xpect an attack on
their villages, the Pueblo laid numerous mines and torpedoes on all the
approaches and streets of their towns. While these mines did not
possess the destructive power of dynamite or gunpowder, they were
equally effective and powerful, and never failed to repulse the enemy,
especially if reinforced by hand grenades of like ammunition, thrown by
squaws and pappooses from the flat roofs of their houses. By some means
or other it had become known to the descendants of Montezuma that when
an Apache stepped on something out of the ordinary "he scented
mischief" and believed himself unclean and befouled with dishonor, and
fancied himself disgraced before God and man; and forthwith he would
hie himself away to do penance at the shrine of the nearest water
sprite. This superstition they brought from Asia, their native land.

When the day of our departure drew near, I visited my numerous friends
to bid them farewell and receive many like wishes in return. I must own
that I felt a pang of sadness when I saw tears well up in the innocent
eyes of sweet maidens and saw the fires dimmed in the black orbs of
lovely matrons whom I had held often in my arms to the measure and
tuneful melody of the fantastic wild fandango; musical Andalusian
strains which words cannot describe--soul-stirring, enchanting,
promising and denying, plaintive or jubilant, songs from Heaven or
wails from the depths of Hades. Here I lived the happiest hours of my
life, but being young, I did not realize it then.

When I came to the house of Don Reyes Alvarado, who was my chum and
bosom friend, and also of like age, he gave me a pleasant surprise. He
informed me that there would be a dance at the Hancho Indian's
settlement that same night, one of those ceremonial events which I had
long desired to attend in order to study the customs and habits of
these descendants of the Aztecs. Their social dances are inspired by
ancient customs and are the outbursts of the dormant, barbaric rites of
a religion which these people were forced to abandon by their
conquering masters, the Spaniards. Outwardly and visibly Christians,
taught to observe the customs of the Roman Catholic Church and to
conform to its ritual, these people, who were the scum and overflow
from villages of Pueblo Indians, were yet Aztec heathens in the
consciousness of their souls and inclination of their hearts.

Shortly after sunset we were on our way to the sand dunes of the Rio
Gran