mains of the blest. This curious, not to say absurd state of affairs,
is accounted for in the following manner:

It is maintained that an Indian suffers for his crimes only for a length
of time commensurate with the sins committed. Hence, while professing
their conviction in a future administration of rewards and punishments,
they also maintain that a very Judas of his tribe will, after expiating
his sins, enjoy the fullest delights of his more upright companions.
Thus it becomes very necessary, in their opinion, that the Good Spirit
should meet them in purgatory, and by word and act increase their
sufferings and bring them to a realizing sense of the power of him whom
they have offended; while, on the other hand, the Bad Spirit roams
through their Paradise still tempting the happy. Those who have gone to
the regions of punishment, they believe will be tortured for a time
proportioned to their offences, and then, being transferred to the land
of the happy, they are again liable to the temptations of the Evil
Spirit, and answerable again at a future time for their new offences. It
will be seen that this scheme of salvation is rather crude and not as
satisfactory in its details as one might desire.

In regard to the topographical positions of these two places--heaven and
hell--little can be ascertained. As near as I could learn, the offenders
inhabited a county lying far to the north, where snow and ice were the
minor concomitants of a bleak and barren land; whilst they suppose the
happy hunting grounds to be in the region of perpetual sunshine, where
every prospect is of the most charming character, and only the keenest
enjoyment is experienced; where buffaloes and other Indian luxuries
abound.

To such lengths was superstition carried, that the young warriors of the
tribe deemed no tortures, however brutal or sanguinary, too severe that
would by their endurance gain them the admittance to this favored
region; and to this end, annual feasts and religious ceremonies were
instituted, that the appalling cruelty of the rites might well make the
stoutest heart tremble, and the most valiant spirit quake with fear.

The Apaches were now on the eve of one of these festivals, and those who
aspired to be considered as braves, and to establish a reputation for
endurance under pain and suffering, were making minute and careful
preparations to endure the infliction creditably.

There was to be a series of performances under the s