ome in is when the fighting is over and they go in for
reconstruction. It's one thing to make fighters out of this sort of
stuff, but it's quite another thing to make respectable citizens out of
it. That's where the hitch will be. But as we don't intend to settle
down in this valley--unless we find that there's no way out of it--we
needn't bother about that part of the performance at all. That's their
funeral, not ours. So, for my part, the sooner they get their army in
shape, and get the fighting part settled, the better I'll be satisfied."

To do the members of the Council justice, they seemed to be even more
eager than Rayburn was to forward the work that they had in hand. From
the pier they went directly to the enclosure in the centre of the town,
within which was the building ordinarily occupied by the commandant of
the post and by the officials of the civil government; and in this
place, Tizoc informed us, they intended immediately to organize the new
government, and then to proceed with all possible despatch to make
arrangements for placing an army in the field.

In Tizoc's company, but more leisurely, we also went on to the
Citadel--as we found the enclosure about the smelting-works was
called--where comfortable quarters had been provided for us in the same
building wherein the Council was housed. Here we waited, in somewhat
strained idleness, while the Council carried on, in a chamber not far
removed from us, its exciting work of destroying a government that had
endured for more than a thousand years; and we were mightily surprised,
knowing how prodigious was the change that then was being wrought in
ancient institutions, by observing how quietly it all went on. The
murmur of talk that came to us, unchecked by any intervening doors, had
no sound of excitement or of anger or of violent emotion of any sort;
and I could not but hold in admiration the calm, self-contained natures
of these men who thus equably and rationally could deal with such vastly
weighty affairs.

While this great matter--which could end only in wild commotion and
fierce battling--went forward in this quiet way, Tizoc opened to us
much that was of curious interest touching the near-by gold-mine and
they who mined the gold. Of the existence of the mine, he said, the
Aztlanecas had remained ignorant for many generations after their coming
into the valley; and for many more generations but little gold had been
taken from it, because the metal w