a-lano, and thence followed the adventurers to Ci-cu-ye and bent
the knee to Father Luis, and kissed the cross, and let water be
sprinkled over him, and did all the things shown him with so glad a
heart that the devoted priest gave praise for such a convert from the
pagan people. So pleased was he with the eagerness of Tahn-te to
learn, that he made him his own assistant at the ceremonies of the
Holy Faith.

And after each one, the boy washed his hands in running water, and
scattered prayer meal to the gods of the elements, and to the Sun
Father God, and knew that in Provi-whah his mother was praying also
that he be not harmed by the god of the gold hunters--and that he come
back strong with the white man's magic.

The boy Ka-yemo of the Tain-tsain clan was also sent--but neither boy
was told of the quest of the other. The old men decided it was better
so. Without pay they went with the Spanish adventurers, one serving
the men of arms and learning the ways of the strange animals, and the
other serving the priests and learning the symbols of the strangers'
creed of the one goddess, and two gods, and many Go-h[=e]-yahs, called
saints by the men of the iron clothes.

They both saw many strange things in Ci-cu-ye, and they saw the
strange Indian slave, whom the old men of Ci-cu-ye instructed to lead
the men of iron from their land with the romance of Quivera. And the
slave did it, and told the strangers of the mythic land of gold and
gems, and lost his life in the end by doing so, but the life of the
romance was more enduring than any other thing, and the spirit of that
treasure search still broods over the deserts and the mountains of
that land.

But the stay of Ka-yemo was not even the length of the first winter
with the strangers. For in Tiguex where the great captain (Coronado)
wintered, and made his comfort by turning the natives out of their
houses, there was a season of grievous strife ere the Spring came, and
the two boys of Te-hua saw things unspeakable as two hundred Indians
of the valley, captured under truce, were burned at the stake by the
soldiers of the cross.

One of the reasons for the crusade to the north as written in the
chronicles of Christian Mexico was to save the souls of the heathen
for the one god,--and his advocates were sending the said souls for
judgement as quickly as might be!

Tahn-te stood, pale and tense in the house where the chapel of Fray
Juan Padilla had been established,--once