e story really true?" I inquired, for I saw that something
interesting was coming.

"As true as if I had seen it myself. But I was not born when it
happened. Cochiti was larger then, a big village, twice as big as it is
to-day. But the Navajos were very powerful. They attacked us in the
daytime in the fields. They killed the men who went to gather firewood,
and they stole our cattle. At night they would come to the Zaashtesh and
carry off the women and the girls. There lived at the time a young
koitza who had recently married, and she liked her husband. One evening
after dark this woman went to the corral. There the Moshome seized her,
closed her mouth with their hands, dragged her from the village, tied
and gagged her, and placed her on a horse; then they rode off as fast as
they could, far, far away to the northwest and the hogans of their
people. The young woman cried bitterly, but it availed her nothing; she
had to live with one of the Navajos, had to cook for him and work his
corn-patch like other women. Soon the koitza saw that it was useless to
weep, so she put on a contented look in the daytime, while at night she
was thinking and scheming how she might escape from the enemy. Women are
sometimes wiser than we are ourselves. Is it not so, sa ukinyi?"

"Certainly."

"It was springtime when she was captured. She suffered summer to pass,
worked well, and appeared satisfied. The Moshome began to trust and even
to like her. It began to turn cool; the time came when the pinons are
ready for gathering, and the captive thought of flight. One morning she
said to a young woman of the Navajos, 'Let us go and gather pinon!' Both
women went to work and prepared food for several days, then they went
out into the timber far away until they came to a place where there were
many pinon-trees. There they gathered nuts, and placed them on the
blankets; and as noon-time came on, and it became warm, the young Navajo
woman grew sleepy. So the koitza from Cochiti said, 'Sister, lay your
head on my lap, I will cleanse your hair.' As the other was lying thus
and the Queres woman cleansed her head, she fell asleep. Thereupon the
captive took a large stone, crushed her skull with it, and killed her.
Was not that very wise?"

"Indeed," I uttered, but thought to myself that the action was not very
praiseworthy from our point of view.

"Then our koitza took a knife, scalped the dead, and concealed the scalp
under her skirt. It was now tow