than the tenements of our great cities. Each house 
 is three stories high, and built in terraces, so that 
 the row looks like three great steps to some giant's 
 door. There are no windows and no doors in the 
 
120 LITTLE LOLITA. 
 
 first story nothing but little peepholes with 
 panes of gypsum, a stone which lets the light 
 through like glass, but is not nearly so clear. To 
 get into the house at all you must climb a funny, 
 big ladder, and then walk back on the roof of the 
 first story to the door of the second. Inside is a 
 little trap-door and another ladder, by which you 
 can go down into the cellar-like first story. The 
 people built their houses in this way to defend 
 themselves better against the Apaches, Navajos, 
 and other murderous Indians who used to be fight- 
 ing them all the time ; and for the same reason they 
 put their town on top of the lofty mesa. The 
 houses are very neat inside, and have the funniest 
 little mud fireplaces imaginable, but no chairs or 
 bedsteads, tables or lounges. The beds are spread 
 on the floor at night, and rolled up and put along 
 the walls by day for seats ; and for their meals they 
 sit on the floor in a circle, with the food in the 
 middle. 
 
 After I had talked awhile with Lolita's father 
 and mother, and eaten some matzin, their queer, 
 blue bread, which looked exactly like a piece of 
 hornet's nest, I took Lolita by one hand, and the 
 sack of candy in the other, and went out. We 
 backed down the big ladder and stood in the street, 
 which is one smooth, solid rock. In front of the 
 houses were groups of children, playing in little 
 patches of sand, or tossing pebbles at a mark. The 
 children of Acoma are as queer as their town. 
 
LITTLE LOLITA. 121 
 
 They never saw a doll nor any other American 
 plaything ; but they amuse themselves with sticks, 
 and stones, and mud pies, and have a great deal, 
 better time than many white children. They never 
 went to school, and wouldn't know what a book 
 was; but they know all about outdoors, ride on 
 wild horses, and can take care of themselves as 
 well as a lot of grown-up Americans. The little 
 girls take care not only of themselves, but also of 
 the babies of the family, whom they never pinch, 
 nor tease, nor neglect. It is a very funny sight to 
 see a wee girl of five years stoop down and take 
 her fat, naked baby brother up pick-a-back, fold 
 her little shawl around her so that it holds him up 
 as if he were in a bag, and then trot off to her play, 
 holding the ends of her shawl tightly, while his 
 chubby face peeps over her shoulder. These chil- 
 dren hardly ever cry ; and in the years that I have 
 been among them, I have never seen them quarrel 
 which is more than I can say for my American 
 boy and girl friends. 
 
 But when we came down the ladder the children 
 stopped playing, and a few timid ones scurried into 
 their homes. The rest came edging slyly towards 
 us, as if half afraid I might bite ; but when they 
 saw what Lolita had in her mouth for she was 
 at work on a second stick by this time they 
 grew bolder. I opened the big bag and held up a 
 fistful of candy, and they all crowded around me, 
 holding up their hands modestly, but saying noth- 
 
122 LITTLE LOLITA. 
 
 ing except with their expectant eyes. I noticed 
 that when I gave a stick of candy to a little girl, 
 she always gave it to the baby on her back, and 
 held out her hand again for a piece for herself 
 which you may be sure she got. In a few minutes 
 all the children in town about two hundred of 
 them were around me reaching for dulces. A 
 good picture of that scene would have been very 
 pretty, but all the people of Acoma, little and big, 
 greatly dislike to have their photographs taken, 
 and it cost me a great deal of time and trouble 
 even a long time afterward, when everybody there 
 knew and liked me to get pictures of Lolita and 
 a few other children. Only a few weeks ago an 
 American, who went to make some pictures of 
 that wonderful place, was driven out of the town. 
 We had great times together for a few days, 
 Lolita and I. The other children came around, 
 too, to play with me, to roar when I made faces at 
 them, and to " oo-ooh! " with delight over the paper 
 dolls I cut out ; but Lolita was my favorite. And 
 now, whenever I go to Acoma, she comes dancing 
 out to meet me, puts her fat little arms around my 
 neck, and then dives in my pockets for the candy 
 she knows is there. And whenever I come away 
 she goes down the big stone ladder with me 
 generally on my back to watch me ride away ; 
 and the last thing I see as I turn in my saddle, 
 before rounding the corner of the mesa, is little 
 Lolita, standing on a big sand-hill and waving me 
 a pretty good by. 
 
THEEE LIVE WITCHES. 
 
 IF the Puritans had had as much to say about 
 the rest of the vast area now covered by the United 
 States as they did in their narrow New England 
 strip, I should not be writing this. Such witches 
 as they had, they promptly assisted to a more mer- 
 ciful world ; but the real home of witchcraft on 
 this continent was as far outside their jurisdiction 
 as their knowledge. No such merciless censors as 
 they were to be found in the arid area which Spain 
 had colonized in the great Southwest long before 
 a Caucasian foot had touched Plymouth Rock; 
 and in the bare, adobe villages which began to dot 
 the green valleys of what is now New Mexico, 
 witchcraft was an institution which none cared to 
 molest. Physically, there were no braver people 
 than these Spanish speaking pioneers who made 
 the first settlements in the New World. Their 
 whole life was one heroic struggle with wild beasts 
 and wilder men, with suffering, privation, and 
 danger. The colonists of the Atlantic coast, peri- 
 lous as was their undertaking, had never such 
 gruesome foes as the Spaniards fought here for 
 three centuries. None but brave men would have 
 
 123 
 
124 THREE LIVE WITCHES. 
 
 opened such a wilderness, and none but brave ones 
 could have held it. History records no greater 
 heroisms than the unwritten ones which the rocky 
 mesas of New Mexico witnessed almost daily. 
 
 But with all their courage in facing material 
 danger, these simple, uneducated folk shrank from 
 the mysterious and the unknown like children 
 from the dark. Indeed, they were children. Their 
 superstitions entered into every phase of daily life. 
 And such wonderfully curious superstitions ! An 
 American child to-day would be ashamed to believe 
 the stuff that brave men had faith in then. Though 
 our own forefathers were perhaps quite as super- 
 stitious as they, a few generations brought enlight- 
 enment. But while we have been climbing to the 
 height of civilization, this out-of-the-way corner of 
 the nation so different from all the rest in phys- 
 ical appearance, in customs and manners, in ideas 
 and ambitions has been very nearly at a stand- 
 still. 
 
 During the forty years that New Mexico has 
 been under our flag, she has changed for the better, 
 but the change is little more than skin-deep. The 
 ideas and the customs of the great majority of her 
 people are almost as un-American as the ideas and 
 customs of the Zulus. Her sparsely settled area 
 of one hundred and twenty-two thousand square 
 miles holds more that is quaint and wonderful, 
 more of the Dark Ages, more that the civilized 
 world long ago outgrew, than all the rest of the 
 
THREE LIVE WITCHES. 125 
 
 country put together ; and to-day one of the most 
 wonderful things within her bare, brown borders 
 is the survival and prevalence of witchcraft. 
 
 There are not now nearly as many witches in 
 New Mexico as there were a few years ago, but 
 there are enough if popular belief is accepted. 
 Of course I am speaking now from the New Mex- 
 ican standpoint, to which the small, educated class 
 looks back with indulgent incredulity, but in which 
 the common people believe as sincerely as did the 
 Puritans when they burned poor old w^omen at the 
 stake " because they were witches." Of the little 
 Mexican hamlets in the more secluded corners of 
 the Territory, there are few which cannot still 
 boast a resident witch, in whose malignant powers 
 the simple villagers have firmest faith, and the 
 story of whose alleged doings would fill a large 
 volume. 
 
 I had the probably unprecedented privilege, a 
 short time ago, of photographing three live witches 
 as they stood in the door of their little adobe 
 house Antonia Morales and Placida Morales, 
 sisters, and Villa, the daughter of Placida, and 
 not more than seventeen years old. All three live 
 in the little village of San Rafael, which lies be- 
 side the beautiful Gallo Spring in the fertile valley 
 behind that great, black lava-flow which, centuries 
 ago, ran down the valley of the Rio Puerco 
 "Dirty River" from the now extinct craters of 
 the Zuiii Mountains. Their house is about in the 
 
126 THREE LIVE WITCHES. 
 
 centre of the straggling village. Only a few hun- 
 dred feet away stands the little Presbyterian mis- 
 sion schoolhouse, where thirty or forty Mexican 
 children are learning to read and write, to speak 
 English and " do sums," under the charge of two 
 young ladies from the East. The little church is 
 even closer. 
 
 But a majority of the people believe more 
 heartily in the witches than they do in the school. 
 The town is much in awe of these three lone 
 women. No one cares to refuse when they ask 
 for food or other favors. They will do almost 
 anything rather than incur the displeasure of the 
 brujas, as the witches are called. Any one can 
 tell you direful tales of what befell those who 
 were rash enough to offend them. Queer reading 
 these witch stories make in this day and country. 
 Here are some of the remarkable tales which I 
 hear from the believing lips of " the oldest inhabi- 
 tants " : - 
 
 Francisco Ansures, a good-looking young Mexi- 
 can, whose adobe house is one of the six that con- 
 stitute the little village of Cerros Cuates, had the 
 misfortune four years ago to offend one of the 
 witches. I say his misfortune, for he did not 
 know, until the penalty came upon him, that he 
 had offended, and to this day is not aware what 
 particular evil he did to her. But the witch knew, 
 and punished him for his deed, whatever it may 
 have been. 
 
THREE LIVE WITCHES. 127 
 
 She said nothing at the time, but waited pa- 
 tiently till one day she had a chance to give him 
 a cup of coffee. He drank the decoction unsus- 
 pectingly. In a few minutes thereafter he was 
 horrified to see that his hair had grown two feet 
 in length, and that his rough overalls had turned 
 to petticoats. Still worse, when he cried out in 
 dismay, his pleasant tenor voice had become a 
 squeaky treble. 
 
 In a word, he had been turned into a woman 
 at least, that is what he says, and what his indus- 
 trious little wife maintains to this day. They 
 declare that he remained a woman for several 
 months, and recovered his proper sex only by pay- 
 ing a male witch who lived in the Canon de Juan 
 Tafoya to turn him back again. 
 
 A witch named Marcelina a poor, withered 
 little woman about fifty years old was stoned to 
 death in San Mateo, thirty miles north of San 
 Rafael, in 1887, because she had " turned Don Jose* 
 Patricio Marino into a woman, and made Senor 
 Montano very lame." 
 
 Montano is still lame ; but not nearly so much 
 so as before he helped to kill poor old Marcelina. 
 That pious act not only relieved his feelings, but 
 soothed his distorted muscles also. Marino is 
 again a man and one of very good standing in 
 San Mateo having hired another witch to re- 
 transform him into a man's shape. 
 
 In the Pueblo Indian town of Zia, less than ten 
 
128 THREE LIVE WITCHES. 
 
 years ago, lived a witch who was quietly but per- 
 severingly causing all the children of the place 
 to die one after the other. At last the people 
 could stand it no longer, and arose in a mass to 
 wipe her out, but found their efforts vain. The 
 priest refused to come from his home in a neigh- 
 boring town to help them, so they enlisted the 
 sacristan one of their own number, who had 
 charge of the church. He marched at the head 
 of the mob, carrying a jar of holy water, which he 
 had taken from the church. As they came near, 
 the poor old woman fled, with the mob in howling 
 pursuit. Just as they were about to overtake her, 
 she suddenly turned herself into a dog, and soon 
 distanced them. They got their horses and ran 
 her down ; but she changed again to a coyote and 
 ran faster than ever. 
 
 It took the riders nearly all day to catch up with 
 her again; and then the coyote became a cat in 
 the twinkling of an eye, and ran up a tall tree. 
 They tried in vain to shake her down ; but when 
 the sacristan arrived he threw some holy water up 
 the tree so that it splashed on her, and down she 
 tumbled like a rock, changing back to her human 
 shape as she dropped. 
 
 The crowd fell upon her with clubs and hatch- 
 ets and beat her head and body fearfully ; but still 
 she lived and groaned, though any one of her 
 hundred wounds was enough to kill a strong man. 
 
 " Untie the knot ! Untie the knot ! " she kept 
 
THREE LIVE WITCHES. 129 
 
 screaming, and at last a man who was not too in- 
 furiated to hear, stooped down and untied a queer 
 little knot which he found in one corner of her 
 blood-soaked blanket. The instant that was 
 loosed her spirit took its flight. 
 
 Nicolas Marino, brother of Patricio, once saw 
 a big ball of fire alight in the arroyo which runs 
 through the town of San Mateo. 'Coulas, as he is 
 familiarly called, is a brave man ; and though he 
 knew this must be a witch, he started in pursuit. 
 Just as he reached it, the ball of fire turned into 
 a big rat, which ran off through the grass. When 
 he caught up with the rat, it changed to a huge 
 dog, which growled savagely, sprang clear over 
 his head, and disappeared among the willows. 
 
 Juana Garcia, a woman of San Mateo, had a 
 daughter named Maria Acacia, who was taken 
 suddenly sick in the evening. As Juana went 
 outside to gather some herbs for medicine, she 
 saw an unknown animal prowling about the house, 
 and caught it. No sooner did she get her hands 
 on it than it turned into a woman, whom she 
 recognized as Salia, the witch daughter of Witch 
 Marcelina. 
 
 " Cure my daughter," cried Juana, " or I will 
 have you killed ! " 
 
 Salia promised, and was allowed to go. But 
 when morning came Maria was no better. Juana 
 went straight to Salia's house and demanded, with 
 natural indignation : 
 
130 THREE LIVE WITCHES. 
 
 "Why didn't you cure my daughter, as you 
 promised you would ? " 
 
 " Pooh ! I don't believe she is sick," answered 
 Salia. " We'll go and see." 
 
 The witch was a better walker than the mother, 
 and reached the house first. When Juana arrived 
 she found Maria making tortillas a Mexican 
 bread, shaped like a flapjack, cooked on a hot 
 stone, and so durable that it is often carried for 
 days at the pommel of the traveller's saddle. The 
 witch had gone, and the girl was as well as ever. 
 
 "What did she do to you?" asked the astonished 
 mother. 
 
 " She just took some ashes from the fireplace, 
 and rubbed them on my arms, and I got up well," 
 replied Maria. 
 
 Juan Baca is one of the best-known characters 
 among the common people in this part of the 
 country. He is a member of the Order of the 
 Penitentes that strange brotherhood of fanatics 
 who whip their bare backs through Lent to expiate 
 the sins of the year, bear huge crosses, fill them- 
 selves with the agonizing needles of the cactus, and 
 wind up on Good Friday by crucifying one of 
 their number. 
 
 His wife once refused coffee to Salia, who went 
 away angry. Next day a sore formed on Senora 
 Baca's nose, and small, white pebbles kept dropping 
 therefrom. Juan knew what was the matter, and 
 going to Salia's house, he said : 
 
THREE LIVE WITCHES. 131 
 
 "Look, you have bewitched my wife. If you 
 don't cure her at once, I will hang you." 
 
 " It is well," answered Salia ; " I will cure her." 
 
 Juan went home contented. But his wife grew 
 worse instead of better; and taking his long reata, 
 with its easy slipping noose at one end, he went 
 again to Salia's. 
 
 " I have come to hang you," said he. 
 
 " No, don't ! I'll come right over ! " cried Salia ; 
 and over she went with him. She gave the sick 
 woman a little black powder, and rubbed her nose 
 once. Out came a sinew four inches long, and 
 instantly the nose was as well as ever. 
 
 These are only samples I could tell you a 
 hundred more of the stories implicitly believed 
 by thousands of people in this far-off corner of the 
 United States. Their superstitions as to the gen- 
 eral traits of the witches are no less curious and 
 foolish. It is believed that the witches can do 
 anything they wish, but that they never wish to 
 do a good act unless bribed or scared into it. 
 They never injure dumb brutes, but confine their 
 evil spells to human beings who have, knowingly 
 or unwittingly, incurred their wrath. 
 
 At night they go flying to the mountains to 
 meet other witches; and hundreds of ignorant 
 people declare that they have seen them sailing 
 through the dark sky like balls of fire. Before 
 leaving home they always exchange their own legs 
 and eyes for those of a dog, cat, or coyote, cry out 
 
132 THEEE LIVE WITCHES. 
 
 "Sin Dios y sin Santa Maria" which signifies, 
 "Without God and without the Virgin Mary," 
 and then fly off. Juan Perea, a male witch who 
 died in San Mateo in 1888, once met with a sin- 
 gular misfortune. He had taken the eyes of a cat 
 for one of his nocturnal rambles, leaving his own 
 eyes on the table. During his absence a dog 
 knocked the table over and ate the eyes ; and the 
 unlucky witch had to finish his days with the 
 green eyes of a cat. Luckily, the dog did not eat 
 his legs, which were old and tough, or I don't 
 know how he would have got along. 
 
 Any one named Juan (John) can catch a witch 
 by going through a curious rigmarole. He draws 
 a large circle on the ground, seats himself inside it, 
 turns his shirt wrong side out, and cries, " In the 
 name of God I call thee, bruja, " and straightway 
 whatever witch is near must fall helpless inside his 
 circle. Every one who lives here can tell you that 
 a Juan has this power ; but he seldom uses it, for 
 he knows that if he does so all the witches in the 
 country will fall upon him and beat him mercilessly 
 to death. 
 
 Another curious superstition prevalent here is 
 that if you stick a couple of needles into a broom 
 so that they form a little cross, and put it behind 
 the door when a witch is in your house, the witch 
 cannot get out of that door until a dog or a person 
 has passed out ahead. 
 
 This superstition was employed on one occasion 
 
THREE LIVE WITCHES. 133 
 
 to tease a woman who passed for a witch. Not 
 very long ago, this reputed witch visited the house 
 of some refined and educated Spanish friends of 
 mine in San Mateo, and one of the young ladies 
 made the needle experiment. 
 
 The witch started several times to go out, but 
 each time paused at the door for some one else to 
 precede her. All roguishly hung back, and she 
 was there nearly all day. At last a child went 
 out, and the witch rushed out after. Probably she 
 had noticed the trick, and wished to keep up the 
 deceptive reputation of witchcraft. 
 
 The sign of the cross, or the spoken name of 
 God or one of the saints, stops a witch at once. I 
 know people here who assert that they were being 
 carried on a witch's back, thousands of miles a 
 minute, to some distant destination ; but that when 
 they became alarmed, and cried, " God save me ! " 
 they instantly fell hundreds of feet without 
 being hurt and found themselves alone in a 
 great wilderness. 
 
 School and church are gradually killing off these 
 strange and childish superstitions, but they die 
 hard, and it will be many a year before New 
 Mexico will be bereft of her last reputed witch. 
 
HOW TO THROW THE LASSO. 
 
 THE " biggest half " of this world is what my 
 Mexican and Indian neighbors here in New Mexico 
 call " el saber" " the know how." Even the great 
 mechanical inventions require skill in their use ; 
 and still more striking is the power of " the know 
 how " in getting wonderful results from very 
 simple means. Perhaps there is no better example 
 of this than the lasso affords. That which is to 
 the vast majority of Americans a mere rope with 
 a loop at one end, good for tying or hanging up or 
 drawing things, becomes in some hands one of the 
 most astonishingly effective weapons in the world. 
 It is a hempen rifle which needs no loading and 
 has no more report than a snowflake ; which is as 
 accurate as a bullet within its range, and kills its 
 game or secures it unscratched, with equal ease 
 and certainty; a trap which does not await the 
 uncertain coming of a victim, but runs after him 
 and shuts down on him and holds him as with 
 teeth of steel. And as nearly all weapons are also 
 adapted to amusement, this magic rope is one of 
 the most fascinating of toys, beside which rifle 
 practice, archery, and similar diversions, are very 
 134 
 
HOW TO THROW THE LASSO. 135 
 
 tame indeed. A great advantage, too, is that it is 
 never dangerous unless the user designs it to be 
 a virtue possessed by no other weapon and it is 
 as easy to learn as real expertness with rifle or 
 bow. 
 
 There is but one race in the United States which 
 is, as a race, expert in the use of the lasso the 
 Spanish speaking people. It is peculiarly their in- 
 stitution one which they first brought here from 
 South America, and one still chiefly confined to 
 that part of the United States which they occupy, 
 the Southwest. Thousands of Western Ameri- 
 cans, however, and most of the Southwestern In- 
 dians are handy with la reata the proper name 
 of the lasso, " lariat " being a Texas corruption. 
 
 There is no reason in the world why any Amer- 
 ican boy with common outdoor pluck may not 
 become an expert with the reata if he desires, and 
 I have been often asked to tell him how. I am 
 very glad to do so, for it is a beautiful and useful 
 accomplishment, and a noble training to eye and 
 hand, and I wish all my young countrymen were 
 as clever at it as is my Indian friend, Francisco, 
 who has kindly come over to let me photograph 
 him in the positions desired to make my descrip- 
 tion perfectly clear. 
 
 The standard lasso is forty feet long, and from 
 one-fourth to three-eighths of an inch in thickness. 
 The best are of pleated rawhide ; but they cannot 
 be had in the East, and only an expert can make 
 
136 HOW TO THROW THE LASSO. 
 
 one. They are preferred for " cow-work " the 
 various duties of the cowboy, which include not 
 only lassoing, but dragging cattle from bogs, etc., 
 because of their combined lightness, strength, 
 and freedom from kinks. If the learner becomes 
 sufficiently expert to make it worth while, he can 
 then procure one of these pleated lassos from any 
 large saddlery house in San Francisco or Albu- 
 querque, or probably Kansas City, for about eight 
 dollars. 
 
 An ordinary rope, however, is the proper thing 
 to learn with ; and, indeed, many cowboys use it 
 altogether, because of its cheapness. It is almost 
 as good, in every way, as the pleated reata, and 
 costs only a twentieth as much. 
 
 Get a three-eighths inch hemp rope, forty-one 
 feet long ; secure the end from fraying by winding 
 tightly with waxed shoemaker's or carpet thread, 
 and make the honda (loop) by " grafting " the 
 other end back on the rope, and wind the graft in 
 the same way. Never tie knots. The honda 
 should be two or four inches in diameter, so as to 
 let the rope play through it with perfect freedom. 
 
 Having the lasso thus made, give it two hours in 
 clean water ; then whip it out free from kinks, and 
 stretch it tight between two posts or trees, never 
 putting the ends around the posts, but stretching 
 by another rope at each end, and leave it there till 
 perfectly dry. Then take the rear or hand end in 
 your left hand, and with the right coil the whole 
 
HOW TO THEOW THE LASSO. 137 
 
 rope into that hand, toward you, in a coil of say 
 two feet in diameter, taking care that the succes- 
 sive coils do not cross or twist with each other, but 
 lie flat to each other like so many hoops held side 
 by side. Tie a cord through and around the coils 
 on one side to keep them together, and hang over 
 a peg to let the rope "get accustomed." The reata, 
 to do good work, should always be thus coiled and 
 hung up after use, otherwise it will acquire kinks, 
 and fail to work just when you want it most. 
 
 Your lasso is now ready for use. You must, of 
 course, at first practice on foot and at a stationary 
 mark. A post five or six feet high is best. Begin 
 at a distance of twelve or fifteen feet, which may 
 be increased as you gain proficiency to the range of 
 your rope thirty-five feet. That is far enough 
 to throw a lasso. The higher distances are 
 attempted only by rare experts with extra long 
 ropes. I have seen one lasso his running target at 
 an even sixty feet ; but he was the only man I ever 
 saw make it at that astounding range. 
 
 Taking your position, whip out the rope, reeve 
 the hand-end through the honda, and run it up till 
 the noose is about seven feet long. Then take the 
 hand-end in your left hand, and coil the rope 
 carefully to it until you are within six feet of the 
 noose. Take the rope a foot on each side of 
 the honda together in your right hand, thus mak- 
 ing a temporary extra loop to prevent the honda 
 from slipping forward and shutting the noose. 
 
138 HOW TO THROW THE LASSO. 
 
 Now you are ready to " aim." Stand with your 
 right foot a little forward, lift the right arm till 
 the fist easily clears the head about as in swing- 
 ing Indian clubs and begin to revolve the noose 
 overyour head with an easy motion of the arm 
 from right to left, and a perfectly flexible wrist. 
 It is the wrist that does the chief work here, as 
 in most other matters of dexterity. Whirl the 
 rope just fast enough so that you can guide it 
 into a plane parallel with the ground, the whole 
 noose revolving on a level as if it were a wheel of 
 which your uplifted arm is the axle. 
 
 When you have the noose going thus horizon- 
 tally, and have calculated as well as you can the 
 force necessary to carry it over the post, give a 
 quick step forward with the left foot just as your 
 arm is coming around from back to front ; and in 
 the same instant, bringing your hand (palm down- 
 ward) forward and down to the level of the 
 shoulder, but at full armlength and without break- 
 ing the rhythm of the sweep, let go. 
 
 If you have done this properly the noose will 
 go sailing forward like a hoop, in a plane almost 
 parallel to the ground. Whether it falls over the 
 post is a matter about which you need not worry 
 for some time. The first great difficulty is to 
 send the noose level; and when you have mas- 
 tered that the proper cultivation of force will 
 come soon enough with practice. 
 
 The coil in the left hand must of course be held 
 
HOW TO THROW THE LASSO. 139 
 
 loosely in fingers upcurved but not closed, so that 
 it may "pay out" easily as the noose "calls." 
 The end, or the last coil, should be securely held, 
 however, as it has to be in real lassoing. 
 
 When you can guide the noose surely at the 
 first range, increase your distance from the post 
 little by little. In time you will be able to "bag" 
 the post every shot at thirty-five feet. Then it is 
 time to begin practice on moving objects an 
 accommodating chum for instance. Let him run 
 slowly, and pursue him, whirling the noose, over- 
 head as you run, until you can make a throw. It 
 will take longer to learn to calculate his speed and 
 where to throw in order to get his head, but it can 
 be done by practice, and the practice is "good 
 fun." 
 
 If you ride you may now begin horseback work ; 
 first standing and at a post; then loping slowly 
 and trying to rope something stationary but not 
 fixed like a shock of corn, or anything light. 
 To rope a post while riding would hurt you a 
 good deal more than the post ; and whatever you 
 cast at, while in motion, you must at the same 
 instant take a sharp turn around the horn of your 
 saddle with the free end of the rope. Last of all, 
 if you have an available animal you may practice 
 real lassoing without hurting it. 
 
 Head-lassoing is as far as the average youth 
 will ever care to go ; and how to do that I have 
 explained. The supreme skill with which the 
 
140 HOW TO THROW THE LASSO. 
 
 best experts lasso a running animal by either hind 
 or fore legs which is done by throwing the 
 noose forward close to the ground in front of the 
 hurrying hoof, with so nice a calculation that 
 the next step will take the hoof within the noose 
 before the noose has quite fallen flat ; and with a 
 backward jerk so well timed and rapid that it 
 shuts the noose upon the leg before the hoof can 
 be out again is something to be acquired only 
 by very long and patient practice. But the youth 
 who has learned head-lassoing has all the neces- 
 sary knowledge for the last branch, and can 
 acquire that, too, if he have the necessary perse- 
 verance. 
 
OLD SURELY. 1 
 
 OLD MONNY stuck his head out of the door of 
 the cabin. No one was in sight. Over to the 
 Northeast, fifty miles away, the blue-white pyra- 
 mid of Pike's Peak pierced the sky. Nearly as 
 far to the Southeast were the purple mountains 
 through whose granite heart the Arkansaw River 
 had gnawed its wonderful chasm. All around, 
 close at hand, he looked down upon a wilderness 
 of lesser peaks, seamed with wild canons, beet- 
 ling with awful cliffs, patched with the shifting 
 shadows of the great white cumuli above. Old 
 Monny had not what would be called a poetic 
 nature ; and he had lived long enough among the 
 marvelous scenery of Colorado to find little novelty 
 in it now ; yet the charm of the high, clear air and 
 the outlook did seem to make a bit of an impres- 
 sion, even on Monny. u Dreadful beautiful day," 
 he muttered to himself, throwing his head back 
 and drawing a great breath of the bracing air. 
 " Wonder whar thet there Jim is? Ought to V 
 been back fr'm Beaver Creek two hour ago." 
 
 Old Monny, as every one called him, was not 
 an old man, though by no means a young one. 
 
 141 
 
142 "OLD SURELY." 
 
 His long, matted hair and beard were well 
 streaked with gray, but his eye was keen as a 
 hawk's, his step quick and light, and his figure 
 erect as a Comanche's. As for strength and 
 agility, there were few younger men in the area 
 he roved over who could throw Old Monny in a 
 rough and tumble, or "pack" a heavier load on 
 their backs than he. A trapper and hunter by 
 instinct and long habit, he had stuck steadfastly 
 to the calling of his choice ; and while others all 
 around him were tearing up the sands of the 
 mountain streams in search of placer gold, or 
 rending the rocky ribs of the mountains in excited 
 pursuit of the veins of gold or silver, Old Monny 
 attended to his traps and his rifle with unswerving 
 constancy. He had little love for the miners. 
 " They drives the beaver V trout out'n the cricks, 
 'n' skeers the game out'n the hills," he used to say, 
 " 'n' wot fur ? Jes' to slave their lives out 'n' git 
 nuthin'. I'd sooner be a dog with my back broke 
 in a wildcat's den." 
 
 Monny went back into the cabin, and was still 
 busy about something inside when a tall, lank, red- 
 headed fellow came slouching up the trail with a 
 heavy Winchester in the hollow of his arm. 
 
 "Wai, Monny, I done packed 'n' cashayed 1 
 the beaver traps, 'n' got all ready down below to 
 move over to La Veta. But I 'How ez how we bet- 
 
 1 Buried, a corruption of the French trappers' word cache. 
 
" OLD SURELY." 143 
 
 ter not start till to-morrow. I seen s'me elk over 
 on the Black Ridge, 'n' elk's gettin' too skase 
 now to leggo. Wot do yo' say ef we take a pasear 
 over thar 'n' try to get one or two on 'em ? " 
 
 Moniiy had emerged, with an unusual air of inter- 
 est. " Wai, now, Jim, I did 'How we'd oughter be 
 over to Veta to-night ; but 's yo' say, elk's purty 
 thin nowadays with these miners monkeyin' round. 
 I reck'n we best git the elk fust the beaver k'n 
 wait." 
 
 There was little preparation needed, and in per- 
 haps three minutes more the two men were strid- 
 ing down the trail toward a deep caiion on the 
 north. Monny carried his favorite old Kentucky 
 "squirrel rifle" a venerable muzzle-loader of 
 immense length and weight, but of caliber no 
 larger than a pea. He was often jested with about 
 " Old Surely," but never could be persuaded to 
 discard it for one of the modern breech-loading 
 magazine rifles. " She's slow, but she's sure," he 
 used always to reply, " 'n' I never did get in no sech 
 place but ol' Surely wuz fast enough to fetch me 
 out. Them pump-guns wot yo' loads Sunday 'n' 
 shoots all the rest o' the week, is good f'r tender- 
 foots 'n' them ez gets rattled, but one shot 'n' take 
 yo'r time about it 's good 'nough f'r hunters. 
 Hevin' too many charges in yo'r gun spiles good 
 shootin'." 
 
 Descending the precipitous trail into the canon, 
 they were soon climbing an equally precipitous one 
 
144 "OLD SURELY." 
 
 on the other side. Most men would have been 
 glad to rest on such a climb about every hundred 
 yards, but Monny and Jim plodded on unhesitat- 
 ingly, as though it were child's play. At last they 
 reached the top of the ridge, and were about to 
 turn at right angles to their former course and 
 follow the ridge to the flank of the mountain 
 whence it sprung, when Monny suddenly stopped 
 and pointed to the top of a high cliff near the head 
 of the next canon. There were five tiny dots 
 against the sky. 
 
 " Mount'n sheep ! " whispered Monny. " I 'How 
 ez how a hunk o' cimarron meat wouldn't go so 
 mighty bad, nuther. We'll go down into this nex' 
 canon 'n' foller up it to make a sneak on 'em." 
 
 So down over the sides of Dead Man's Canon 
 they went clambering more cautiously now, 
 both for fear of frightening the keen-eyed sheep, 
 and because it was more dangerous climbing. 
 Three prospectors had been killed here by Utes, 
 years before, and hence the canon took its uncanny 
 name. It was much deeper and more precipitous 
 than the one from which they had just emerged ; 
 and it was only by the utmost care and by many 
 detours that they reached the bottom safely. It 
 was a savage and forbidding gorge, four or five 
 miles long, and hemmed by walls a thousand feet 
 high which came closer and closer and became 
 more and more beetling as they went on. The 
 dry torrent bed at the bottom was choked with 
 
"OLD SURELY." 145 
 
 enormous rocks some round boulders, and some 
 vast, flat slabs pried from the cliffs by the stealthy 
 but persevering frosts of ages. 
 
 Monny was a couple of rods ahead, clambering 
 over the boulders, when a wild shriek rang through 
 the lonely canon and multiplied from echoing cliff 
 to cliff. He whirled in his tracks and looked back- 
 ward to a sight that made even his stout hunter's 
 heart stand still. There, on a tiny patch of yellow 
 sand, lay Jim, quite motionless, while above him 
 towered a huge cinnamon bear, upreared on its 
 haunches, its little black eyes twinkling devilishly. 
 It was the largest bear the veteran hunter had ever 
 seen in his twenty-five years among the Rockies 
 as big as a steer. From one gigantic fore-paw 
 warm blood and brains were dripping. A great 
 slab of stone leaned against the bank there, form- 
 ing a sort of cave. The bear with the fearful 
 cunning of his kind, had evidently waited there 
 till they were past, and then rushing out had felled 
 poor Jim with one swipe of that ponderous paw, 
 crushing his skull like an egg-shell. 
 
 Monny threw " Old Surely " to a level. He 
 dared not fire for the brain the hunter's point 
 always in a desperate case for the bear was erect 
 and the head held in such a way that a ball was 
 more than apt to glance from the thick skull ; the 
 heart was his only chance, and at the heart he 
 fired. Old Monny was a man who never missed a 
 shot, and when they cut up the bear afterwards 
 
146 "OLD SURELY. 1 ' 1 
 
 there was a little hole through the very centre of 
 the big heart. Had Monny's rifle been a " buffalo 
 gun " one of the ponderous old Sharpe's, throw- 
 ing three hundred and fifty grains of lead, and 
 never equalled for such work by any of the later 
 and better-looking rifles that would have been 
 enough. But the little pea-bullet, while it would 
 kill, could not give sufficient shock to cause instant 
 death to anything of the wonderful vitality of the 
 cinnamon bear. Monny knew it, and before the 
 echoes of his shot had begun to die away he had 
 rammed down the powder of the second charge 
 and was starting the bullet, wrapped in its little 
 greasy rag, down the long barrel. Then he started 
 to run, ramming as he went. But it was slow 
 running over that chaos of rocks, and behind him 
 was a foe no man could outrun uphill. Just as the 
 bullet reached " home," and he was pulling out the 
 ramrod, a terrible blow on the left shoulder sent 
 him sprawling upon the rocks, stunned and faint, 
 with a hideous pain creeping through his body, 
 while his rifle went clanking far out against the 
 rocks. Before he could move the bear was upon 
 him. Its eyes were glazing fast, and it could no 
 longer stand, but with the death-rattle in its throat 
 it lay across his body, crunching away at his 
 right leg. Monny had drawn his heavy hunting 
 knife and dug desperately at the shaggy side. 
 But it was not needed. He felt a tremor run 
 through the gigantic form, and an instant later the 
 
" OLD SURELY." 147 
 
 bear lurched over sidewise, lifeless as the boulders 
 around. 
 
 It chanced that a couple of prospectors came 
 up the canon that afternoon to trace a quartz 
 "lead" one of them had discovered above. They 
 found Jim dead and Monny lying unconscious 
 under the dead bear, their mingled blood staining 
 the rocks around. They made a rude litter of 
 pinon boughs, and lifting Monny with gentle 
 hands as women might, carried him down to 
 Beaver Creek, whence they sent back men to bury 
 Jim and skin the bear. 
 
 If you ever take the cross-country trail from 
 Colorado Springs to Canon City, and will explore 
 the third canon below the head of Beaver Creek, 
 you will find a lonely little cabin standing out on 
 a bare plateau of rock. In front of the door you 
 may find an old man sunning himself, bent over a 
 stout cane. Old Monny? Yes, it is Monny; but 
 sadly changed. His left shoulder crushed and 
 misshapen, his right leg only skin and bone from 
 hip to ankle, and with knotty fractures twisting it 
 in a dozen different directions he looks little like 
 the Monny of old days. Inside the cabin " Old 
 Surely " hangs across a couple of pegs, and upon 
 the floor is the skin eleven feet seven inches 
 from tip to tip of the largest bear ever killed in 
 Colorado. 
 
THE GALLO KACE. 
 
 IN all the world of outdoor sports civilized, 
 semi-civilized, or savage there is none more 
 wildly exciting to participants and spectators alike, 
 none which demands greater nerve, agility, endur- 
 ance, and skill, and none more picturesque than 
 the favorite holiday diversion of the Southwest, 
 the Gallo Race, or "Running for the Chicken." 
 Our polo, noble a game as it is, is a very tame 
 affair by comparison. 
 
 Gallo racing is as universal an institution with 
 the Indian and Mexican population of New Mex- 
 ico and Arizona as is baseball with the country at 
 large. Other games are played and enjoyed, but 
 the gallo race is king of all. Whenever the feast- 
 day of some saint brings wholesale leisure to 
 Mexican hamlet or Pueblo (Indian) town, there is 
 pretty certain to be a gallo race ; and particularly 
 upon the day of San Juan (June 24) there is not 
 a village in either of the two Territories so weak 
 in numbers or in spirit that it cannot muster the 
 necessary horses, riders, and chickens. 
 
 The Indian game is so much more picturesque 
 than the Mexican that I shall confine myself to 
 148 
 
THE GALLO RACE. 149 
 
 describing it. Not that the descendants of the 
 Spanish heroes who were the first real pioneers of 
 this new world are indifferent players by any 
 means. The average Mexican youth, when in the 
 saddle, is a serious opponent for any one in any test 
 of skill. But the numbers engaged are generally 
 much smaller, the surroundings less unique, the 
 moral atmosphere less clear, and the appearance of 
 the riders in ill-fitting American clothing far less 
 striking. To see the game in all its glory we must 
 go to one of the larger and more remote Pueblo 
 towns for instance, A coma, in one of the west- 
 ern counties of Mew Mexico. 
 
 The quaint adobe city of Acoma stands on an 
 island of solid rock, which rises five hundred feet 
 sheer above the level valley. As outposts around 
 it tower strange, lofty buttes and shafts of vari- 
 colored sandstone. 
 
 The starting-point of the race is a sand-hill at 
 the very foot of the mesa, and thither the crowd 
 begins to drift soon after noon. The edge of the 
 cliff is lined with figures that look from below no 
 bigger than squirrels, and the sand-hills freckle 
 with brilliant spots, while the three hundred riders 
 are dashing hither and yon, with wild zest, impa- 
 tient for the sport to begin. The universal color 
 intensifies the picturesqueness of the scene. Be- 
 hind, the giant cliff, sombre with shade, but beaded 
 at the top with human dots in red and white ; the 
 horses, ranging from bay to white, with many 
 
150 THE GALLO RACE. 
 
 beautiful pintos there are few dark horses in the 
 Acoma herds with brilliant saddle-blankets and 
 flashing silver bridles ; and the centaur-like riders 
 with their rich maroon moccasins and leggings, 
 snow-white calzones and shirts, and gay blankets 
 of Navajo weaving ; the billowy sand-dunes caught 
 between the outpost crags of rich-hued sandstone, 
 and far out be} T ond, the broad, brown plain with 
 sentinel rocks standing out here and there, clear 
 across to the dark pines of the Black Mesa. 
 
 But now there is a sudden scurrying of scattered 
 horsemen to our sand-hill, and at its foot they rein 
 and wheel and fix their eyes on two old men who 
 are plodding to a level spot at the foot of an out- 
 lying butte. One carries a tough old rooster, its 
 legs tied with a thong, but its mouth wide in pro- 
 test. Kneeling on the white sand, they begin to 
 dig vigorously with their hands, until they have 
 pawed out a hole sufficient to receive the rooster. 
 Here the vociferous bird is planted, and the sand 
 is raked in upon it until only its head and a couple 
 of inches of neck are left above ground. Having 
 made sure that the gallo cannot break out from his 
 prison, the old men step back and lean against the 
 lofty rock. There is a moment of breathless 
 expectancy ; and then the wrinkled capitan shouts 
 " Tho-ko ! " (go) in a voice that rolls from cliff to 
 cliff. 
 
 There is a stir among the huddled horsemen; 
 and out springs a boy centaur, his eyes flashing, 
 
THE GALLO EACE. 151 
 
 his long jet hair streaming back upon the wind, as 
 he drives the spurs against his deer-like pony, and 
 comes flying down the course like an arrow from 
 the bow, while the people cheer him on with their 
 shrill Hi ! Ay ! " 
 
 The pleated reins hang loose in his left hand, 
 his body seems undulant as a snake, and his eye 
 never leaves the tiny target. Faster he comes and 
 faster, and just as he sweeps past on the left he 
 swings over in the saddle with a superb swoop like 
 a great hawk to clutch the rooster's head with his 
 right hand. But the wary bird, seeming to grasp 
 the situation, " ducks " like lightning, and he 
 scoops up only a handful of sand in his mad flight. 
 It is a full hundred yards ere he can rein in his 
 excited horse. 
 
 But before he is ten yards past the rooster an- 
 other horseman, noting his failure, is spurring for- 
 ward, and comes with the rush of a whirlwind, 
 riding as only an Indian can ride. He, too, swoops 
 to catch that elusive head ; but again the gallo 
 dodges successfully ; and again the rider " re- 
 covers " and conies loping back to the starting- 
 point amid the good-natured laughter and raillery 
 of the crowd. 
 
 And now comes another wild rider, clutching in 
 vain as he thunders past; and now another, and 
 another and another, until they are almost at each 
 others' heels, and the four hundred yards of the 
 course is one long string of galloping horses. And 
 
152 THE GALLO RACE. 
 
 here comes old Martin (pronounced Marteen), the 
 long-time Governor of Acoma, on a fiery buckskin 
 pony. Martin is close upon ninety, and fat great- 
 grandchildren tweak his whitening hair at home ; 
 but look how he sits in his saddle, and with what 
 a supreme grace he swings over till his long hair al- 
 most sweeps the ground, his left foot up to the very 
 saddle-bow, where his withered left hand clings, 
 while the withered right, with fingers spread fork- 
 like, follows an inch above the sand in line with 
 that feathered neck. But the prize is not for Mar- 
 tin to-day; and he swings back to his saddle 
 empty-handed. 
 
 But now there is a shout that shakes the very 
 cliffs, and see ! Yonder goes a tall, sinewy youth 
 on a magnificent bay, waving above his head a red 
 why ! It's the gallo ! Without a bre-ak in that 
 furious gallop he is off toward the plain, whooping 
 defiance ; and with yells as wild, the others nearest 
 are after him. The two hundred horsemen wait- 
 ing at the goal for their turn leap forward as one, 
 and down the narrow passage between the cliffs 
 that mad chase sweeps like an avalanche of broken 
 rainbows. Some spur down the road in direct pur- 
 suit ; and some, wheeling to right and left, dash 
 out through other passes betwen the buttes to cut 
 him off. He, with the prize now no longer a 
 living prize, of course is well ahead, urging 
 his horse to the utmost with cries and spurs, and 
 blows of his feathered whip. 
 
THE GALLO RACE. 153 
 
 And now the pursued doubles on his pursuers 
 nimbly as a rabbit, and comes flying back like a 
 very demon, followed in an instant by the whole 
 field. A few of the flanking parties are nearer the 
 pass than he, and are straining every nerve to 
 beat him there. His horse understands it all as 
 perfectly as he, and seems as full of the wild spirit 
 of the chase. His ears are laid flat, his nostrils are 
 wide, his eyes aflame, as he swallows distance with 
 mighty leaps into which his very life is concen- 
 trated. But they are closing in upon him. The 
 first and second he avoids by incredible sidelong 
 plunges which would unseat any other rider ; but 
 now the iron-gray is thundering along rib to rib 
 with him, and its rider is leaning far across the 
 other saddle to reach the coveted game. Whirling 
 in his seat, Pedro is warding off the assailant with 
 his left hand, while with the clubbed chicken in 
 his right he rains down upon his rival's head and 
 face and back such resounding thwacks that they 
 above the cliff can hear them and all the time 
 the myriad tattoo of a thousand hoofs is roaring 
 toward us. Hurrah ! He has wrested loose ! But 
 now two more are upon him from the left, and 
 another from the right, snatching, grappling, wrest- 
 ling as they gallop, with white teeth laughing 
 through blood-splashed bronze as Pedro swings his 
 strange weapon-prize with an agility in eluding 
 their hands and belaboring their persons that 
 appears fairly superhuman. Every bone and mus- 
 
154 THE GALLO EACE. 
 
 cle of his athletic frame seems a sentient spring, 
 which has no need to wait for word from the brain, 
 but acts like lightning and" always right, from 
 some instinct of its own. Stagnant blood, indeed, 
 that will not jump faster through tingling veins at 
 such a sight. It is the most magnificent achieve- 
 ment of agile skill I have ever seen and my 
 opportunities have not been limited. 
 
 But Pedro is not the only perfect athlete here, 
 and he is overmatched with numbers. Now a mus- 
 cular rival catches the gallo by a flying leg. There 
 is a mad wrench, as each sways back on his pur- 
 chase ; the stringy sinews yield, and Agostin 
 breaks from the struggling mass for there are 
 now a score in the indiscriminate jostle and is 
 off with a yell to the right. Part of the chase 
 goes sweeping after him, growing in numbers with 
 each moment as the farther riders catch up with 
 the delayed jam, and part crowd and wrestle in 
 the crowd about Pedro. The dense jumble of man 
 and horse sways to and fro with its own fierce 
 efforts. Handfuls of feathers float high on the 
 eddying air, and one may fairly see the collective 
 steam arising from the hundreds of sweltering 
 bodies. Now another leg, now a wing, now the 
 other goes, and with each violent division of the 
 dwindling prize the struggling mob splits into cor- 
 responding knots of contestants, or into pursuit of 
 the escaping victors. 
 
 And here comes Pedro at last from the melee 
 
THE GALLO RACE. 155 
 
 empty-handed. His blanket is somewhere, his 
 white embroidered shirt hangs in shreds, and body 
 and face and arms are dripping with bloody sweat; 
 but his face is luminous with joy. He made a 
 gallant fight, and that is enough. Despite the 
 fever-heat of his blood, there is not one bitter drop 
 in it. I have never known a Pueblo Indian to lose 
 his temper for an instant in that wild fight. He 
 gives and takes like a man, strains every fibre of 
 his being to win, but never thinks of harboring a 
 vindictive thought. In that, as in endurance and 
 skill, he is the model player. I am sorry that I 
 cannot say as much for the Mexican gallo-racers. 
 They seldom finish without bad blood, and fre- 
 quently not without bloodshed. 
 
 For as high, sometimes, as four hours, the race 
 goes on without visible token of diminished ardor. 
 Up and down the broad plain, hither and yon 
 through the rock-walled passes, up and over steep 
 ridges of knee-deep sand, rider and horse, alike 
 unrecognizable for foam and dust, keep their wild 
 career. The matchless endurance of these Indian 
 ponies is not more astounding than the tireless- 
 ness of their riders. By now there are a dozen 
 different parties in hot pursuit of as many bearers 
 of the torn remnants of the gallo, or struggling 
 groups whose common centre is the piecemeal 
 prize. 
 
 It is not till the ruddy sun rests upon the far 
 ridge of the Black Mesa that the weary band come 
 
156 THE GALLO EACE. 
 
 straggling back to the goal; and turning their 
 lathered horses over to the herders, begin with the 
 homing spectators that long, breathless scramble 
 up the bluff sand-hill and the dizzy stone ladder 
 to their peaceful city in the sky, where the heroes 
 of the day are rewarded with a hail of cakes and 
 sweets and other gifts, showered upon them by 
 proud maids and matrons from a hundred level 
 housetops. 
 
ON THE PAY-STREAK. 
 
 RODOLFO was kneeling beside the door of a little 
 l) on the western slope of the San Ysidro Moun- 
 tains, pounding soap. That may seem a curious 
 occupation, but here in New Mexico nine-tenths of 
 the people have to pound their soap the fat root 
 of the palmilla (a sort of aloe), whose fibrous sub- 
 stance they crush to pulp for use in tub or basin. 
 This curious natural soap is called amole, and an 
 excellent article it is. The poor little jacal a 
 roofed palisade of pinon trunks, chinked and 
 covered with adobe mud looked as if it were like 
 to contain very little worthy of washing. But the 
 amole, and a huge copper cauldron simmering over 
 a fire- of chips, indicated plainly that there was 
 something to be scrubbed. 
 
 Just then a brown, thin-faced woman stood in 
 the low doorway, holding in her arms a curious, 
 brilliant roll like a blanket. Strangely enough, 
 the most beautiful and the most durable blankets 
 in the world are made, not in civilized looms, but 
 by half-savage Indians, with no better appliances 
 than a rude combination of sticks and cords sus- 
 pended from the branch of a tree. This one was 
 
 157 
 
158 ON TBE PAY-STREAK. 
 
 of the best Navajo make a blanket of crimson 
 bolleta, with blue and white lightnings playing 
 across it; a blanket which it required a solid 
 twelve-month to weave, and in which one could 
 carry water as in a bag of rubber. 
 
 " Is the amole ready ? " asked Maria. " Ay de 
 mi ! * My heart is heavy for the serape 2 that Don 
 Francisco gave to thy father. That only we have 
 saved when all was lost, and now it, too, has to be 
 sold. Last year the Governor in Santa Fe offered 
 one hundred and fifty pesos 3 for it, and now, when 
 it is washed, thou shalt take it thither to see if he 
 still will buy. Lastima ! It is the last we have 
 of thy father, and Ay ? Que tienes ? " 4 
 
 For Rodolfo had jumped to his feet with a loud 
 cry. " Mir a, Nana ! " 5 he said, laying something in 
 her palm. It was a wee, yellow scale, not so broad 
 as Rodolfo's little finger-nail, nor quite so thick. 
 But how heavy it was ! And what a color that 
 exquisite waxy lustre of the gold of the New 
 Placers. 
 
 " Oro grande ! " 6 cried Maria, her big, tired eyes 
 lighting up. " Where didst thou find it ? " 
 
 " Pounding this last big piece of amole, Nana, I 
 found it in an elbow of the root. 'Sperate, till I 
 pan the dirt; perhaps there is more." 
 
 In a moment he was out of the house again, with 
 a big wooden bowl. Carefully scooping up the 
 
 1 Alas ! 8 dollars. 6 Look, mother ! 
 
 2 blanket. * What hast thou ? 6 Coarse gold. 
 
ON THE PAY-STREAK. 159 
 
 few handfuls of sandy earth, fallen from the pile 
 of roots, he put it in the bowl, and poured on 
 water from an alia (earthen jar) till the bowl was 
 nearly full. Grasping it by the edges, he gave it 
 a slow, tilting, rotatory motion. Directly the 
 water began to run round and round in a miniature 
 whirlpool, and the sand began to follow its current 
 slowly. Now and then Rodolfo stopped to run 
 his hands through the sand and loosen it up, and 
 again set it to revolving for he had learned to 
 pan out gold as well as any one when he and his 
 father used to work side by side in the placers at 
 Dolores. Now the poor old man never fully re- 
 covered from that last awful wound received in a 
 fight with the Apaches was dead, and they were 
 very poor. There was no more money to be made 
 in the placers, for it was too expensive to. haul 
 water for washing that washed-out gravel ; and the 
 beautiful serape must be sold, or their poor little 
 home would be taken from them. 
 
 When the sand was thoroughly wet up, Rodolfo 
 began to give the bowl a stronger motion sidewise, 
 till it seemed as though he would spill the whole 
 contents. A lot of water and sand splashed out 
 from side to side, till presently there was left but 
 a handful in the bottom of the bowl. As he kept 
 rotating it more slowly and gently, this drew out 
 in a thin semi-circle at the bottom of the bowl, as 
 far from the centre as it could get a sandy pro- 
 cession in which the usual parade order of the dig- 
 
160 ON THE PAT-STREAK. 
 
 nitaries was quite reversed ; for ahead of all was 
 the worthless, unstable, reddish sand ; at its heels 
 the black iron dust, which always is found in very 
 rich company, and lagging at the rear of all came 
 a few wee, yellow flecks no bigger than a pinhead. 
 
 " Pero ! " cried Rodolfo to his mother, who 
 was kneeling beside him, " it is very rich ! There 
 will be cuatro reales [fifty cents] from so little 
 dirt!" 
 
 Now he was holding the bowl so tilted that the 
 water had all run slowly out ; and the " proces- 
 sion," trying to follow it, was headed down to the 
 very edge, where some of the foremost sand fell 
 off. Dipping his hand in the olla, Rodolfo dropped 
 a very little water upon the sand, to accelerate its 
 exit. Then he tipped the bowl back to a level, 
 and poured in a fresh dipper of water. A little 
 more gentle rotating, and the procession was 
 formed again, smaller than before, but in the same 
 order. Again he ran off the foremost sand, and 
 so over and over, working more daintily all the 
 time, till no* a bit of sand was left, and but little 
 of the iron dust. Only a short, black patch of the 
 latter remained, guarding the precious yellow at 
 its back, from the impalpable golden " flour " that 
 was nearest, and even mingled with it, back to fat 
 little flakes. 
 
 His mother had brought out a small bottle : 
 and, pushing out all the black dust he could with 
 a deft forefinger, he tipped the edge of the bowl 
 
ON THE PAY-STREAK. 161 
 
 to the bottle's mouth, and, with a tiny stream from 
 his fingers, coaxed the gold slowly into its new 
 home. 
 
 " Que rico ! " l cried Roclolfo, holding the bottle 
 away from him with a critical closing of one eye. 
 " It is a better prospect than ever I have seen in 
 the New Placers. Such dirt ought to pay five 
 pesos the day, or more, if one can find the pay- 
 streak. And I know just where I dug the biggest 
 palmilla, for I noticed it had so fat a root, and 
 there I am going this very now. Perchance thou 
 wilt not have to sell the serape, Nanita. Only 
 wait me, till I see if we do not find much gold ! " 
 
 For six days the old jacal saw very little of Ro- 
 dolfo. Exactly where he had pried out the root 
 of the big palmilla was now a square hole nearly 
 four feet across and eighteen feet deep. It was on 
 the bank of the little dry stream-bed at the bottom 
 of the big arroyo. At each side of the shaft a 
 stout young pinon trunk, with a fork at the top, 
 was driven firmly into the ground; and across 
 these two forks lay his primitive windlass, another 
 pinon trunk with a stout oblique branch left at 
 one end for a crank. A strong rope was on the 
 windlass, and at its lower end dangled a stout 
 rung, to be passed through the handles of the curi- 
 ous bucket-gripsack of rawhide. Thus far he had 
 worked alone, and very tiresome work it was, loos- 
 
 1 How rich 1 
 
162 ON T# PAY-STREAK. 
 
 ening with his pick that jumble of gravel and 
 rocks, which the swift turbulence of summer tor- 
 rents had packed and repacked in the narrow 
 gorge, and lifting it out by the bucketful. As the 
 hole grew deeper, he had to swing down by his 
 rope, fill the rawhide sack with gravel, climb the 
 rope again hand over hand, and laboriously wind- 
 lass the heavy load to the surface and empty it 
 upon the dump. And now the bottom of the 
 shaft was at bed-rock the smoothish, sloping 
 blanket of porphyry, coated with a peculiar gray 
 cement, which underlies all that great plateau. 
 Soon he would know if all that digging and hoist- 
 ing had been in vain. As he started for home 
 that evening his tattered coat pulled heavy on 
 blistered hands, for in it he was carrying a load of 
 the very last gravel, which he had carefully 
 brushed up from the bed-rock. There was no 
 water in the arroyo, and to pan his dirt he must 
 carry it home, or bring water two miles to the 
 shaft. 
 
 " Ya se acdb6!" ("Now it's done!") he cried 
 gayly to his mother, dropping the heavy load from 
 his aching shoulders. " And to-morrow I begin to 
 drift for the pay-streak. But now I will pan this 
 dirt before the sun goes and see if it be good." 
 
 Five times he panned out the bowl half full of 
 that shabby-looking gravel, and each time the tiny 
 patch of wet gold-dust which he pushed out upon 
 a smooth stone was swelled a little. And in the 
 
ON THE PAY-STREAK. 163 
 
 last pan was a small, water-worn lump, which came 
 very near escaping with the first coarse pebbles 
 a nugget of fully two dollars, at which the tired 
 mother wept for joy, while Rodolfo danced about 
 her, crying : 
 
 " Ay, Nana ! Already there is like four pesos. 
 Very soon we will be rich ones ! " 
 
 The sun was not nearly up the farther side of 
 the Oroque* Peaks on the morrow when Rodolfo 
 and his mother were trudging away toward the 
 arroyo, driving ahead a patient burro borrowed 
 from Cousin Pablo. Poor Flojo had a very un- 
 comfortable load ; for two big kegs of water were 
 balanced in opposite ends of a wool sack across 
 the queer little pack-saddle, and bumped his either 
 side. Rodolfo carried on his head a rude "rocker," 
 hastily made from a box, and in his hands a heavy, 
 double-pointed steel bar. His mother brought the 
 wooden bowl, and on her head a large olla full of 
 water was confidently poised. The time had come 
 when both must work, and little Chona would 
 have to care for the younger babies at home 
 through the day. 
 
 In the earth near his shaft Rodolfo had dug a 
 basin five feet long and three wide, and lined it 
 with tight-packed clay so that the precious water 
 might not be wasted. At the upper end was 
 laid a big flat slab of sandstone from the ledge 
 in the side of the arroyo; and on this "founda- 
 tion " he set his rocker. It was merely a stout 
 
164 ON THE PAY-STREAK. 
 
 box with one end knocked out, two rude wooden 
 rockers like those of an old-fashioned wooden cra- 
 dle under it, a strong handle nailed to one side, 
 and fitting into its top a small square box with a 
 bottom of coarse wire screen. Under this screen 
 was a canvas apron nailed to a frame and sloping 
 backward. The rocker itself pitched forward, 
 and across its sloping bottom were nailed cleats a 
 few inches apart. 
 
 Flojo was soon relieved and turned out to graze, 
 his fore-feet hobbled with little rawhide handcuffs, 
 that he might not stray too far. The rocker was 
 set up ready for work, and beside it a keg of water, 
 with a gourd dipper. 
 
 Dropping his heavy bar down the shaft for 
 the pick would be of no use in the close quarters 
 in which he was now to work and tossing after 
 it a tin basin which would be handier than a 
 shovel, Rodolfo grasped the rope and slid lightly 
 down. 
 
 Taking the steel bar in both hands, he began to 
 jab it against the close-packed gravel on the up- 
 stream side of the shaft. Prying out first the 
 bigger stones and then the coarse gravel, he soon 
 had started a tiny tunnel some three feet in diame- 
 ter. As fast as he filled the rawhide bucket he 
 dragged it out to the centre of the shaft and 
 passed the cross-stick on the rope through the 
 raw-hide handles ; and his mother inured to 
 the hard work of the frontier windlassed it to 
 
ON THE PAY-STREAK. 165 
 
 the surface. The rocks she threw away out in the 
 stream-bed, but the gravel was carefully emptied 
 upon a clean, hard spot beside the rocker, where it 
 grew apace. 
 
 When it was noon by the overhead sun, Rodolfo 
 came up on the rope, and they ate their scant 
 dinner of tortillas (cakes of unleavened dough 
 cooked on a hot, flat stone) and water. There 
 was half a yard of gravel beside the rocker. 1 
 Truly they had worked very well. But were 
 they on the pay-streak ? That was what Rodolfo 
 was very anxious to know for the gold that 
 comes swirling down the stream from the mother 
 veins in the mountains acts precisely as it acted in 
 Rodolfo's wooden bowl. It is not distributed at 
 random throughout that vast volume of accom- 
 panying rocks and sand, but trails along in reluc- 
 tant file in the line of the strongest current ; and 
 being heavier according to its bulk than any of its 
 companions, it keeps sinking down and down till 
 the great sheet of bed-rock will let it sift no 
 deeper. And when the rains are over and the 
 raging torrent becomes but a dry wash of sand 
 and boulders for there are very few perennial 
 streams in the gold regions of the Southwest 
 the cunning yellow fugitives lie still there, never 
 to change places until some great freshet shall 
 scour the bed-rock bare, or some prying hand find 
 
 1 Auriferous gravel averages about a ton to the cubic yard, 
 and " a yard of gravel " is a good day's work for one person. 
 
166 ON THE PAY-STREAK. 
 
 out their hiding. So, even if the miner drop 
 his shaft squarely upon the pay-streak, he does 
 not know which way to follow it, but must be 
 panning out sample gravel every little while, and 
 running his drift to one side or the other, accord- 
 ing to what the pan tells him. 
 
 Eodolfo could scarcely wait to swallow the last 
 of his tough tortilla. Washing it down with a 
 hasty pull from the keg, he shovelled the screen- 
 box full of gravel ; and taking the upright handle 
 with both hands, began to sway the heavy rocker 
 from side to side, while his mother poured on 
 water from the gourd. The fine sand rapidly 
 melted down through the screen, and went jolting 
 down the canvas apron to the back end of the 
 rocker, where it fell to the wooden bottom, turned, 
 and began to wander forward to the open front end. 
 When the screen was washed clear of sand, Maria 
 lifted it out, clawed over the glistening pebbles to 
 make sure that there were no coarse nuggets 
 among them, and flung them out, filling the screen 
 with fresh gravel and wetting it down as before, 
 while Rodolf o kept on rocking. Time and again 
 the screen was emptied and refilled; and all the 
 while the rocking and the pouring on of water 
 continued. The sloping bottom of the rocker was 
 full of sand at the lower end an inch deep 
 and this sheet of sand, shaken by the motion a'nd 
 coaxed on by the water, kept creeping over the last 
 riffle-cleat, and falling into the clay-lined reservoir, 
 
ON THE PAY-STEEAK. 167 
 
 from which Maria was now dipping back the 
 water instead of from the nearly empty keg. 
 
 The afternoon shadows were deep in the round 
 hollows of the mighty Sandias when Rodolfo rose 
 from beside the rocker, emptied the screen, and 
 straightened his stiff legs. 
 
 " Now for a clean-up, Nana ! " he said. She 
 poured in a gentle stream upon the apron while 
 he rocked; and, as there was now no new sand 
 rolling down, that on the apron and on the bottom 
 of the rocker began to work rapidly forward, and 
 in a few minutes there remained only a little sand 
 caught in the angle behind each riffle. Rodolfo 
 whittled out a smooth, thin stick with a square 
 end, and carefully scooped the wet sand into his 
 bowl, scraping out every grain from the cracks, 
 and proceeded to pan it out. But now instead of 
 a few handfuls of random dirt, the bowl held the 
 concentrated richness of half a ton of gravel from 
 bed-rock. That was the beauty of the rocker; it 
 would have taken four times as long to " work " 
 that pile of gravel with the pan; the rocker did 
 the heavy work in short order, and left only the 
 finishing touches for the pan. 
 
 And now, when Rodolfo had got rid of most 
 of the sand, and began to " draw " what was 
 left at the bottom of the bowl, there was a sight 
 for four dark, glistening eyes. As the unstable 
 sand drifted forward and forward, it uncovered 
 more and more of a rich, deliberate rank of yellow, 
 
168 ON THE PAY-STREAK. 
 
 till Rodolfo's trembling fingers scarce could hold 
 up that precious pan from spilling, and excited 
 tears ran down Maria's thin cheeks. When at last 
 he had guided the gold safely into the bottle, he 
 laid his face to hers and said in a voice which was 
 tremulous but strangely sweet : 
 
 " It is well, Nana ! The Governor cannot have 
 the serape that was my father's. And now let us 
 go home." 
 
 The days went on, and the yellow dust in the 
 bottle had grown half-way to the top. Here and 
 there in it were little, rounded nuggets and waxy 
 flakes, which Rodolfo loved to shake up. There 
 was a whole sack of flour now in the jacal, and a 
 bushel of frijoles. 1 Every day Flojo who had 
 been bought with one fat nugget " packed " his 
 load of water to the arroyo ; and every day Rodolfo 
 and his mother worked on the gravel he sent up. 
 His drift now ran thirty feet out from the bottom 
 of the shaft a narrow, dark, crooked burrow, at 
 whose farther end he lay upon his side, and pecked 
 away with his bar by a candle's stingy light. Some 
 days he lost the pay-streak, and the panning-out at 
 evening was very light ; but soon he found it again, 
 and all was well. And every day the bottle grew 
 heavier and brighter, till it was like a bar of lead 
 to lift. 
 
 One morning as Rodolfo was working in his 
 
 1 Mexican beans. 
 
ON THE PAY-STREAK. 169 
 
 drift there came a sudden dull, low rumble, and 
 loosened pebbles fell upon him. Filled with a 
 nameless dread, he crawled out toward the shaft, 
 but no faint ray of daylight came to meet him at 
 the corner. The great boulder under which he 
 had dug five feet from the entrance of the drift, 
 had fallen in ! He had undermined it more than 
 one should in following the pay-streak under it. 
 And now it had crushed out its gravel supports, 
 and had fallen and closed his burrow. He was 
 buried alive ! With trembling fingers he felt 
 across its cold, smooth surface. Another boulder 
 had followed it from above and filled its place so 
 that he could not dig out above it and to try 
 would cause a cave-in that would crush him. 
 
 Thought chased thought in strange procession 
 through his brain. Buried alive under eighteen 
 feet of earth and stone his mother so near 
 as that, but never to see him again his poor 
 mother ! And just as they were getting the dear 
 gold that would make them all so happy ! 
 
 But in the veins of this slender, dark-faced boy 
 ran blood of that old blue of Spain that conquered 
 and opened this New World to the Old. He 
 would not die like a coward ; he would try ! 
 
 He crawled back and got his bar and candle, 
 and brought them to the boulder door of his prison 
 and began to try the surrounding earth with 
 cautious punchings. But the fall of the great rock 
 had so loosened all the soil that it was sure to cave 
 
170 ON THE PAY-STEEAK. 
 
 as soon as he should attempt to dig through it. 
 In his desperation he even tried if he could not pry 
 the great rock forward, and in time clear out into 
 the shaft; but a dozen men could scarce have 
 budged that ton of porphyry. 
 
 Still he thrust his steel lever into the earth at 
 either side and shoved on the boulder; and 
 suddenly the bar " gave " downward, as if he had 
 driven it a foot into the solid bed-rock. Startled 
 and mystified, he began to probe the yielding spot, 
 and in a moment gave a great cry of newborn 
 hope. How strange the chance upon which a life 
 may hang ! In all the thirty feet of bed-rock he 
 had cleaned up, there was not a hollow ; but right 
 here, its edge an inch from where he had dug, was a 
 pocket of unknown size. Some boulder, caught in 
 the eddies of forgotten centuries, had rolled round 
 and round in this one spot till it ground for itself 
 a basin in the stubborn bed-rock. The grinding 
 rock was there now he could feel with his bar 
 its rounded side amid the fine sand with which the 
 hole had filled before the stream built that torrent- 
 pile above and lifted its own bed by nearly twenty 
 feet. The pot-hole lay partly under one end of 
 the fallen boulder, so that he could dig in it 
 without danger of a serious cave-in. If it was 
 deep enough and wide enough! 
 
 He drove the bar fiercely into the hard gravel, 
 he pried away the stones and scooped out the sand 
 with fingers that bled to their ungentle touch. In 
 
ON TEE PAY-STREAK. 171 
 
 a moment he had cleared a place large enough to 
 let him at the buried pot-hole. Laying aside the 
 heavy bar, he began to claw out the sand with 
 frantic hands and throw it back between his legs, 
 like a rabbit burrowing. Now and then a loosened 
 stone from the roof gave him a cruel pelt on head 
 or back; but he hardly noticed it. The candle 
 was burning very faintly now, and his breath 
 grew short and thick. The scant air of his prison 
 was fast becoming a deadly poison. Even if the 
 pot-hole were big enough, could he keep breath to 
 burrow through? He was down in the pot-hole 
 now, right under the fallen boulder. The round 
 stone which had worn that blessed pit was too 
 heavy to be lifted out, but he had half a yard 
 between it and the boulder above, and that was 
 room enough. 
 
 At last his hand burrowing forward, came to a 
 polished concave surface. It was the farther side 
 of the pot-hole ! He scooped away the sand with 
 feverish energy, until he could feel all along that 
 strange bowl-like wall ; and in an agony of doubt 
 lifted his hands to see what was above. They 
 touched something hard and smooth and convex, 
 and he shrieked aloud. It was the great boulder 
 it covered the farther side of the great pot-hole, 
 and he would never get out ! But no ! It is a 
 smaller rock and there is another wedged beside 
 it, and another ! The pot-hole opens out beyond 
 the prison boulder! 
 
172 ON THE PAY-STREAK. 
 
 He crawled back for his bar, but it was too long 
 to be turned up in that passage under the great 
 rock. His strength was almost gone. His head 
 swam, and a strange whir was in his ears. To 
 die after all, with dear life so near! He caught 
 up a smooth stone that had fallen in the drift, and 
 lying upon his back in the pot-hole began to ham- 
 mer desperately overhead, cracking off rocky splin- 
 ters that filled his eyes, crushing his ringers blindly, 
 working stupidly as one half asleep. 
 
 And then a round stone as big as his head fell 
 and barely missed his face, and that let loose an- 
 other, and there came a shower of sand, and that 
 sweetest thing in all the world, the fresh air of 
 heaven and Rodolfo knew no more. 
 
 "Pero! What keeps Rodolfo so long?" mut- 
 tered Maria anxiously, " for I was at home much 
 time, and not yet has he filled the bucket to send 
 up. Rodolfo ! Little son ! " And she leaned 
 over the shaft, calling shrilly again and again. 
 
 "May the Holiest Mother help me," she mur- 
 mured, catching the rope and shivering, " for it is 
 very deep. But I must see what has come to my 
 boy." And sliding down the harsh rope, with 
 burned and failing fingers, she fell in a heap to 
 the bottom. 
 
 When Rodolfo opened his eyes the little hole 
 above his face had grown larger, and slender, 
 bleeding fingers were tearing at its rough sides. 
 Faintly at first, but with growing strength, he 
 
OJV THE PAY-STREAK. 173 
 
 hammered with his stone from within, until at 
 last he squeezed through the narrow opening and 
 crawled with his fainting mother to daylight at 
 the bottom of the shaft. 
 
 It was late at night when the boy was strong 
 enough to climb the rope and windlass his mother 
 up, and for many days both lay helpless and fevered 
 in the little jacal, cared for by kindly neighbors 
 from Dolores. 
 
 But both got well at last, and Rodolfo went 
 back to work in his placer claim, which quite 
 filled the bottle, and many others like it in course 
 of time. But that blessed pot-hole which had 
 saved his life was what really made him a rich 
 man for that poor country. It had been a lively 
 miser in its day, and when he cleaned it out, well 
 knowing that such a pit in the very path of the 
 pay-streak was the best of all traps to catch the 
 vagrant gold, he washed out in one day from 
 the gravel in its bowl-like bottom so many hun- 
 dreds of dollars' worth of yellow dust and fat nug- 
 gets, that he never dared tell how much there was, 
 and I doubt if any one knows to this day. 
 
THE MIEACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 
 
 I HOPE some day to see a real history of the 
 United States ; a history not written in a closet, 
 from other one-sided affairs, but based on a knowl- 
 edge of the breadth of our history, and a disposi- 
 tion to do it justice ; a book which will realize that 
 the early history of this wonderful country is not 
 limited to a narrow strip on the Atlantic seaboard, 
 but that it began in the great Southwest ; and that 
 before the oldest of the Pilgrim Fathers had been 
 born swarthy Spanish heroes were colonizing what 
 is now the United States ; in their little corner of 
 which they suffered for three hundred and fifty 
 years such awful dangers and hardships as our 
 Saxon forefathers did not dream of. I hope to see 
 such a history, which will do justice to perhaps the 
 most wonderful pioneers the world has ever pro- 
 duced; but it has not come yet. Why, there is 
 not even one history which gives the correct date 
 of the founding of Santa F6, which was a Spanish 
 city more than a decade before the landing at Ply- 
 mouth Rock ! 
 
 When that ideal history is written you will find 
 thrilling matter in the story of New Mexico for 
 174 
 

THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 175 
 
 more than three centuries, and particularly in the 
 bloody years from 1680 to 1700. The Pueblo 
 Indians those gentle, industrious house-dwellers 
 who remain with us to this day, the most wonder- 
 ful aboriginal race on earth had received the 
 white steangers hospitably, had been their friends 
 against the savage tribes, and patiently had shoul- 
 dered trTeir " 'intrti^OHS for a 
 
 But in 1680 they rose in red rebellion, and swept 
 the mailed invaders away before them. Ah, what 
 years those were ; of whose lightning ftasTTes of 
 revolt, followed by sullen peace, and then another 
 thunderclap, the great outside world has never 
 half known ; of whoso most hideous tragedies, of 
 
 "' 'ii''" -Jn-rBn r 
 
 whose sublimes t heroisms, we have record only in 
 here and there a bare, unbraggart line, scant as 
 the rude cross which marks the last of a great 
 "life ! 
 
 After the long and wonderful war wonderful 
 not for numbers of men and oceans of spilt blood, 
 but for the achievements of a tiny army in 
 which Don Diego de Vargas Zapata Luzan recon- 
 quered the awful wilderness of New Mexico, the 
 hardy Spanish settlers enjoyed nearly two years of 
 peace. Their quaint little colony at Santa Fe*, 
 with its ironclad soldiers clanking through the 
 warped streets, was beginning to feel secure. So 
 were'^tne heroic priests who had taken their lives 
 in their hands and settled themselves alone in the 
 Pueblo towns to convert the suspicious natives to 
 
176 THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 
 
 Christianity. But in 1696 fresh calamities arose. 
 Fray Antonio Farfan had brought seven hundred 
 ^anegas (about seventy thousand pounds) of corn 
 for the support of the garrison and the people ; but 
 as misappropriated, and trouble ensued. In 
 the summer of 1695 there had been an accident in 
 the great pueblo of Pecos. Fray Diego Zeinos, 
 while handling a gun, had the misfortune to kill 
 an Indian. He was in no wise to blame, and the 
 Indians themselves petitioned that he be not pun- 
 ished. But the Spanish authorities did punish 
 him ; and a great deal of bad feeling was thereby 
 stirred up among the Indians. 
 
 But the chief source of trouble came from the 
 founding of the Spanish settlement of Santa Cruz 
 de la Canada (where the pueblo of Santa Cruz 
 still stands), in May, 1695. The Tanos Pueblos, 
 who harassed the Spanish settlers in the matter 
 of their lands, were the real instigators of the 
 outbreak, which was, at best, one of the most 
 cruel, needless, and 
 
 Fourteen Pueblo towns joined in a rebellion which 
 broke June 4, 1696. It was a dreadful day. 
 Brave Fray Francisco de Jesus Maria, who had 
 gone far back into the inhospitable mountains to 
 carry the Gospel to the Indians of Jemez, was 
 clubbed to death by his flock. At San Cristobal, 
 near Santa Cruz, the people slew their gentle mis- 
 sionary, Fray Jose* de Arvisu, and in pretty San 
 Ildefonso the Pueblos fired the little convent which 
 
THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 177 
 
 had been erected, and the three priests, Fray 
 Francisco Corbera, Fray Antonio Carboneli, and 
 Fray Antonio Moreno, perished in the fire. 
 Besides these five priests, thirty-four other Span- 
 iards were slain on that bitter day. 
 
 So much is real history. Now for an interest- 
 ing story of that red 4th of June_which does not 
 appear in any history, nor in any ancient record, 
 but is sacredly preserved and devoutly believed by 
 the Indians of San Felipe a legend which they 
 have handf^ fl n r -*m fatdlfflh .tft OT1 fOF OTrfjr 
 t\vo hundred years. San Felipe is a pretty little 
 
 pueblo forty odd miles south of Santa Fe*. In 
 front the hurrying current of the Rio Grande 
 " the fierce river of the North " washes it ; 
 behind, it is crowded by the gloomy volcanic walls 
 of the Black Mesa. Up and down the river stretch 
 broad fields of corn and wheat and rustling 
 orchards, to quench whose summer thirst roily 
 little acequias come singing as they run. Atop 
 the frowning 1 tableland the erav ruins of the.^ 
 
 o f||iMMM^wAHpM%MMMMlMP 
 
 ancient stone church look wistfully down upon the 
 pretty scene, and upon its adobe successor, radiant 
 with whitewash, and consequential with balcon and 
 quaint belfries. 
 
 The most interesting man in San Felipe is Teo- 
 dosio Duran, the old ex-governor for each Pueblo 
 town is a republic by itself, electing its governor, 
 sheriff, councillors, and other officers by ballot 
 annually. Teodosio is about sixty-four years old, 
 
178 THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 
 
 I should say he does not know dark, short, 
 thin, and an epitome of wrinkles and legends. 
 And this is the story of the miracle of San Felipe, 
 as he tells it in excellent Spanish : 
 
 " At the first conquest the Spanish brought with 
 them many padres (priests), who went out to all 
 the pueblos. Many died and many were killed, 
 and at last came the great rebellion [1680] . When 
 the Spanish made the second conquest they found 
 but two priests left. One of these went very far 
 away, quiza to Moqui, but the other made a 
 church in Cochiti and stayed there. [The truth 
 is, they found no survivors, though there is an uncon- 
 firmed Spanish story that one priest was left alive 
 at Moqui.] The Indians of the Northern pueblos 
 were very much enemies of the Spanish, and most 
 of all the people of Cochiti, San Ildefonso, and 
 Santo Domingo were angry with them. In a little 
 while the principales of those pueblos held a junta 
 in Cochiti, and made it up to kill the padre and 
 drive out the Spanish. The sacristan of Cochiti 
 was a good Christian, and when he heard this he 
 went running by night to the convent and told the 
 padre: 4 Padre, I am your friend. They are mak- 
 ing to kill you, but I will save you if I can. But 
 you must go immediately. I will go with you as 
 far as I can and get home before day, for they will 
 kill me if they know.' 
 
 " So the sacristan carried the padre across the 
 river on his back, and then they took the camino 
 
THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 179 
 
 real (highway) past Santo Domingo, and where 
 A 1 oT>H on PS njflw is. Here the sacristan said : ' I 
 go no further. This is the road, and you must 
 save yourself.' It was already near day, and the 
 padre saw he must hide. There was a little island 
 on the river with cottonwoods very thick on it, and 
 he went to hide there until another night. 
 
 " Now, by the grace of God, on that very day 
 the pueblo of^an Felipe was to make^a^-greja^Jbunt ^ 
 and~already before the sun had come the sentinels 
 were going to all the high places to watch for 
 game, and one was on the top of the mesa just 
 below that island. When it grew more day, he 
 saw something black moving among the cotton- 
 woods, and thought, ' Good luck ! For already I 
 see a bear ! ' but in truth it was the padre getting 
 a drink. The sentinel made his hunt signal, and 
 in a very little all the hunters were around the 
 island. When they found it was no bear, but the 
 padre from Cochiti, they were astonished, but he 
 told them all that had happened. Then at once 
 the principales held council on the island; and 
 when all had spoken, they said, ' We will save him 
 and take him to our pueblo.' Then they took off 
 his black robes and put upon him the shirt and 
 calzoncillos and moccasins of one of the Indians, 
 and painted his face and hands. But when they 
 were coming to the town they met many of the 
 Cochiteiios hunting for him and asking, 'Have 
 you met the priest?' They said 'No, we have 
 
180 THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 
 
 not met him ' ; but even then one of the Cochi- 
 tenos recognized him in his paint, and they de- 
 manded him with injurious words. Refusing, 
 there was a great fight, which lasted even to the 
 pueblo, but they of San Felipe came safely inside 
 with the padre. Then the Cochiteiios went away 
 for help, and next day came again with many more 
 of their own pueblo and of Santo Domingo, sur- 
 rounding the town and wounding some. So, as 
 the enemy were many, the people of San Felipe 
 retreated to the top of the mesa, and made a fort 
 there. The others besieged them for many days, 
 and soon the water and the food which they had 
 carried up with them began to be very little ; and 
 then the water was all gone. And when they 
 knew no more how to live without water, the old 
 made a junta and brought the padre to it^ 
 When he had heard all, he hunted for paper ; and 
 at last he found a very little piece in his wallet. 
 Upon this he made a writing with charcoal, and 
 told the sacristan to put the paper in a certain 
 spot, with the writing upward, and stones on it 
 that it might not blow away. Then he made 
 prayer for three days, night and day; and after- 
 ward sent the sacristan to bring the paper again. 
 And in truth there was now also a writing on the 
 other side. Who wrote it ? Quien sabe ? But we 
 think the saints. When he had read the new 
 writing, he told the sacristan to bring him a piece 
 of topaz (volcanic glass), and this he broke upon 
 
THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 181 
 
 a rock till it was sharp like a knife. And when 
 the people had brought all their tinajas and gourds, 
 he made his arm bare and cut it with the stone 
 knife, and held it stretched out; and from the 
 wound ran streams of water, the same as a clear 
 river, and filled all the vessels. When all were 
 full it ceased to run ; and all the people fell down 
 and gave thanks to God. A great while the 
 enemy remained, but always when the water jars 
 were empty, the padre filled them again with pure 
 water from his arm, till at last the Cochitenos were 
 tired and went away. Then the people came down 
 again to the pueblo, taking the padre in great 
 honor, and they were in peace, for after that there 
 was no more war. But to this day we make a 
 sacred fiesta for the Day of the Padre ; and God 
 has been very good to us for that, more than to 
 any of the pueblos that killed their priests. No, 
 we do not know his name. It is very long ago, 
 and that has been lost." 
 
 I was very much interested in Teodosio's story, 
 and my search to discover how much of it is true, 
 aside from the palpable superstition of the miracle, 
 has not been entirely vain. The name of the good 
 priest was Fray Alonzo Ximenes de Cisneros. 
 Some interesting letters written by him are still in 
 existence. He was stationed at Cochiti, and did 
 escape thence by the help of the sacristan, on the 
 eve of the uprising. The people of San Felipe 
 did receive him and protect him with a self-sacri- 
 
182 THE MIRACLE OF SAN FELIPE. 
 
 ficing loyalty really remarkable when we consider 
 their surroundings and the risks they took. So 
 far as the account of the siege goes, there is no 
 historical evidence to corroborate it. There were 
 some skirmishes over the matter, but nothing more 
 serious so far as we can learn from authentic 
 sources. But of this at least we may be sure : 
 That the kindly Pueblos of San Felipe saved Fray 
 Cisneros from a fearful death, with great danger 
 to themselves, and that they devoutly and rever- 
 ently celebrate still the anniversary of the day on 
 which, according to their legend, he saved San 
 Felipe. 
 
A NEW OLD GAME. 
 
 THE game of which I am going to tell you was 
 played by thousands of young Americans for un- 
 known centuries before Columbus opened the doors 
 of the New World to us who usurp exclusive right 
 to the title of Americans ; and it is played by 
 thousands of them still. Yet of all who will read 
 these pages, I am sure there will not be a half a 
 dozen who ever played the game, and perhaps not 
 a single one ; and very few who ever even saw it. 
 It certainly was never played in any parlor in the 
 world ; and yet it can very easily be made an in- 
 door game, as you shall see. It is a common 
 heritage of all the Indian tribes of the great 
 Southwest, though its name varies with the tribe. 
 The Teewah branch of the Pueblo Indians with 
 whom I live call it pa-tol. 1 Boys and gray- 
 haired men play it with equal zest ; and of a sum- 
 mer's evening, when work in the fields is done, I 
 seldom stroll through the village without finding 
 knots of old and young squatted in convenient 
 corners at the most popular of all their sedentary 
 games. 
 
 1 Accent on the last syllable, 
 
 183 
 
184 A NEW OLD GAME. 
 
 There is nothing complicated about the prepara- 
 tion of a pa-tol set. The boys gather forty smooth 
 stones the size of their fist, and arrange them in 
 a circle about three feet in diameter. Between 
 every tenth and eleventh stone is a gate of four 
 or five inches. These gates are called p* dy-hlah 
 " rivers." In the centre of the circle (pa-t6l ndlit- 
 heh, " pa-tol house " ) is placed a larger cobble- 
 
 ^ 
 
 **. GATE. X 
 * 
 
 THE PA-TOL HOUSE. 
 
 stone, smooth and approximately flat on top, called 
 hyee-oh-tee-dy. There is your pa-tol ground. 
 
 The pa-tol sticks, which are the most important 
 part of the paraphernalia, are three in number. 
 Sometimes they are made by splitting from dry 
 branches, and sometimes by whittling from a solid 
 block. The chief essential is that the wood be 
 firm and hard. These sticks are four to five 
 
A NEW OLD GAME. 185 
 
 inches long, about an inch wide, and a quarter of 
 an inch thick ; and must have their sides flat, so 
 that the three may be clasped together very much 
 as one holds a pen, but more nearly perpendicular, 
 with the thumb and first three fingers of the right 
 hand. Each stick is plain on one side and marked 
 on the other, generally with diagonal notches, as 
 shown in the illustration. 
 
 The only other requisite is a Jcah-nid-deh (horse) 
 for each player, of whom there may be as many 
 as can seat themselves around the pa-tol house. 
 The " horse " is merely a twig or stick, used as 
 a marker. 
 
 When the players have seated themselves, the 
 first takes the pa-tol sticks tightly in his right 
 hand, lifts them about as high as his chin, and, 
 bringing them down with a smart, vertical thrust, 
 as if to harpoon the centre stone, lets go of them 
 when they are within some six inches of it. The 
 three sticks strike the stone as one, hitting on 
 their ends squarely, and rebounding several inches, 
 fall back into the circle. The manner in which 
 they fall decides the " denomination " of the throw, 
 and the different values are shown in diagram 
 No. 2. Although at first flush this might seem to 
 make it a game of chance, nothing could be farther 
 from the truth. Indeed, no really aboriginal game 
 is a true game of chance the invention of that 
 dangerous and delusive plaything was reserved for 
 civilized ingenuity. An expert pa-tol player will 
 
186 
 
 A NEW OLD GAME. 
 
 throw the number he desires with almost unfail- 
 ing certainty by his arrangement of the sticks in 
 his hand and the manner and 
 
 Drv/j force with which he strikes 
 rJ\] them down. It is a dexterity 
 [/^ which any one may acquire 
 2. by sufficient practice and 
 
 only thus. The five-throw is 
 deemed very much the hard- 
 est of all, and I have cer- 
 tainly found it so. It is to 
 this opportunity for skill in 
 throwing that the interest of 
 the game and its value are 
 due. 
 5 According to the number of 
 
 C\f his throw the player moves his 
 r\ marker an equal number of 
 yC stones ahead on the circle, 
 IQ using one of the " rivers " as 
 
 a starting-point. If the throw 
 is five, for instance, he lays his 
 " horse " between the fourth 
 and fifth stones, and hands 
 the pa-tol sticks to the next 
 man. If his throw be ten, 
 however as the first man's 
 first throw is very certain to be it lands his 
 " horse " in the second " river," and he has another 
 throw. 
 
 
 
 
 
 THE VALUE OF THROWS IN 
 THE ORDINARY GAME. 
 
A NEW OLD GAME. 187 
 
 The second man may make his starting-point 
 the same or another "river," and may elect to run 
 his " horse " around the circle in the same direc- 
 tion that the first is going, or in the opposite. If 
 in the same direction, he will do his best to make 
 a throw which will bring his " horse " into the same 
 notch as that of the first man in which case the 
 first man is " killed," and has to take his " horse " 
 back to his starting-point to try over again when 
 he gets another turn. In case the second man 
 starts in the opposite direction which he will 
 not do unless an expert player he has to calcu- 
 late with a good deal of skill for the meeting, to 
 "kill," and to avoid being "killed" by No. 1. 
 When he starts in the same direction as No. 1, he 
 is behind and runs no chance of being " killed," 
 while he has just as good a chance to kill. But 
 if, even then, a high throw carries him ahead of 
 the first man for " jumping " does not count 
 either way, the only "killing" being when two 
 "horses" come in the same notch his rear is in 
 danger, and he will try to run on out of the way 
 of his pursuer as fast as possible. 
 
 The more players, the more complicated the 
 game, for each " horse " is threatened alike by foes 
 that chase from behind and charge from before, 
 and the most skilful player is liable to be sent 
 back to the starting-point several times before the 
 game is finished, which is as soon as one " horse " 
 has made the complete circuit. 
 
188 
 
 A NEW OLD GAME. 
 
 Sometimes the players when very young or 
 unskilled agree that there shall be no "killing," 
 but unless there is an explicit arrangement to that 
 effect, " killing " is understood, and it adds greatly 
 to the interest of the game. 
 
 There is also another variation of the game a 
 rare one, however. In case the players agree to 
 
 When the three sticks fall 
 thus, the throw 2. 
 
 When the three sticks fall 
 thus, the throw 3. 
 
 When the three sticks fall 
 thus, the throw 5. 
 
 When the sticks five fall 
 thus, the throw 10. 
 
 VALUE OF THE THROWS IN THE 15-GAME. 
 
 throw fifteens, all the pa-tol sticks are made the 
 same, except that one has an extra notch to distin- 
 guish it from the others. Then the throws are as 
 shown in diagram 3. The ten-game, however, 
 
A NEW OLD GAME. 189 
 
 seems to me the more satisfactory, and so the 
 Indians themselves regard it. 
 
 The adaptation of pa-tol for a parlor game is 
 very simple indeed. The circle or pa-tol house 
 may be made by painting on a board, or table, or 
 table cover, an eighteen or twenty-four inch circle, 
 with the four equi-distant gates and forty marks 
 of any sort for the stones. The centre stone 
 should be a real stone, however, as nothing else 
 gives so good a rebound. It need be neither large 
 nor heavy, so it is smooth and rather flat. It may 
 be an ornamental block of marble, or a pretty, 
 water-worn stone the size and shape of a Boston 
 cracker. The markers and pa-tol sticks may be as 
 elaborate and ornamental as desired. Pa-tol is an 
 interesting game, and in these days when our old 
 games are somewhat threadbare, and good new 
 ones are not too common, we may be glad to learn 
 this new old one from the curious people who in- 
 vented it before the European half of the world 
 dreamed of the existence of the American half. 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 WHEN I look back over the strange career of 
 my brave old Spanish friend, Colonel Manuel 
 Chaves, whose weary remnant of a body was laid 
 to rest under the shadow of the noblest mountain 
 in western New Mexico, two years ago, the exploits 
 of many heroes who were handier to the Fame- 
 maker seem a trifle tame. Known and loved by 
 all long residents of the bare, brown Territory 
 whose foremost defender he was, yet his name 
 seldom reached the great outside world where there 
 were newspapers and historians ; and to-day he fills 
 the grave of an almost unrecorded hero. Yet I 
 suppose there was never a more remarkable life. 
 Far out here, in the then un-Americanized South- 
 west, he was for over fifty years warring against 
 the Apaches, Comanches, Navajos, and Utes. Over 
 two hundred of his relatives have been killed 
 by Indians. He participated in more than one 
 hundred battles, and carried a scar for nearly 
 every one. His body was such a network of 
 ghastly cicatrices that scarcely could you lay your 
 flat hand anywhere upon him without touching a 
 scar. For the last fifteen years of his life it seemed 
 190 
 
A NEW MEXICAN IIEEO. l9l 
 
 that the heroic soul alone held up the tatters of 
 that once wiry body. While yet there was fight- 
 ing to be done, he fought ; but when the swarming 
 savages had all been crushed into submission, and 
 the quiet hero retired to his mountain home to 
 enjoy the peace so bravely earned, peace was not 
 for him. His awful wounds, the years of fright- 
 ful exposure, had raised up against him a foe more 
 merciless than the Apache. But stoical as a war- 
 rior at the stake, he bore his years of deadly torture 
 as he had borne the hardships of the half-century 
 that made his name a terror to the red marauders 
 of the Southwest; and when at seventy-four the 
 flickering soul went out, it was calmly as a little 
 child's. 
 
 A courtly Spanish gentleman, brave as a lion, 
 tender as a woman, spotless of honor, modest as 
 heroic, was this haggard old man whom I loved as 
 a father. He would seldom speak of his own 
 achievements, and then only with utmost modesty. 
 But to this day, in my roving through the lonelier 
 corners of New Mexico, I keep stumbling upon 
 some old man who was his companion-in-arms ; and 
 when I speak of Manuel Chaves, what a brighten- 
 ing there is of old eyes ! 
 
 "El Leoncito (the little lion)! Truly I knew 
 him Va ! Were we not side by side at Ojo de 
 la Monica ? And was it not he that shot down the 
 Apache whose knife was even at my heart, and he 
 shooting with an arrow through and through his 
 
192 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 shoulder ? Ay de mi ! that there are no more like 
 Don Manuel ! " 
 
 Then I am sure of a story ; and so from time to 
 time, and all across the Southwest, I have been 
 filling in the modest outlines the old hero occa- 
 sionally gave me. 
 
 For us it is very hard to realize what life on the 
 New Mexican frontier in his day was. There 
 were no railroads then to make travel easy for 
 even the timid and the weak ; nor mails to bring 
 far friends near ; nor telegraphs to flash warning 
 or hope. The lonely New Mexicans, shut off 
 from the civilization, and almost from the knowl- 
 edge of the East by a vast and fearful wilderness, 
 were surrounded by savage nature and still more 
 savage man. It was one of the bitterest lands on 
 earth ; a land of vast distances and scant product, 
 of infinite thirst and little wherewith to quench it ; 
 a land of hardship eternal and daily danger, where 
 boys were soldiers and mothers had to fight for 
 their babes. It was almost as if there had been no 
 other world beyond those awful plains. What- 
 ever was consumed was made at home. There 
 was no market. They had no rifles nor pistols for 
 defence against the relentless savages, and little 
 enough of any other armament. There was but a 
 scant supply of the clumsy Spanish escopetas (flint- 
 lock muskets), scarcely better weapons than the 
 bows and arrows whose use the settlers learned 
 from their enemies. Manuel was in his early 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 193 
 
 manhood a wonderfully expert archer, and won 
 countless blankets and ponies from the Indians in 
 trials of prowess during the short intervals of 
 peace. Later he became the most wonderful rifle- 
 shot New Mexico has ever produced. 
 
 Hemmed in by ruthless foes, the weak, scattered 
 towns had practically no military protection, for 
 that was before New Mexico had become part of 
 the United States. It was then a province ruled 
 by a governor sent up from Mother Mexico ; a 
 governor who swayed over his few countrymen the 
 iron rule of a czar, but four-fifths of whose nomi- 
 nal subjects were hostile savages. 
 
 Manuel Chaves came of a fine old family of 
 Valencia, Spain, whose earliest traced represent- 
 ative, Don Fernando Duron, acquired the title 
 of de Chaves. Manuel's great-grandfather, Don 
 Diego Antonio Duran de Chaves, was a colonel 
 in the Spanish army, and in company with Don 
 Jose* Hurtado de Mendoza led a colony to this 
 New World over two hundred years ago and 
 founded Atrisco, just across the Rio Grande from 
 where Albuquerque now stands, having a grant 
 from the Spanish government. They were there 
 when the bloody Pueblo uprising of 1680 took 
 place, and were driven to El Paso, but later re- 
 turned and took possession of their lands. Here 
 in Atrisco Manuel was born in October, 1818. 
 There was then no forecast of the present bustling 
 town of Albuquerque, save the old fortress erected 
 
194 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 over one hundred years before by the Spanish 
 Duke of Albuquerque. When Manuel was very 
 young, the family moved to Cebolleta, on the 
 eastern slope of Mount San Mateo. This, the first 
 colony in the Navajo country, was founded in 1800 
 by thirty heads of families from the Rio Grande. 
 The youngest of the Spanish colonies, and sixty 
 miles westward of any of them, it soon made up 
 in experience what it lacked in age. For over 
 half a century the tiny walled hamlet was never 
 at peace. For the first five years of its existence 
 it was almost constantly besieged ; at one time, in 
 1804, by over five thousand Navajo warriors. 
 Heavy odds, truly, for the thirty men of Cebolleta 
 and the brave women of their households ! In 
 1805 the colonists abandoned their town and 
 started for the Rio Grande. At Laguna they re- 
 ceived word from Governor Chacon to return, and 
 he would send fifty soldiers to protect them. The 
 soldiers formed thenceforth part of the colony, till 
 one by one they were laid away in the little grave- 
 yard, sieved with Navajo arrows. 
 
 A stout stone wall, ten feet high, enclosed the 
 whole of the tiny town, the houses being built con- 
 tinuously along its inside. The only entrance was 
 closed by a narrow gate formed of planks tAVO feet 
 thick, hewn from two mammoth pines, and fastened 
 by a ponderous bar. Despite this fortification 
 a remarkably strong one for those days the 
 Indians persisted in their attacks. In the great 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 195 
 
 siege to which I have alluded, the Navajos, besides 
 their usual armament of bows, arrows, shields, and 
 lances, had prepared and brought two thousand 
 aboriginal hand grenades of pitch, with which to 
 fire the town. The siege was a long and desperate 
 one. The men of the town were kept on the alert, 
 extinguishing the dangerous fire-balls and checking 
 the constant assaults of their swarming foes, while 
 the brave women were equally busy bringing water 
 and food to the loopholes at which their husbands 
 were stationed, binding up their wounds, and doing 
 other necessary offices. 
 
 Indeed, one of the most heroic and important 
 exploits of this siege was performed by a woman, 
 Dona Antonia Romero. The assault had become 
 terrific, and to feed the fainting men more quickly 
 and safety, she had taken an axe and cut through 
 the adobe partitions from house to house. Then 
 mounting to a housetop to see if all was going 
 well, she was horrified to see that a brave Navajo 
 had stealthily climbed over the gate, and was just 
 removing the ponderous bar, while a swarm of his 
 companions waited outside to rush in the instant 
 the heavy gate should swing open. There was no 
 time to call for help. Quick as a flash, the heroic 
 woman caught up a fifty pound metate (the native 
 stone hand-mill), which was lying upon the roof, 
 swung it above her head, and brought it down with 
 terrific force full upon the skull of the Navajo, who 
 was too busy to notice what was going on above 
 
196 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 him. His head was crushed like an eggshell, and 
 again the town was saved. Dona Antonia's hus- 
 band, Don Domingo Baca, was worthy so plucky a 
 spouse. In one assault, at hand-to-hand combat, he 
 was pierced by seven lances, and his abdomen was 
 so torn that his bowels fell out. He caught up a 
 pillow, lashed it around his belly, and continued 
 loading and firing for several hours, until the fury 
 of the attack was spent. He then replaced his 
 dangling entrails and sewed up the wound him- 
 self. He lived for many years. At one time, 
 during this siege, the Indians made a breach in the 
 wall at night, and one hundred of them got into 
 the placita (inner court). The breach was stopped, 
 however, and the intruders were killed from the 
 surrounding houses. The colonists fortunately 
 had sixty venerable Spanish flintlocks, which saved 
 them from the overwhelming numbers of the 
 savages. The Navajos finally gave up the siege, 
 which had been disastrous to both sides, but never 
 ceased their desultory warfare. Despite its fearful 
 besetments the little colony kept alive, and became 
 famous throughout the Territory for its heroic 
 warriors. They were the flower of New Mexico. 
 
 And so Cebolleta struggled on till 1850, when 
 it received the most stunning blow it has ever 
 known. Pedro Chaves (oldest brother of Manuel) 
 used to go to the Rio Grande settlements, and take 
 contracts from those in need of domestic "help," 
 to furnish them Navajo girls at five hundred dollars 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 197 
 
 per head. Then he would get his fellow-Cebolle- 
 tans together, and they would start out on a cam- 
 paign, strike a band of hostile Navajos, kill the 
 warriors, and bring the women and children home 
 for servants. The rivalry among the young men 
 to prove their courage led to exploits no whit be- 
 hind the doughtiest of chivalric deeds. It was no 
 uncommon thing for a young Cebolletan to spur 
 ahead of the company, seize a Navajo warrior by 
 the hair, and try to drag him from his horse and 
 bring him back alive a recklessness which some- 
 times succeeded. 
 
 In January, 1850, Don Ramon Luna was return- 
 ing from a big campaign against the Navajos, at the 
 head of about one thousand New Mexican volun- 
 teers. The weather was fearfully cold and it was 
 snowing heavily. Colonel Luna encamped at Los 
 Alamitos (now Grant's Station, on the Atlantic 
 and Pacific Railroad), giving orders that his men 
 should keep close together, as the Navajos were 
 hanging on their flanks. Captain Pedro Chaves, 
 however, was a very headstrong fellow, and he and 
 his thirty men being in a hurry to get home to 
 Cebolleta, they quietly left the command at night- 
 fall and rode thirty-five miles north. They camped 
 late in the beautiful canon at San Miguel and 
 played games till nearly daybreak. No sooner had 
 they fallen asleep than three hundred Indians fell 
 upon them and massacred them to a man, but only 
 after a desperate resistance, in which many Indians 
 
198 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 fell. Jose Manuel Arragon survived his wounds 
 eleven days, and had been dead but a few minutes 
 when a searching party from Cebolleta reached the 
 spot. Captain Chaves' head was found on top of 
 the mountain. His white-haired widow still lives 
 in San Mateo. 
 
 In Cebolleta young Manuel lived until he was 
 eighteen, sharing the hardships of his elders ; and 
 then began, so far as we have record, his roving. 
 That year, in company with his elder brother Jose, 
 and fourteen other young men, including an Indian 
 boy named Pahe, he started for Canon de Chusca, 
 one hundred and fifty miles west, to trade with the 
 Navajos, who were just then resting on their arms. 
 What a commentary on the times in which they 
 lived this seeking a market in the very strong- 
 hold of the savages from whose attacks they were 
 not safe even at home ! 
 
 The little party had several pack-mules loaded 
 with goods, and was armed with bows and arrows 
 and the clumsy old Spanish flintlocks. Reaching 
 Canon de Chusca, they were amicably received, 
 unpacked their goods, and camped among the 
 Indians. In the night the treacherous savages 
 fell upon them, and, after a fierce fight, killed all 
 but Don Manuel and Pahe. The latter received 
 an ugly arrow- wound over the left nipple, but 
 escaped further injury by hiding behind a rock. 
 Manuel had been left by the Indians as dead, with 
 seven arrows sticking in his body. The cold night 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HEEO. 199 
 
 air, however, finally revived him; and, crawling 
 about the bloody field, he found Pahe living, and 
 the corpses of all the rest. Eighteen dead Indians 
 attested the resistance of the little band. Having 
 wrapped his brother's corpse in a blanket, and 
 buried it at the bottom of the canon, Manuel took 
 his bow and musket, and, with Pahe, started on 
 the fearful journey homeward on foot. It was in 
 July, and fearfully hot. After two days and 
 nights they reached Ojo del Oso, the beautiful 
 spring where Fort Wingate now stands. Here 
 Manuel stripped off his clothes, stiff with blood, 
 and, jumping into the cold spring, washed his 
 wounds till they bled anew, afterward washing 
 and drying his clothes. Pahe would not wash, 
 but plugged his wound with the soft film from the 
 inner side of a buckskin. In the morning when 
 Manuel awoke somewhat refreshed, he found his 
 companion dead and fearfully swollen. Burying 
 the boy beside the spring, the brave young trader 
 resumed his agonizing journey, travelling only by 
 night, as the country was now infested by Navajos. 
 The ninety miles to Cebolleta took him three 
 nights. He passed through what is now San 
 Mateo, and rested all day under two fine live 
 oaks, in whose gratefully remembered shade he 
 later built the little chapel in which his family now 
 worship. At Laguno Larga, on the mountain, he 
 fell exhausted and unable to go any further. He 
 had had nothing to eat since leaving Chusca, save 
 
200 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 the pulpy leaves of the prickly pear, and his seven 
 wounds were bleeding again. A hungry coyote 
 had followed his bleeding footsteps now for two 
 whole days. Here he was found by a faithful 
 Indian servant, who made a rough chair of oak 
 boughs, and carried him safely to Cebolleta on his 
 back. 
 
 Among his companions on this fatal expedition 
 were two blacksmiths, Ramon Sena of Santa Fe, 
 and Jose Castillo of Cebolleta. He had left them 
 at the Tiogan of Chief Chatto to make silver bridle 
 ornaments, and supposed they had been massacred 
 too. Head Chief Manuelito, however, sent them 
 safely home with an escort of eighteen young 
 braves, who slept in the house of Manuel's mother. 
 His eldest brother, Pedro, prepared to have them 
 killed in their sleep, but Manuel secretly rose from 
 his sick bed, armed the Navajos with muskets, and 
 then told Pedro to let them alone. Next day 
 Manuel gathered volunteers, who escorted the 
 Navajos half way home. 
 
 Recovering from his wounds, young Chaves 
 went to visit his grandmother at Atrisco. At that 
 juncture a party of German traders, with six hun- 
 dred burros and many horses and mules, came up 
 from Sonora on their way to New Orleans. They 
 engaged Manuel as their major-domo, 1 and hired 
 fourteen other young New Mexicans to care for the 
 
 1 Overseer. 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 201 
 
 animals under his charge. Among them was Man- 
 uel's younger brother, Juan. Near New Orleans 
 the traders leased a large plantation, and left the 
 animals there in charge of Manuel all winter. In 
 the spring they sold all their burros at one hundred 
 dollars per head, and gave up the plantation. The 
 rest of the boys returned to New Mexico ; but 
 Manuel and his brother remained. They had met 
 a handsome and brilliant young Cuban named 
 Alfonso Fernandez, who, knowing that Manuel 
 had several hundred dollars, proposed that they 
 go to St. Louis and open a fruit store. They did 
 so, and for two years had a prosperous business, 
 Manuel making trips to New Orleans for fruit. 
 The firm was several thousand dollars ahead, Juan 
 was put to school, and all was going well. But 
 during one of Manuel's trips to New Orleans, Fer- 
 nandez took all the money, sold the stock, and 
 fled. When Manuel returned and learned of this, 
 he vowed to follow and punish his faithless partner. 
 He sold his cargo of fruit for what he could get, 
 and secured Juan a position in the store of Senor 
 Navarrez, then a wealthy old Spanish merchant of 
 St. Louis, and a warm friend of Manuel's. Juan 
 subsequently married a daughter of Navarrez, and 
 a few years later was drowned in the Mississippi. 
 
 Manuel followed the trail of Fernandez to New 
 York, but arrived there just too late. Fernandez 
 had sailed the day before for Havana, and Manuel 
 had no money left to follow him. So he worked 
 
202 A NEW MEXICAN UEEO. 
 
 his way back to St. Louis, suffering many hard- 
 ships. A big wagon-train, principally owned by 
 Ambrosio Armijo and Jose Chaves, was on the 
 point of starting for Santa Fe, and with it he re- 
 turned to New Mexico. 
 
 Manuel now settled in Santa Fe, and devoted 
 himself to raising blooded horses. He was con- 
 ceded to be the best rider in all this territory of 
 superb horsemen. 
 
 Soon after his marriage to a dark-eyed belle of 
 Tome, Manuel became involved in a difficulty with 
 his great-uncle, the Spanish Governor Armijo, and 
 had to flee to Utah, where he remained with a 
 band of French trappers for some time. Then 
 the Utes became so troublesome that Armijo sent 
 Manuel a pardon, and requested him to come back 
 and lead an expedition against the Indians, which 
 he did with notable success. Returning from the 
 campaign, he sold his fast horses, and took con- 
 tracts from the Mexican government. At about 
 this time the party of Americans led by "General" 
 Cook reached New Mexico, and acting under or- 
 ders from Armijo, Chaves enrolled one hundred 
 volunteers and arrested the whole outfit at Anton 
 Chico, on the Pecos, thirty miles from Las Vegas. 
 Armijo subsequently sent these prisoners to the 
 city of Mexico in charge of a Captain Salazar, who 
 treated them very cruelly. They were finally re- 
 leased from their Mexican prison and made their 
 way home. 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 203 
 
 Then came the Mexican War and the invasion of 
 New Mexico by General Price and the American 
 army. Governor Armijo had six hundred Mexi- 
 can dragoons, regulars, in Santa F6, and, after a 
 conference with the Chaveses, the Bacas, the 
 Pinos, and other leading men of the Territory, 
 raised an army of one thousand volunteers, Don 
 Manuel being put in command. The combined 
 forces started out to meet the invaders ; but at 
 Glorieta, Armijo concluded that he didn't need 
 the volunteers, but would take the Gringoes and 
 the glory himself with his dragoons. So he dis- 
 banded the volunteers and sent them all home. 
 Before General Price reached Glorieta, Armijo 
 weakened, and incontinently fled to Old Mexico 
 with his dragoons. Price marched into Santa Fe 
 without firing a shot, and took possession in the 
 name of the United States. He issued a procla- 
 mation telling the people that they would be pro- 
 tected in their persons and property if they would 
 give their allegiance to the new government ; and, 
 glad to be rid of the insufferable despotism of 
 Armijo, the people readily acquiesced. 
 
 All went smoothly till malignant fellows told 
 Price that the Pinos of Santa Fe*, the Chaveses 
 and Bacas of the Rio Grande, and all the priests in 
 the Territory were plotting an insurrection in 
 which every American was to be assassinated, and 
 that Manuel Chaves was to kill Price himself. 
 Price at once put Don Manuel, Don Nicolas Pino, 
 
204 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 Don Miguel Pino, and other prominent men under 
 arrest. The Bacas fled to Old Mexico along with 
 Don Diego Archuleta of Rio Arriba, who had 
 been New Mexico's delegate to the Mexican Con- 
 gress. All were soon released save Don Manuel 
 and Nicolas Pino, who were kept in jail thirty 
 days. Don Manuel was finally court-martialed, 
 but there was not the remotest evidence against 
 him, and his manly defence won the admiration of 
 General Price, who was ever after his warm friend. 
 A few days after his release came the revolution 
 at Taos, in which Governor Bent, Kit Carson's 
 friend, was killed. Having learned of Don Man- 
 uel's prowess as an Indian fighter, General Price 
 requested him to assist in putting down the re- 
 bellion. Accordingly, Senor Chaves and Don 
 Nicolas Pino enlisted in the company of Captain 
 Zeran St. Vrain, and marched to Taos. The rebels 
 and their Apache allies were routed after a fearful 
 struggle, during which Don Manuel laid the foun- 
 dation for one of the warmest friendships of his 
 life. He and St. Vrain who was a magnificent 
 two hundred and forty-pounder became sepa- 
 rated a little from the command, and were fighting 
 almost side by side to drive off a party of Indians 
 approaching in front. Suddenly a gigantic Apache 
 sprang from behind a bush, struck St. Vrain's 
 rifle from his hand, and grappled him in mortal 
 combat. St. Vrain was stronger than the Indian, 
 but no match for him in quickness or endurance ; 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 205 
 
 and when Chaves turned his eye an instant from 
 the advancing foe, he was horrified to see the 
 American at the last gasp of exhaustion, while the 
 Apache was just lifting his murderous knife. 
 Cool, as always, Chaves put a ball through the 
 heart of an advancing Indian, and, whirling like 
 lightning, brought the ponderous barrel of his old 
 Hawkins rifle down upon the head of the Apache 
 with such force that his eyes bulged from their sock- 
 ets as he rolled over dead, without a groan. " In 
 less than a second," St. Vrain used to say, "that 
 knife would have been in my heart." St. Vrain 
 afterward bought from the grantees that four-mil- 
 lion-acre tract on the Animas River, Colorado, 
 known as the St. Vrain grant. He never forgot 
 his preserver, and offered him a half-ownership in 
 the grant if he would settle there an offer which 
 Mr. Chaves felt obliged to decline. 
 
 A long and bloody series of Indian campaigns 
 followed, in which Don Manuel played a promi- 
 nent part. In 1855, as colonel of a regiment of 
 volunteers, he made a six months' campaign against 
 the Utes, punishing them fearfully, and winning 
 recognition from the War Department for distin- 
 guished bravery. In 1857 came the fearful out- 
 break of Cuchillo Negro, the most terrible of all 
 Apaches. The renegades were smearing the whole 
 south of the Territory with blood, and General 
 Loring subsequently of the Confederate army, 
 and still later "Loring Pasha" of Egypt was 
 
206 A NEW MEXICAN HEBO. 
 
 sent out with two hundred regular troops to quell 
 them. With his command was Colonel Chaves, 
 as captain of sixty Mexican volunteers. They 
 followed the Apaches clear into the Sierra Madre 
 of Mexico the more recent scene of the brilliant 
 campaigns of General Crook and General Miles 
 against Geronimo. They had many hard fights 
 on the way, but no decisive ones ; and the men, 
 worn out by the terrific speed of the Indians, were 
 grumbling sorely. General Loring, one night, was 
 about to call a final halt to the chase ; but Colonel 
 Chaves, whose company embraced many of the 
 finest trailers in New Mexico, assured him that the 
 enemy were not far ahead. That very evening 
 trailers found the hostile camp at the bottom of a 
 deep canon, and reported to Colonel Chaves, who 
 in turn notified General Loring. Acting on 
 Chaves's advice, the command was allowed a few 
 hours' sleep, and then moved noiselessly upon the 
 foe. One company was sent to the mouth of the 
 canon, another to its head, and the sixty volun- 
 teers, with General Loring and Colonel Chaves in 
 the lead, stole down the precipitous side and took 
 the Apaches completely by surprise. Colonel 
 Chaves captured Cuchillo Negro, whom he knew 
 well, with his own hand, and General Loring 
 put the precious prisoner in charge of Cap- 
 tain "Adobe" Johnson, with strict orders not to 
 harm a hair of his head. Loring wished to send 
 the famous chief to Washington, but when they 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HEEO. 207 
 
 returned from pursuing the hostiles, Johnson had 
 wantonly slain his prisoner. Johnson afterward 
 became a terror to the whole lower country, being 
 a violent and unprincipled man. He was shot 
 dead in a drunken brawl in Hillsboro, New Mexico, 
 two or three years ago. This campaign settled 
 the Apache question for awhile. The War De- 
 partment again issued very complimentary orders, 
 in which Manuel Chaves was named for conspicu- 
 ous services. 
 
 Don Manuel now removed to Ojuelos, eighteen 
 miles east of Los Lunas, and started a sheep ranch 
 in company with his brother-in-law, the well-known 
 Lorenzo Labadie. Here he had many savage en- 
 counters with the Indians. In 1859 the Navajos 
 became again such a fearful scourge to the whole 
 Territory that prominent citizens convened in 
 Bernalillo, and raised funds to equip five hundred 
 volunteers, who marched with Colonel Chaves in 
 command, at the same time that General Canby 
 started with four hundred regulars. The cam- 
 paign lasted several months, and completely 
 quieted the Navajos for the time being. In it, 
 too, Colonel Chaves won fresh honors. 
 
 Roman A. Baca, the brilliant young half-brother 
 whom Colonel Chaves had reared, was eighteen 
 years old when he accompanied the colonel in 
 this Indian campaign as a common volunteer. He 
 was ambitious to be a captain, but did not wish it 
 to be said that he was promoted because of his 
 
208 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 relationship. Just at the opening of a fierce fight 
 he said to Colonel Chaves : 
 
 " Tell me something to do to earn a captaincy." 
 
 A big Navajo was riding just ahead of his fel- 
 lows, waving a red blanket and defying the New 
 Mexicans. 
 
 " Do you see that Indian ? " said Colonel Chaves. 
 " Bring me his scalp and I will make you a captain. 
 Come back without it and I will kill you." 
 
 Roman leaped upon his fine horse he was then 
 the finest rider in all New Mexico and dashed 
 out to meet the big Indian, who also spurred up 
 to the charge. As they drew close the Indian 
 fired, but missed, and Roman put a bullet through 
 his heart. Tearing the bleeding scalp from its 
 place he rode back amid a rain of bullets and 
 arrows and was appointed a captain on the spot. 
 
 Roman was in command of twenty New Mexi- 
 can trailers and guides, and at Cienega Amarilla 
 captured a Navajo and took him to his tent. 
 Canby heard of this and ordered that the prisoner 
 be sent to his tent. 
 
 " Tell General Canby for me," said young Baca, 
 " that if he wants a Navajo he had better go and 
 catch one, as I did." 
 
 And forthwith he hung the Navajo to a tree in 
 front of his camp. Canby sent a lieutenant and a 
 squad to arrest the audacious chief of scouts ; but 
 Roman picked up his rifle and threatened to shoot 
 if they came any nearer. 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 209 
 
 " He means what he says," said Colonel Chaves 
 warningly ; and the lieutenant went back to Canby 
 to report. As Canby had only four hundred regu- 
 lars, and the volunteers were all in favor of Roman, 
 the arrest was wisely given up. 
 
 In 1860 a large band of Navajos swept down on 
 the Rio Grande settlements, and drove off fifty 
 thousand head of sheep. Don Manuel was sum- 
 moned from his Ojuelos rancho, and with his 
 half-brother Roman and fourteen picked men, fol- 
 lowed the raiders. He overtook the Navajos at 
 Ojo de la Monica, routed them, and recovered the 
 sheep. Next morning his camp was entirely sur- 
 rounded by hostiles. Roman had stopped at Fort 
 Craig for a frolic, promising to catch up next day, 
 but he failed to come. From sunrise to dark the 
 heroic fifteen fought off the swarming Navajos. 
 Colonel Chaves had posted each man behind a tree, 
 and at intervals walked from one to another to 
 cheer them up. It was the deadliest struggle ever 
 recorded in New Mexico. One by one the brave 
 Mexicans sank transfixed by arrows. One daring 
 Indian on a fine black horse was conspicuous all 
 day, rallying his companions to the fight. At last, 
 in a desperate charge, he was shot dead by Colonel 
 Chaves within twenty feet. At the beginning of 
 the fight the colonel had eighty-two bullets ; at 
 its close he had fired eighty, and for every one an 
 Indian or a horse had fallen. He never fired until 
 dead sure of killing. His own escape was miracu- 
 
210 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 lous, especially as he had a red handkerchief around 
 his neck all day, being too hard pressed to take it 
 off. Jos Maria Chaves, at his side, was shot 
 through by a big Indian from behind a log fifty 
 yards away ; but, as the Indian opened his mouth 
 in a yell of joy, Manuel stopped it with a bullet 
 that carried away the back of the redskin's head. 
 At nightfall there were but two men living, Don 
 Manuel and Roman Sanchez, and both fearfully 
 wounded. In the nick of time, Roman Baca ar- 
 rived from Fort Craig, with a company of soldiers, 
 and rescued the two survivors of that desperate 
 day. The sheep were all recovered and returned 
 to their owners. 
 
 In the spring of 1860 Colonel Chaves was at 
 his lambing camp at Salada, forty miles east of the 
 Rio Grande, when an excited messenger arrived 
 from Hon. Francisco Chaves with the news that 
 two hundred raiding Apaches were heading that 
 way. Colonel Chaves had forty men, including 
 his wife's step-father and his own eldest son, Hon. 
 Amado Chaves, then a boy of ten. Not at all dis- 
 turbed by this gruesome news, which frightened 
 the shepherds out of their seven senses, Colonel 
 Chaves saw that the muskets were in good order, 
 and gave the necessary directions. No alarm came 
 that night, and the New Mexicans slept on their 
 arms. Early in the morning a shepherd came run- 
 ning back from his atajo l saying that he saw the 
 1 Flock. 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 211 
 
 Apaches coming. Colonel Chaves rode up to a 
 little knoll, and with his field-glass counted twenty- 
 two Indians with seventeen rifles. Returning to 
 camp, he told the men that there were but twenty- 
 two Indians in sight, but that the whole two hun- 
 dred were doubtless near, and they must be prepared 
 to meet them all. He then assigned to each man 
 the tree he should take shelter behind, warned 
 them not to fire till the Indians were within fifty 
 feet, and then ordered breakfast to be prepared. 
 There had been a holy day just before, and his wife 
 had sent him a box of cakes and other dainties. 
 These he now produced and distributed to the 
 badly scared shepherds, who felt little appetite, as 
 they could plainly see the murderous Apaches 
 rapidly drawing near. Not till the Indians were 
 within five hundred yards did Colonel Chaves 
 allow the men to scatter to their trees, and having 
 seen them all properly stationed, he took his little 
 boy by the hand and ran with the old man a few 
 rods up the hill to his own tree. 
 
 The Apaches, seeing the running, made a rush 
 for the camp. Beside the fire lay Colonel Chaves's 
 valuable silver mounted saddle and bridle and a 
 gay Navajo blanket of great price. Two Indians 
 made for these, and just as one had got the blanket 
 under his arm, he fell sprawling with an ounce ball 
 from Chaves's rifle in his brain. The other grabbed 
 the blanket from the big pot of atole, 1 into which 
 1 A sweet gruel of ground roasted corn. 
 
212 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 it had fallen, and turned to run. "Shoot him, 
 padre ! " shouted the colonel to his father-in-law ; 
 but when he saw that the old man was shaking 
 with fright, he said, "Wait! Don't shoot!" 
 Hastily ramming home a ball in his own rifle, he 
 threw it to a level, and the second Apache fell 
 with a red hole in the back of his neck. Colonel 
 Chaves had tied his two fine horses to a tree, and 
 put two of his best men behind other trees twenty 
 feet away, to stop the Indians who should rush for 
 the horses. To his disgust, two Apaches took the 
 horses without a shot. The explanation of this is 
 interesting. Concepcion "Baca" (now an inter- 
 preter for Geronimo in Florida) had been captured 
 from his Sonora home in boyhood by the Apaches, 
 and had been raised by them until recaptured by 
 New Mexicans and adopted by one of the Baca 
 family. He had lain behind his tree awaiting a 
 chance to kill the two Indians who were coming 
 for the horses ; but when he recognized in one of 
 them the same cruel old Apache who had raised 
 him, with frequent barbarous beatings, the inbred 
 boyhood terror came back to him, and he could not 
 pull a trigger to save his life. Concepcion is a 
 very interesting little old fellow, with whom I 
 have passed many pleasant hours. The two 
 Apaches who took the horses were killed by 
 Colonel Chaves, and their scalps were taken by an 
 Indian shepherd. A few years later, when Amado 
 was sent to Washington to be educated, he carried 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 213 
 
 the scalps, bows, shields, and lances of those two 
 Apaches to Colonel Frank Chaves, who gave these 
 interesting relics to Reverdy Johnson. 
 
 All Colonel Chaves's brothers and half-brothers 
 were brave men. Indeed, they could not well 
 have been otherwise. He frequently said that he 
 would kill any brother of his who should play the 
 coward, and all who knew him knew he meant 
 what he said. It is related that on one occasion 
 when, with only eight men, he was in a desperate 
 fight with scores of Navajos, some of his men 
 wanted to run. Colonel Chaves quietly counted 
 out eight of his twenty bullets and put them in a 
 separate pocket. " These," said he, " are for those 
 that turn coward." Knowing his iron resolution 
 and his marvellous aim, no one dared to desert, 
 and the Indians were stood off till re-enforcements 
 arrived. 
 
 In 1864 Manuel's warm friend, Don Juan Cris- 
 tobal Arniijo, sent his son to Manuel's ranch with 
 the news that the Apaches had stolen two hundred 
 head of his mules and were on their way to the 
 Manzano Mountains. He and a party were pur- 
 suing, but feared they could not overtake the fugi- 
 tives ere they reached the mountains. Would 
 Don Manuel gather some men and head them off? 
 There was no man in the house save Manuel 
 and his son-in-law, then lying at the point of 
 death ; but Manuel never hesitated. " How many 
 Apaches ? " he asked young Armijo. " Twenty," 
 
214 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 was the reply. " Come on, then, we'll stop them," 
 said Colonel Chaves. " Not much ; I'm no fool," 
 replied the youth. Colonel Chaves saddled his 
 fleet mare, slung his heavy rifle along the saddle, 
 and galloped out at right angles to the presumed 
 course of the Indians. Coming to the top of a 
 timbered hill, he saw the Apaches coming toward 
 him ; while some twenty miles in the rear his 
 field-glass showed the dust of the pursuing Mexi- 
 cans. When the Indians were within two miles, 
 he rode boldly out from the timber into the prairie 
 to meet them, at the same time signalling back to 
 the trees. The bold " bluff " was successful. The 
 Apaches, never dreaming that one man would 
 have the audacity to face twenty of them, and 
 believing he must have a strong force at his back, 
 scattered to the mountains, and there fortified 
 themselves, abandoning the stolen stock. In has- 
 tening home to his sick son-in-law, Don Manuel 
 had a serious mishap. The mare fell on him, 
 breaking his leg so badly that he was three months 
 in bed. He remounted and rode home, however, 
 
 In 1861 Don Manuel received from President 
 Lincoln his commission as Lieutenant-Colonel of 
 the Second Regiment New Mexico Volunteers, of 
 which Miguel Pino was colonel. Moving from 
 their first station at Fort Fauntleroy (now Win- 
 gate), the regiment reached Valverde just before 
 the battle there with the rebels under Sibley. 
 General Roberts was driving the Confederates till 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HEEO. 215 
 
 Canby took personal command, and then the 
 Union forces were routed. The rebels started up 
 the river to capture Fort Union, the most impor- 
 tant post and supply depot in the Territory. Canby 
 followed them, sending Colonel Chaves with fifty 
 picked men to get ahead of the enemy, run off 
 stock, and destroy supplies a programme which 
 he brilliantly carried out. His force swelling to 
 two hundred men, he kept on to Fort Union and 
 joined Colonel Chevington, who had come with 
 his gallant regiment of Colorado volunteers, " the 
 Pike's Peaks." They came down to Glorieta to 
 meet the advancing rebels, and in the narrow pass 
 of Canoncito gave a terrible lesson to the drunken 
 invaders. Colonel Chaves and Captain Lewis 
 captured the rebel battery on a sharp hill ; and 
 then in a gallant dash captured and fired the 
 whole rebel wagon train, destroying all their 
 ammunition and provisions. The rebels fled in 
 confusion, and their stragglers demoralized an- 
 other force which was hard pressing General 
 Slough at Glorieta, a few miles away. The eyes 
 and the hearts of the East were on greater battle- 
 fields nearer home; and to this day few realize 
 how much was meant by that " little fight " which 
 drove Sibley and his guerrillas back to Texas, and 
 saved New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and 
 California to the Union. 
 
 When the volunteers disbanded, Colonel Chaves 
 returned to his Ojuelos ranch, only to find that 
 
216 A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 
 
 the Navajos had stolen his horses and his thirty 
 thousand head of sheep, and left him penniless. 
 His claim therefor has been approved by Congress, 
 and his great-grandchildren may get the money. 
 He then moved to the Pecos, and later to San 
 Mateo, where he ended his days. For more than 
 two decades, after New Mexico's share in the war 
 of the Rebellion was over, there were frequent 
 Indian outbreaks, in most of which Colonel Chaves 
 was a prominent figure. 
 
 Ah, what a rifle-shot was the withered, wiry old 
 man, even when I knew him ! New Mexico has 
 never had another such marksman as he was in 
 his prime ; and his six-foot, muzzle-loading rifle, of 
 enormous caliber, was never excelled by the finest 
 modern arms that tried conclusions with it. In all 
 his long life in nearly fifty years of which never 
 six months at a time were without warfare he 
 never was known to miss but one shot. And 
 never did he have to shoot twice at bear or deer or 
 mountain lion, and seldom more than once at 
 human foes. 
 
 I shall never forget my mingled amusement and 
 awe at an incident which occurred when he was 
 seventy-two years old and suffering fearfully from a 
 cataract in his eye. We were out with his grand- 
 son, Rodolfo Otero, a gallant lad and an admirable 
 shot. Rodolfo had a fine new Winchester, with 
 which he was doing some very clever shooting. 
 "Try it, grandpa," he kept urging the worn old 
 
A NEW MEXICAN HERO. 217 
 
 man, bent and wasted by disease. He had never 
 trusted our modern magazine guns, but at last 
 yielded to Rodolfo's entreaties. 
 
 " Go put me a mark on yon cedar," he said, 
 pointing to a gnarled tree a full hundred yards 
 away. Rodolfo ran over, and considerate of his 
 grandfather's age and condition fastened to the 
 tree a paper some six inches across. 
 
 " Va!" cried the old man, calling him back. 
 "What thinkest thou, hijito? That I am as the 
 moles ? Here, take thou this bullet, and make 
 me its mark on that paper ! " 
 
 Rodolfo did so. My eyes are none the worst in 
 the world, but /could not even see that distant, tiny 
 dot. Colonel Chaves raised the rifle in his withered 
 hands, looked painfully at the fluttering paper, 
 threw the rifle to his shoulder and fired all in 
 the time in which one might have counted five. 
 
 " Pues ! " he said, as the smoke cleared. " Now 
 it sees itself better ; " and he fired again with the 
 same rapidity. And when we walked up to the 
 mark, the first bullet was in the very spot Rodolfo 
 had marked, and the second so close beside it that 
 the flattened bits of lead touched ! 
 
 Little wonder that such a marksman, as cool in 
 mortal danger as in sport, a born commander and 
 a noble man, was the terror of the savages, and 
 was loved and is mourned by those he helped to 
 defend. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
 This book is due on the last DATE stamped below. 
 
 DHT13'82 
 
 OCT 14 1982 BEST 
 NOV 2 9 1982 UEC'D 
 
 100m-8,'65(F6282s8)2373