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Title: Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land (Along The Rocky Range)

Author: Charles M. Skinner

Release Date: October, 2004  [EBook #6612]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 31, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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                           MYTHS AND LEGENDS
                                   OF
                              OUR OWN LAND

                                   By
                           Charles M. Skinner

                                Vol. 7.


                         ALONG THE ROCKY RANGE




CONTENTS:

Over the Divide
The Phantom Train of Marshall Pass
The River of Lost Souls
Riders of the Desert
The Division of Two Tribes
Besieged by Starvation
A Yellowstone Tragedy
The Broad House
The Death Waltz
The Flood at Santa Fe
Goddess of Salt
The Coming of the Navajos
The Ark on Superstition Mountains
The Pale Faced Lightning
The Weird Sentinel at Squaw Peak
Sacrifice of the Toltecs
Ta-Vwots Conquers the Sun
The Comanche Rider
Horned Toad and Giants
The Spider Tower
The Lost Trail
A Battle in the Air




                          ALONG THE ROCKY RANGE

                             OVER THE DIVIDE

The hope of finding El Dorado, that animated the adventurous Spaniards
who made the earlier recorded voyages to America, lived in the souls of
Western mountaineers as late as the first half of this century.  Ample
discoveries of gold in California and Colorado gave color to the belief
in this land of riches, and hunger, illness, privation, the persecutions
of savages, and death itself were braved in the effort to reach and
unlock the treasure caves of earth.  Until mining became a systematic
business, prospectors were dissatisfied with the smaller deposits of
precious metal and dreamed of golden hills farther away.  The unknown
regions beyond the Rocky Mountains were filled by imagination with
magnificent possibilities, and it was the hope of the miner to penetrate
the wilderness, "strike it rich," and "make his pile."

Thus, the region indicated as "over the divide" meaning the continental
water-shed-or "over the range" came to signify not a delectable land
alone, but a sum of delectable conditions, and, ultimately, the goal of
posthumous delights.  Hence the phrase in use to-day: "Poor Bill!  He's
gone over the divide."

The Indian's name of heaven--"the happy hunting ground"--is of similar
significance, and among many of the tribes it had a definite place in
the far Southwest, to which their souls were carried on cobweb floats.
Just before reaching it they came to a dark river that had to be crossed
on a log.  If they had been good in the world of the living they
suffered no harm from the rocks and surges, but if their lives had been
evil they never reached the farther shore, for they were swept into a
place of whirlpools, where, for ever and ever, they were tossed on the
torrent amid thousands of clinging, stinging snakes and shoals of putrid
fish.  From the far North and East the Milky Way was the star-path
across the divide.




                    THE PHANTOM TRAIN OF MARSHALL PASS

Soon after the rails were laid across Marshall Pass, Colorado, where
they go over a height of twelve thousand feet above the sea, an old
engineer named Nelson Edwards was assigned to a train.  He had travelled
the road with passengers behind him for a couple of months and met with
no accident, but one night as he set off for the divide he fancied that
the silence was deeper, the canon darker, and the air frostier than
usual.  A defective rail and an unsafe bridge had been reported that
morning, and he began the long ascent with some misgivings.  As he left
the first line of snow-sheds he heard a whistle echoing somewhere among
the ice and rocks, and at the same time the gong in his cab sounded and
he applied the brakes.

The conductor ran up and asked, "What did you stop for?"

"Why did you signal to stop?"

"I gave no signal.  Pull her open and light out, for we've got to pass
No. 19 at the switches, and there's a wild train climbing behind us."

Edwards drew the lever, sanded the track, and the heavy train got under
way again; but the whistles behind grew nearer, sounding danger-signals,
and in turning a curve he looked out and saw a train speeding after him
at a rate that must bring it against the rear of his own train if
something were not done.  He broke into a sweat as he pulled the
throttle wide open and lunged into a snow-bank.  The cars lurched, but
the snow was flung off and the train went roaring through another shed.
Here was where the defective rail had been reported.  No matter.  A
greater danger was pressing behind.  The fireman piled on coal until his
clothes were wet with perspiration, and fire belched from the smoke-
stack.  The passengers, too, having been warned of their peril, had
dressed themselves and were anxiously watching at the windows, for talk
went among them that a mad engineer was driving the train behind.

As Edwards crossed the summit he shut off steam and surrendered his
train to the force of gravity.  Looking back, he could see by the faint
light from new snow that the driving-wheels on the rear engine were
bigger than his own, and that a tall figure stood atop of the cars and
gestured franticly.  At a sharp turn in the track he found the other
train but two hundred yards behind, and as he swept around the curve the
engineer who was chasing him leaned from his window and laughed.  His
face was like dough.  Snow was falling and had begun to drift in the
hollows, but the trains flew on; bridges shook as they thundered across
them; wind screamed in the ears of the passengers; the suspected bridge
was reached; Edwards's heart was in his throat, but he seemed to clear
the chasm by a bound.  Now the switch was in sight, but No. 19 was not
there, and as the brakes were freed the train shot by like a flash.
Suddenly a red light appeared ahead, swinging to and fro on the track.
As well be run into behind as to crash into an obstacle ahead.  He heard
the whistle of the pursuing locomotive yelp behind him, yet he reversed
the lever and put on brakes, and for a few seconds lived in a hell of
dread.

Hearing no sound, now, he glanced back and saw the wild train almost
leap upon his own--yet just before it touched it the track seemed to
spread, the engine toppled from the bank, the whole train rolled
into the canon and vanished.  Edwards shuddered and listened.  No cry of
hurt men or hiss of steam came up--nothing but the groan of the wind as
it rolled through the black depth.  The lantern ahead, too, had
disappeared.  Now another danger impended, and there was no time to
linger, for No. 19 might be on its way ahead if he did not reach the
second switch before it moved out.  The mad run was resumed and the
second switch was reached in time.  As Edwards was finishing the run to
Green River, which he reached in the morning ahead of schedule, he found
written in the frost of his cab-window these words: "A frate train was
recked as yu saw.  Now that yu saw it yu will never make another run.
The enjine was not ounder control and four sexshun men wor killed.  If
yu ever run on this road again yu will be recked."  Edwards quit the
road that morning, and returning to Denver found employment on the Union
Pacific.  No wreck was discovered next day in the canon where he had
seen it, nor has the phantom train been in chase of any engineer who has
crossed the divide since that night.




                         THE RIVER OF LOST SOULS

In the days when Spain ruled the Western country an infantry regiment
was ordered out from Santa Fe to open communication with Florida and to
carry a chest of gold for the payment of the soldiers in St. Augustine.
The men wintered on the site of Trinidad, comforted by the society of
their wives and families, and in the spring the women and camp-followers
were directed to remain, while the troops set forward along the canon of
the Purgatoire--neither to reach their destination nor to return.  Did
they attempt to descend the stream in boats and go to wreck among the
rapids?  Were they swept into eternity by a freshet?  Did they lose
their provisions and starve in the desert?  Did the Indians revenge
themselves for brutality and selfishness by slaying them at night or
from an ambush?  Were they killed by banditti?  Did they sink in the
quicksands that led the river into subterranean canals?  None will ever
know, perhaps; but many years afterward a savage told a priest in Santa
Fe that the regiment had been surrounded by Indians, as Custer's command
was in Montana, and slain, to a man.  Seeing that escape was hopeless,
the colonel--so said the narrator--had buried the gold that he was
transporting.  Thousands of doubloons are believed to be hidden in the
canon, and thousands of dollars have been spent in searching for them.

After weeks had lapsed into months and months into years, and no word
came of the missing regiment, the priests named the river El Rio de las
Animas Perdidas--the River of Lost Souls.  The echoing of the flood as
it tumbled through the canon was said to be the lamentation of the
troopers.  French trappers softened the suggestion of the Spanish title
when they renamed it Purgatoire, and--"bullwhackers" teaming across the
plains twisted the French title into the unmeaning "Picketwire."  But
Americo-Spaniards keep alive the tradition, and the prayers of many have
ascended and do ascend for the succor of those who vanished so strangely
in the valley of Las Animas.




                           RIDERS OF THE DESERT

Among the sandstone columns of the Colorado foot-hills stood the lodge
of Ta-in-ga-ro (First Falling Thunder).  Though swift in the chase and
brave in battle, he seldom went abroad with neighboring tribes, for he
was happy in the society of his wife, Zecana (The Bird).  To sell beaver
and wild sheep-skins he often went with her to a post on the New Mexico
frontier, and it was while at this fort that a Spanish trader saw the
pretty Zecana, and, determining to win her, sent the Indian on a mission
into the heart of the mountains, with a promise that she should rest
securely at the settlement until his return.

On his way Ta-in-ga-ro stopped at the spring in Manitou, and after
drinking he cast beads and wampum into the well in oblation to its
deity.  The offering was flung out by the bubbling water, and as he
stared, distressed at this unwelcome omen, a picture formed on the
surface--the anguished features of Zecana.  He ran to his horse,
galloped away, and paused neither for rest nor food till he had reached
the post.  The Spaniard was gone.  Turning, then, to the foot-hills, he
urged his jaded horse toward his cabin, and arrived, one bright morning,
flushed with joy to see his wife before his door and to hear her
singing.  When he spoke she looked up carelessly and resumed her song.
She did not know him.  Reason was gone.

It was his cry of rage and grief, when, from her babbling, Ta-in-ga-ro
learned of the Spaniard's treachery, that brought the wandering mind
back for an instant.  Looking at her husband with a strange surprise and
pain, she plucked the knife from his belt.  Before he could realize her
purpose she had thrust it into her heart and had fallen dead at his
feet.  For hours he stood there in stupefaction, but the stolid Indian
nature soon resumed its sway.  Setting his lodge in order and feeding
his horse, he wrapped Zecana's body in a buffalo-skin, then slept
through the night in sheer exhaustion.  Two nights afterward the Indian
stood in the shadow of a room in the trading fort and watched the
Spaniard as he lay asleep.  Nobody knew how he passed the guard.

In the small hours the traitor was roused by the strain of a belt across
his mouth, and leaping up to fling it off, he felt the tug of a lariat
at his throat.  His struggles were useless.  In a few moments he was
bound hand and foot.  Lifting some strips of bark from the low roof, Ta-
in-ga-ro pushed the Spaniard through the aperture and lowered him to the
ground, outside the enclosure of which the house formed part.  Then, at
the embers of a fire he kindled an arrow wrapped in the down of
cottonwood and shot it into a haystack in the court.  In the smoke and
confusion thus made, his own escape was unseen, save by a guardsman
drowsily pacing his beat outside the square of buildings.  The sentinel
would have given the alarm, had not the Indian pounced on him like a
panther and laid him dead with a knife-stroke.

Catching up the Spaniard, the Indian tied him to the back of a horse and
set off beside him.  Thus they journeyed until they came to his lodge,
where he released the trader from his horse and fed him, but kept his
hands and legs hard bound, and paid no attention to his questions and
his appeals for liberty.  Tying a strong and half-trained horse at his
door, Ta-in-ga-ro placed a wooden saddle on him, cut off the Spaniard's
clothes, and put him astride of the beast.  After he had fastened him
into his seat with deer-skin thongs, he took Zecana's corpse from its
wrapping and tied it to his prisoner, face to face.

Then, loosing the horse, which was plunging and snorting to be rid of
his burden, he saw him rush off on the limitless desert, and followed on
his own strong steed.  At first the Spaniard fainted; on recovering he
struggled to get free, but his struggles only brought him closer to the
ghastly thing before him.  Noon-day heat covered him with sweat and
blood dripped from the wales that the cords cut in his flesh.  At night
he froze uncovered in the chill air, and, if for an instant his eyes
closed in sleep, a curse, yelled into his ear, awoke him.  Ta-inga-ro
gave him drink from time to time, but never food, and so they rode for
days.  At last hunger overbore his loathing, and sinking his teeth into
the dead flesh before him he feasted like a ghoul.

Still they rode, Ta-in-ga-ro never far from his victim, on whose
sufferings he gloated, until a gibbering cry told him that the Spaniard
had gone mad.  Then, and not till then, he drew rein and watched the
horse with its dead and maniac riders until they disappeared in the
yellow void.  He turned away, but nevermore sought his home.  To and
fro, through the brush, the sand, the alkali of the plains, go the ghost
riders, forever.




                        THE DIVISION OF TWO TRIBES

When white men first penetrated the Western wilderness of America they
found the tribes of Shoshone and Comanche at odds, and it is a legend of
the springs of Manitou that their differences began there.  This
"Saratoga of the West," nestling in a hollow of the foot-hills in the
shadow of the noble peak of Pike, was in old days common meeting-ground
for several families of red men.  Councils were held in safety there,
for no Indian dared provoke the wrath of the manitou whose breath
sparkled in the "medicine waters."  None?  Yes, one.  For, centuries ago
a Shoshone and a Comanche stopped here on their return from a hunt to
drink.  The Shoshone had been successful; the Comanche was empty handed
and ill tempered, jealous of the other's skill and fortune.  Flinging
down the fat deer that he was bearing homeward on his shoulders, the
Shoshone bent over the spring of sweet water, and, after pouring a
handful of it on the ground, as a libation to the spirit of the place,
he put his lips to the surface.  It needed but faint pretext for his
companion to begin a quarrel, and he did so in this fashion: "Why does a
stranger drink at the spring-head when one of the owners of the fountain
contents himself with its overflow?  How does a Shoshone dare to drink
above me?"

The other replied, "The Great Spirit places the water at the spring that
his children may drink it undefiled.  I am Ausaqua, chief of Shoshones,
and I drink at the head-water.  Shoshone and Comanche are brothers.  Let
them drink together."

"No.  The Shoshone pays tribute to the Comanche, and Wacomish leads that
nation to war.  He is chief of the Shoshone as he is of his own people."

"Wacomish lies.  His tongue is forked, like the snake's.  His heart is
black.  When the Great Spirit made his children he said not to one,
'Drink here,' and to another, 'Drink there,' but gave water that all
might drink."

The other made no answer, but as Ausaqua stooped toward the bubbling
surface Wacomish crept behind him, flung himself against the hunter,
forced his head beneath the water, and held him there until he was
drowned.  As he pulled the dead body from the spring the water became
agitated, and from the bubbles arose a vapor that gradually assumed the
form of a venerable Indian, with long white locks, in whom the murderer
recognized Waukauga, father of the Shoshone and Comanche nation, and a
man whose heroism and goodness made his name revered in both these
tribes.  The face of the patriarch was dark with wrath, and he cried, in
terrible tones, "Accursed of my race!  This day thou hast severed the
mightiest nation in the world.  The blood of the brave Shoshone appeals
for vengeance.  May the water of thy tribe be rank and bitter in their
throats."

Then, whirling up an elk-horn club, he brought it full on the head of
the wretched man, who cringed before him.  The murderer's head was burst
open and he tumbled lifeless into the spring, that to this day is
nauseous, while, to perpetuate the memory of Ausaqua, the manitou smote
a neighboring rock, and from it gushed a fountain of delicious water.
The bodies were found, and the partisans of both the hunters began on
that day a long and destructive warfare, in which other tribes became
involved until mountaineers were arrayed against plainsmen through all
that region.




                          BESIEGED BY STARVATION

A hundred years before the white men set up their trading-posts on the
Arkansas and Platte, a band of mountain hunters made a descent on what
they took to be a small company of plainsmen, but who proved to be the
enemy in force, and who, in turn, drove the Utes--for the aggressors
were of that tribe--into the hills.  Most of them took refuge on a
castellated rock on the south side of Bowlder Canon, where they held
their own for several days, rolling down huge rocks whenever an attempt
was made to storm the height; wherefore, seeing that the mountain was
too secure a stronghold to be taken in that way, the besiegers camped
about it, and, by cutting off the access of the beleaguered party to
game and to water, starved every one of them to death.

This, too, is the story of Starved Rock, on Illinois River, near Ottawa,
Illinois.  It is a sandstone bluff, one hundred and fifty feet high,
with a slope on one side only.  Its summit is an acre in extent, and at
the order of La Salle his Indian lieutenant, Tonti, fortified the place
and mounted a small cannon on it.  He died there afterward.  After the
killing of Pontiac at Cahokia, some of his people--the Ottawas--charged
the crime against their enemies, the Illinois.  The latter, being few in
number, entrenched themselves on Starved Rock, where they kept their
enemies at bay, but were unable to break their line to reach supplies.
For a time they secured water by letting down bark vessels into the
river at the end of thongs, but the Ottawas came under the bluff in
canoes and cut the cords.  Unwilling to surrender, the Illinois remained
there until all had died of starvation.  Bones and relics are found
occasionally at the top.

There is yet another place of which a similar narrative is extant--
namely, Crow Butte, Nebraska, which is two hundred feet high and
vertical on all sides save one, but on that a horseman may ascend in
safety.  A company of Crows, flying from the Sioux, gained this citadel
and defended the path so vigorously that their pursuers gave over all
attempts to follow them, but squatted calmly on the plain and proceeded
to starve them out.  On a dark night the besieged killed some of their
ponies and made lariats of their hides, by which they reached the ground
on the unguarded side of the rock.  They slid down, one at a time, and
made off all but one aged Indian, who stayed to keep the camp-fire
burning as a blind.  He went down and surrendered on the next day, but
the Sioux, respecting his age and loyalty, gave him freedom.




                          A YELLOWSTONE TRAGEDY

Although the Indians feared the geyser basins of the upper Yellowstone
country, believing the hissing and thundering to be voices of evil
spirits, they regarded the mountains at the head of the river as the
crest of the world, and whoso gained their summits could see the happy
hunting-grounds below, brightened with the homes of the blessed.  They
loved this land in which their fathers had hunted, and when they were
driven back from the settlements the Crows took refuge in what is now
Yellowstone Park.  Even here the soldiers pursued them, intent on
avenging acts that the red men had committed while suffering under the
sting of tyranny and wrong.  A mere remnant of the fugitive band
gathered at the head of that mighty rift in the earth known as the Grand
Canon of the Yellowstone--a remnant that had succeeded in escaping the
bullets of the soldiery,--and with Spartan courage they resolved to die
rather than be taken and carried away to pine in a distant prison.  They
built a raft and placed it on the river at the foot of the upper fall,
and for a few days they enjoyed the plenty and peace that were their
privilege in former times.  A short-lived peace, however, for one
morning they are aroused by the crack of rifles--the troops are upon
them.

Boarding their raft they thrust it toward the middle of the stream,
perhaps with the idea of gaining the opposite shore, but, if such is
their intent, it is thwarted by the rapidity of the current.  A few
among them have guns, that they discharge with slight effect at the
troops, who stand wondering on the shore.  The soldiers forbear to fire,
and watch, with something like dread, the descent of the raft as it
passes into the current, and, with many a turn and pitch, whirls on
faster and faster.  The death-song rises triumphant above the lash of
the waves and that distant but awful booming that is to be heard in the
canon.  Every red man has his face turned toward the foe with a look of
defiance, and the tones of the death-chant have in them something of
mockery no less than hate and vaunting.

The raft is now between the jaws of rock that yawn so hungrily.  Beyond
and below are vast walls, shelving toward the floor of the gulf a
thousand feet beneath--their brilliant colors shining in the sun of
morning that sheds as peaceful a light on wood and hill as if there were
no such thing as brother hunting brother in this free land of ours.  The
raft is galloping through the foam like a racehorse, and, hardened as
the soldiers are, they cannot repress a shudder as they see the fate
that the savages have chosen for themselves.  Now the brink is reached.
The raft tips toward the gulf, and with a cry of triumph the red men are
launched over the cataract, into the bellowing chasm, where the mists
weep forever on the rocks and mosses.




                             THE BROAD HOUSE

Down in the canon of Chaco, New Mexico, stands a building evidently
coeval with those of the cliff dwellers, that is still in good
preservation and is called the Broad House.  When Noqoilpi, the gambling
god, came on earth he strayed into this canon, and, finding the Moquis a
prosperous people, he envied them and resolved to win their property.
To do that he laid off a race-track at the bottom of the ravine and
challenged them to meet him there in games of chance and strength and
skill.  They accepted his challenge, and, as he could turn luck to his
own side, he soon won not their property alone, but their women and
children, and, finally, some of the men themselves.

In his greed he had acquired more than he wanted, and as the captives
were a burden to him he offered to make a partial restoration if the
people would build this house for him.  They did so and he gave up some
of the men and women.  The other gods looked with disapproval on this
performance, however, and they agreed to give the wind god power to
defeat him, for, now that he had secured his house, he had gone to
gambling again.  The wind god, in disguise as a Moqui, issued a
challenge, and the animals agreed to help him.

When the contest in tree-pulling took place the wind god pulled up a
large tree while Noqoilpi was unable to stir a smaller one.  That was
because the beavers had cut the roots of the larger.  In the ball
contest Noqoilpi drove the ball nearly to the bounds, but the wind god
sent his far beyond, for wrapped loosely in it was a bird that freed
itself before touching the ground and flew away.  In brief, Noqoilpi was
beaten at every point and the remaining captives left him, with jeers,
and returned to their people.

The gambler cursed and raged until the wind god seized him, fitted him
to a bow, like an arrow, and shot him into the sky.  He flew far out of
sight, and presently came to the long row of stone houses where the man
lives who carries the moon.  He pitied the gambler and made new animals
and people for him and let him down to the earth in old Mexico, the moon
people becoming Mexicans.  He returned to his old haunts and came
northward, building towns along the Rio Grande until he had passed the
site of Santa Fe, when his people urged him to go back, and after his
return they made him their god--Nakai Cigini.



                             THE DEATH WALTZ

Years ago, when all beyond the Missouri was a waste, the military post
at Fort Union, New Mexico, was the only spot for miles around where any
of the graces of social life could be discovered.  Among the ladies at
the post was a certain gay young woman, the sister-in-law of a captain,
who enjoyed the variety and spice of adventure to be found there, and
enjoyed, too, the homage that the young officers paid to her, for women
who could be loved or liked were not many in that wild country.  A young
lieutenant proved especially susceptible to her charms, and devoted
himself to her in the hope that he should ultimately win her hand.  His
experience with the world was not large enough to enable him to
distinguish between the womanly woman and the coquette.

One day messengers came dashing into the fort with news of an Apache
outbreak, and a detachment was ordered out to chase and punish the
marauding Indians.  The lieutenant was put in command of the expedition,
but before starting he confided his love to the young woman, who not
only acknowledged that she returned his affection, but promised that if
the fortune of war deprived him of life she would never marry another.
As he bade her good-by he was heard to say, "That is well.  Nobody else
shall have you.  I will come back and make my claim."

In a few days the detachment came back, but the lieutenant was missing.
It was noticed that the bride-elect grieved but little for him, and
nobody was surprised when she announced her intention of marrying a
young man from the East.  The wedding-day arrived.  All was gayety at
the post, and in the evening the mess-room was decorated for a ball.  As
the dance was in full swing a door flew open with a bang, letting in a
draught of air that made the candles burn dim, and a strange cry, unlike
that of any human creature, sounded through the house.  All eyes turned
to the door.  In it stood the swollen body of a dead man dressed in the
stained uniform of an officer.  The temple was marked by a hatchet-gash,
the scalp was gone, the eyes were wide open and, burned with a terrible
light.

Walking to the bride the body drew her from the arms of her husband,
who, like the rest of the company, stood as in a trance, without the
power of motion, and clasping her to its bosom began a waltz.  The
musicians, who afterward declared that they did not know what they were
doing, struck up a demoniac dance, and the couple spun around and
around, the woman growing paler and paler, until at last the fallen jaw
and staring eyes showed that life was also extinct in her.  The dead man
allowed her to sink to the floor, stood over her for a moment, wrung his
hands as he sounded his fearful cry again, then vanished through the
door.  A few days after, a troop of soldiers who had been to the scene
of the Apache encounter returned with the body of the lieutenant.




                          THE FLOOD AT SANTA FE

Many are the scenes of religious miracles in this country, although
French Canada and old Mexico boast of more.  So late as the prosaic year
of 1889 the Virgin was seen to descend into the streets of Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, to save herimage on the Catholic church in that place,
when it was swept by a deluge in which hundreds of persons perished.  It
was the wrath of the Madonna that caused just such a flood in New Mexico
long years ago.  There is in the old Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in
Santa Fe, a picture that commemorates the appearance of the Virgin to
Juan Diego, an Indian in Guadalupe, old Mexico, in the sixteenth
century.  She commanded that a chapel should be built for her, but the
bishop of the diocese declared that the man had been dreaming and told
him to go away.  The Virgin came to the Indian again, and still the
bishop declared that he had no evidence of the truth of what he said.
A third time the supernatural visitor appeared, and told Juan to climb
a certain difficult mountain, pick the flowers he would find there,
and take them to the bishop.

After a long and dangerous climb they were found, to the Indian's
amazement, growing in the snow.  He filled his blanket with them and
returned to the episcopal residence, but when he opened the folds before
the dignitary, he was more amazed to find not flowers, but a glowing
picture painted on his blanket.  It hangs now in Guadalupe, but is
duplicated in Santa Fe, where a statue of the Virgin is also kept.
These treasures are greatly prized and are resorted to in time of
illness and threatened disaster, the statue being taken through the
streets in procession when the rainy season is due.  Collections of
money are then made and prayers are put up for rain, to which appeals
the Virgin makes prompt response, the priests pointing triumphantly to
the results of their intercession.  One year, however, the rain did not
begin on time, though services were almost constantly continued before
the sacred picture and the sacred statue, and the angry people stripped
the image of its silks and gold lace and kicked it over the ground for
hours.  That night a violent rain set in and the town was nearly washed
away, so the populace hastened the work of reparation in order to save
their lives.  They cleansed the statue, dressed it still more
brilliantly, and addressed their prayers to the Virgin with more energy
and earnestness than ever before.




                             GODDESS OF SALT

Between Zuni and Pescado is a steep mesa, or table-land, with fantastic
rocks weathered into tower and roof-like prominences on its sides, while
near it is a high natural monument of stone.  Say the Zunis: The goddess
of salt was so troubled by the people who lived near her domain on the
sea-shore, and who took away her snowy treasures without offering any
sacrifice in return, that she forsook the ocean and went to live in the
mountains far away.  Whenever she stopped beside a pool to rest she made
it salt, and she wandered so long about the great basins of the West
that much of the water in them is bitter, and the yield of salt from the
larger lake near Zuni brings into the Zuni treasury large tolls from
other tribes that draw from it.

Here she met the turquoise god, who fell in love with her at sight, and
wooed so warmly that she accepted and married him.  For a time they
lived happily, but when the people learned that the goddess had
concealed herself among the mountains of New Mexico they followed her to
that land and troubled her again until she declared that she would leave
their view forever.  She entered this mesa, breaking her way through a
high wall of sandstone as she did so.  The arched portal through which
she passed is plainly visible.  As she went through, one of her plumes
was broken off, and falling into the valley it tipped upon its stem and
became the monument that is seen there.  The god of turquoise followed
his wife, and his footsteps may be traced in outcrops of pale-blue
stone.




                        THE COMING OF THE NAVAJOS

Many fantastic accounts of the origin of man are found among the red
tribes.  The Onondagas say that the Indians are made from red earth and
the white men from sea-foam.  Flesh-making clay is seen in the
precipitous bank in the ravine west of Onondaga Valley, where at night
the fairies "little fellows" sport and slide.  Among others, the Noah
legend finds a parallel.  Several tribes claim to have emerged from the
interior of the earth.  The Oneidas point to a hill near the falls of
Oswego River, New York, as their birthplace; the Wichitas rose from the
rocks about Red River; the Creeks from a knoll in the valley of Big
Black River in the Natchez country, where dwelt the Master of Breath;
the Aztecs were one of seven tribes that came out from the seven caverns
of Aztlan, or Place of the Heron; and the Navajos believe that they
emerged at a place known to them in the Navajo Mountains.

In the under world the Navajos were happy, for they had everything that
they could wish: there was no excess of heat or cold, trees and flowers
grew everywhere, and the day was marked by a bright cloud that arose in
the east, while a black cloud that came out of the west made the night.
Here they lived for centuries, and might have been there to this day had
not one of the tribe found an opening in the earth that led to some
place unknown.  He told of it to the whole tribe.  They set off up the
passage to see where it led, and after long and weary climbing the
surface was reached.  Pleased with the novelty of their surroundings,
they settled here, but on the fourth day after their arrival their queen
disappeared.

Their search for her was unavailing until some of the men came to the
mouth of the tunnel by which they had reached the upper land, when,
looking down, they saw their queen combing her long, black locks.  She
told them that she was dead and that her people could go to her only
after death, but that they would be happy in their old home.  With that
the earth shut together and the place has never since been open to the
eye of mortals.  Soon came the cannibal giants who ravaged the desert
lands and destroyed all of the tribe but four families, these having
found a refuge in a deep canon of the Navajo Mountains.  From their
retreat they could see a beam of light shining from one of the hills
above them, and on ascending to the place they found a beautiful girl
babe.

This child grew to womanhood under their care, and her charms attracted
the great manitou that rides on a white horse and carries the sun for a
shield.  He wooed and married her, and their children slew the giants
that had destroyed the Navajos.  After a time the manitou carried his
wife to his floating palace in the western water, which has since been
her home.  To her the prayers of the people are addressed, and twelve
immortals bear their petitions to her throne.




                    THE ARK ON SUPERSTITION MOUNTAINS

The Pima Indians of Arizona say that the father of all men and animals
was the butterfly, Cherwit Make (earth-maker), who fluttered down from
the clouds to the Blue Cliffs at the junction of the Verde and Salt
Rivers, and from his own sweat made men.  As the people multiplied they
grew selfish and quarrelsome, so that Cherwit Make was disgusted with
his handiwork and resolved to drown them all.  But first he told them,
in the voice of the north wind, to be honest and to live at peace.  The
prophet Suha, who interpreted this voice, was called a fool for
listening to the wind, but next night came the east wind and repeated
the command, with an added threat that the ruler of heaven would destroy
them all if they did not reform.

Again they scoffed, and on the next night the west wind cautioned them.
But this third warning was equally futile.  On the fourth night came the
south wind.  It breathed into Suha's ear that he alone had been good and
should be saved, and bade him make a hollow ball of spruce gum in which
he might float while the deluge lasted.  Suha and his wife immediately
set out to gather the gum, that they melted and shaped until they had
made a large, rounded ark, which they ballasted with jars of nuts,
acorn-meal and water, and meat of bear and venison.

On the day assigned Suha and his wife were looking regretfully down into
the green valleys from the ledge where the ark rested, listening to the
song of the harvesters, and sighing to think that so much beauty would
presently be laid waste, when a hand of fire was thrust from a cloud and
it smote the Blue Cliffs with a thunder-clang.  It was the signal.
Swift came the clouds from all directions, and down poured the rain.
Withdrawing into their waxen ball, Suha and his wife closed the portal.
Then for some days they were rolled and tossed on an ever-deepening sea.
Their stores had almost given out when the ark stopped, and breaking a
hole in its side its occupants stepped forth.

There was a tuna cactus growing at their feet, and they ate of its red
fruit greedily, but all around them was naught but water.  When night
came on they retired to the ark and slept--a night, a month, a year,
perhaps a century, for when they awoke the water was gone, the vales
were filled with verdure, and bird-songs rang through the woods.  The
delighted couple descended the Superstition Mountains, on which the ark
had rested, and went into its valleys, where they lived for a thousand
years, and became the parents of a great tribe.

But the evil was not all gone.  There was one Hauk, a devil of the
mountains, who stole their daughters and slew their sons.  One day,
while the women were spinning flax and cactus fibre and the men were
gathering maize, Hauk descended into the settlement and stole another of
Suha's daughters.  The patriarch, whose patience had been taxed to its
limit, then made a vow to slay the devil.  He watched to see by what way
he entered the valley.  He silently followed him into the Superstition
Mountains; he drugged the cactus wine that his daughter was to serve to
him; then, when he had drunk it, Suha emerged from his place of hiding
and beat out the brains of the stupefied fiend.

Some of the devil's brains were scattered and became seed for other
evil, but there was less wickedness in the world after Hauk had been
disposed of than there had been before.  Suha taught his people to build
adobe houses, to dig with shovels, to irrigate their land, to weave
cloth, and avoid wars.  But on his death-bed he foretold to them that
they would grow arrogant with wealth, covetous of the lands of others,
and would wage wars for gain.  When that time came there would be
another flood and not one should be saved--the bad should vanish and the
good would leave the earth and live in the sun. So firmly do the Pimas
rely on this prophecy that they will not cross Superstition Mountains,
for there sits Cherwit Make--awaiting the culmination of their
wickedness to let loose on the earth a mighty sea that lies dammed
behind the range.




                         THE PALE FACED LIGHTNING

Twenty miles from the capital of Arizona stands Mount Superstition--the
scene of many traditions, the object of many fears.  Two centuries ago
a tribe of Pueblo dwarfs arrived near it and tilled the soil and tended
their flocks about the settlements that grew along their line of march.
They were little people, four feet high, but they were a thousand strong
and clever. They were peaceful, like all intelligent people, and the
mystery surrounding their incantations and sun-worship was more potent
than a show of arms to frighten away those natural assassins, the
Apaches.

After they had lived near the mountain for five years the "little
people" learned that the Zunis were advancing from the south and made
preparations for defence.  Their sheep were concealed in obscure
valleys; provisions, tools, and arms were carried up the mountain; piles
of stone were placed along the edges of cliffs commanding the passes.
This work was superintended by a woman with a white face, fair hair, and
commanding form, who was held in reverence by the dwarfs; and she it
was--the Helen of a New-World Troy--who was causing this trouble, for
the Zunis claimed her on the ground that they had brought her from the
waters of the rising sun, and that it was only to escape an honorable
marriage with their chief that she had fled to the dwarfs.

Be that as it might, the Zunis marched on, meeting with faint resistance
until, on a bright afternoon, they massed on a slope of the mountain,
seven hundred in number.  The Apaches, expecting instant defeat of the
"little men," watched, from neighboring hills, the advance of the
invaders as they climbed nimbly toward the stone fort on the top of the
slope, brandishing clubs and stone spears, and bragging, as the fashion
of a red man is--and sometimes of a white one.

At a pool outside of the walls stood the pale woman, queenly and calm,
and as her white robe and brown hair fluttered in the wind both her
people and the foe looked upon her with admiration.  When but a hundred
yards away the Zunis rushed toward her with outstretched arms, whereupon
she stooped, picked up an earthen jar, emptied its contents into the
pool, and ran back.  In a moment sparks and balls of fire leaped from
crevices in the rocks, and as they touched the Indians many fell dead.
Others plunged blindly over the cliffs and were dashed to pieces.

In a few minutes the remainder of the force was in full retreat and not
an arrow had been shot.  The Apaches, though stricken with terror at
these pyrotechnics, overcame the memory of them sufficiently in a couple
of years to attempt the sack of the fort on their own account, but the
queen repelled them as she had forced back the Zunis, and with even
greater slaughter.  From that time the dwarfs were never harmed again,
but they went away, as suddenly as they had come, to a secret recess in
the mountains, where the Pale Faced Lightning still rules them.

Some of the Apaches maintain that her spirit haunts a cave on
Superstition Mountain, where her body vanished in a blaze of fire, and
this cave of the Spirit Mother is also pointed out on the south side of
Salt River.  A skeleton and cotton robes, ornamented and of silky
texture, were once found there.  It is said that electrical phenomena
are frequent on the mountain, and that iron, copper, salt, and copperas
lying near together may account for them.




                     THE WEIRD SENTINEL AT SQUAW PEAK

There is a cave under the highest butte of the Squaw Peak range,
Arizona, where a party of Tonto Indians was found by white men in 1868.
The white men were on the war-path, and when the Tontos fell into their
hands they shot them unhesitatingly, firing into the dark recesses of
the cavern, the fitful but fast-recurring flashes of their rifles
illuminating the interior and exposing to view the objects of their
hatred.

The massacre over, the cries and groans were hushed, the hunters strode
away, and over the mountains fell the calm that for thousands of years
had not been so rudely broken.  That night, when the moon shone into
this pit of death, a corpse arose, walked to a rock just within the
entrance, and took there its everlasting seat.

Long afterward a man who did not know its story entered this place, when
he was confronted by a thing, as he called it, that glared so fearfully
upon him that he fled in an ecstasy of terror.  Two prospectors
subsequently attempted to explore the cave, but the entrance was barred
by "the thing."  They gave one glance at the torn face, the bulging eyes
turned sidewise at them, the yellow fangs, the long hair, the spreading
claws, the livid, mouldy flesh, and rushed away.  A Western paper,
recounting their adventure, said that one of the men declared that there
was not money enough in Maricopa County to pay him to go there again,
while the other had never stopped running--at least, he had not returned
to his usual haunts since "the thing" looked at him.  Still, it is
haunted country all about here.  The souls of the Mojaves roam upon
Ghost Mountain, and the "bad men's hunting-grounds" of the Yumas and
Navajos are over in the volcanic country of Sonora.  It is, therefore,
no unusual thing to find signs and wonders in broad daylight.




                         SACRIFICE OF THE TOLTECS

Centuries ago, when Toltec civilization had extended over Arizona, and
perhaps over the whole West, the valleys were occupied by large towns--
the towns whose ruins are now known as the City of Ovens, City of
Stones, and City of the Dead.  The people worked at trades and arts that
had been practised by their ancestors before the pyramids were built in
Egypt.  Montezuma had come to the throne of Mexico, and the Aztecs were
a subject people; Europe had discovered America and forgotten it, and in
America the arrival of Europeans was recalled only in traditions.  But,
like other nations, the Toltecs became a prey to self-confidence, to
luxury, to wastefulness, and to deadening superstitions.  Already the
fierce tribes of the North were lurking on the confines of their country
in a faith of speedy conquest, and at times it seemed as if the elements
were against them.

The villagers were returning from the fields, one day, when the entire
region was smitten by an earthquake.  Houses trembled, rumblings were
heard, people fell in trying to reach the streets, and reservoirs burst,
wasting their contents on the fevered soil.  A sacrifice was offered.
Then came a second shock, and another mortal was offered in oblation.
As the earth still heaved and the earthquake demon muttered underground,
the king gave his daughter to the priests, that his people might be
spared, though he wrung his hands and beat his brow as he saw her led
away and knew that in an hour her blood would stream from the altar.

The girl walked firmly to the cave where the altar was erected--a cave
in Superstition Mountains.  She knelt and closed her eyes as the
officiating-priest uttered a prayer, and, gripping his knife of jade
stone, plunged it into her heart.  She fell without a struggle.  And
now, the end.

Hardly had the innocent blood drained out and the fires been lighted to
consume the body, when a pall of cloud came sweeping across the heavens;
a hot wind surged over the ground, laden with dust and smoke; the storm-
struck earth writhed anew beneath pelting thunder-bolts; no tremor this
time, but an upheaval that rent the rocks and flung the cities down.  It
was an hour of darkness and terror.  Roars of thunder mingled with the
more awful bellowing beneath; crash on crash told that houses and
temples were falling in vast ruin; the mountainsides were loosened and
the rush of avalanches added to the din; the air was thick, and through
the clouds the people groped their way toward the fields; rivers broke
from their confines and laid waste farms and gardens!  The gods had
indeed abandoned them, and the spirit of the king's daughter took its
flight in company with thousands of souls in whose behalf she had
suffered uselessly.

The king was crushed beneath his palace-roof and the sacerdotal
executioner perished in a fall of rock.  The survivors fled in panic and
the Ishmaelite tribes on their frontier entered their kingdom and
pillaged it of all abandoned wealth.  The cities never were rebuilt and
were rediscovered but a few years ago, when the maiden's skeleton was
also found.  Nor does any Indian cross Superstition Mountains without a
sense of apprehension.




                        TA-VWOTS CONQUERS THE SUN

The Indian is a great story-teller.  Every tribe has its traditions, and
the elderly men and women like to recount them, for they always find
listeners.  And odd stories they tell, too.  Just listen to this, for
example.  It is a legend among the tribes of Arizona.

While Ta-Vwots, the hare god, was asleep in the valley of Maopa, the Sun
mischievously burned his back, causing him to leap up with a howl.
"Aha!  It's you, is it, who played this trick on me?"  he cried, looking
at the Sun.  "I'll make it warm for you.  See if I don't."

And without more ado he set off to fight the Sun.  On the way he stopped
to pick and roast some corn, and when the people who had planted it ran
out and tried to punish him for the theft he scratched a hole in the
ground and ran in out of sight.  His pursuers shot arrows into the hole,
but Ta-Vwots had his breath with him, and it was an awfully strong
breath, for with it he turned all the arrows aside.  "The scamp is in
here," said one of the party.  Let's get at him another way."  So,
getting their flints and shovels, they began to dig.

"That's your game, is it?"  mumbled Ta-Vwots.  "I know a way out of this
that you don't know."  With a few puffs of his breath and a few kicks of
his legs he reached a great fissure that led into the rock behind him,
and along this passage he scrambled until he came to the edge of it in a
niche, from which he could watch his enemies digging.  When they had
made the hole quite large he shouted, "Be buried in the grave you have
dug for yourselves!"  And, hurling down a magic ball that he carried, he
caved the earth in on their heads.  Then he paced off, remarking, "To
fight is as good fun as to eat.  Vengeance is my work.  Every one I meet
will be an enemy.  No one shall escape my wrath."  And he sounded his
war-whoop.

Next day he saw two men heating rocks and chipping arrow-heads from
them.  "Let me help you, for hot rocks will not hurt me," he said.

"You would have us to believe you are a spirit, eh?"  they questioned,
with a jeer.

"No ghost," he answered, "but a better man than you.  Hold me on those
rocks, and, if I do not burn, you must let me do the same to you."

The men complied, and heating the stones to redness in the fire they
placed him against them, but failed to see that by his magic breath he
kept a current of air flowing between him and the hot surface.  Rising
unhurt, he demanded that they also should submit to the torture, and,
like true Indians, they did so.  When their flesh had been burned half
through and they were dead, he sounded his warwhoop and went on.

On the day following he met two women picking berries, and told them to
blow the leaves and thorns into his eyes.  They did so, as they
supposed, but with his magic breath he kept the stuff away from his
face.

"You are a ghost!"  the women exclaimed.

"No ghost," said he.  "Just a common person.  Leaves and thorns can do
no harm.  See, now."  And he puffed thorns into their faces and made
them blind.  "Aha!  You are caught with your own chaff I am on my way to
kill the Sun.  This is good practice."  And he slew them, sounded his
war-whoop, and went on.

The morning after this affair some women appeared on Hurricane Cliff and
the wind brought their words to his ears.  They were planning to kill
him by rolling rocks upon him as he passed.  As he drew near he
pretended to eat something with such enjoyment that they asked him what
it was.  He called out, "It is sweet.  Come to the edge and I will throw
it up to you."  With that he tossed something so nearly within their
reach that in bending forward to catch it they crowded too near the
brink, lost their balance, fell over, and were killed.  "You are victims
of your own greed.  One should never be so anxious as to kill one's
self."  This was his only comment, and, sounding the warwhoop, he went
on.

A day later he came upon two women making water jugs of willow baskets
lined with pitch, and he heard one whisper to the other, "Here comes
that bad Ta-Vwots.  How shall we destroy him?"

"What were you saying?"  asked the hare god.

"We just said, 'Here comes our grandson.'" (A common form of
endearment.)

"Is that all?  Then let me get into one of these water jugs while you
braid the neck."

He jumped in and lay quite still as they wove the neck, and they laughed
to think that it was braided so small that he could never escape, when--
puff! the jug was shattered and there was Ta-Vwots.  They did not know
anything about his magic breath.  They wondered how he got out.

"Easily enough," replied the hare god.  "These things may hold water,
but they can't hold men and women.  Try it, and see if they can."  With
their consent, Ta-Vwots began weaving the osiers about them, and in a
little while he had them caged.  "Now, come out," he said.  But, try as
they might, not a withe could they break.  "Ha, ha!  You are wise women,
aren't you?  Bottled in your own jugs!  I am on my way to kill the Sun.
In time I shall learn how."  Then, sounding his war-whoop, he struck
them dead with his magic ball and went on.

He met the Bear next day, and found him digging a hole to hide in, for
he had heard of the hare god and was afraid.  "Don't be frightened,
friend Bear," said the rogue.  "I'm not the sort of fellow to hide from.
How could a little chap like me hurt so many people?"  And he helped the
Bear to dig his den, but when it was finished he hid behind a rock, and
as the Bear thrust his head near him he launched his magic ball at his
face and made an end of him.  "I was afraid of this warrior," said
Ta-Vwots, "but he is dead, now, in his den."  And sounding his war-whoop
he went on.

It was on the day following that he met the Tarantula, a clever rascal,
who had a club that would deal a fatal blow to others, but would not
hurt himself.  He began to groan as Ta-Vwots drew near, and cried that
he had a pain caused by an evil spirit in his head.  Wouldn't Ta-Vwots
thump it out?  Indeed, he would.  He grasped the club and gave him the
soundest kind of a thwacking, but when the Tarantula shouted "Harder,"
he guessed that it was an enchanted weapon, and changing it for his
magic ball he finished the Tarantula at a blow.  "That is a stroke of
your own seeking," he remarked.  "I am on my way to kill the Sun.  Now I
know that I can do it."  And sounding his war-whoop he went on.

Next day he came to the edge of the world and looked off into space,
where thousands of careless people had fallen, and there he passed the
night under a tree.  At dawn he stood on the brink of the earth and the
instant that the Sun appeared he flung the magic ball full in his face.
The surface of the Sun was broken into a thousand pieces that spattered
over the earth and kindled a mighty conflagration.  Ta-Vwots crept under
the tree that had sheltered him, but that was of no avail against the
increasing heat.  He tried to run away, but the fire burned off his
toes, then his feet, then his legs, then his body, so that he ran on his
hands, and when his hands were burned off he walked on the stumps of his
arms.  At last his head alone remained, and that rolled over hill and
valley until it struck a rock, when the eyes burst and the tears that
gushed forth spread over the land, putting out the flames.  The Sun was
conquered, and at his trial before the other gods was reprimanded for
his mischievous pranks and condemned thereafter to travel across the sky
every day by the same trail.




                            THE COMANCHE RIDER

The ways of disposing of the Indian dead are many.  In some places
ground sepulture is common; in others, the corpses are placed in trees.
South Americans mummified their dead, and cremation was not unknown.
Enemies gave no thought to those that they had slain, after plucking off
their scalps as trophies, though they sometimes added the indignity of
mutilation in killing.

Sachem's Head, near Guilford, Connecticut, is so named because Uncas cut
a Pequot's head off and placed it in the crotch of an oak that grew
there.  It remained withering for years.  It was to save the body of
Polan from such a fate, after the fight on Sebago Lake in 1756, that his
brothers placed it under the root of a sturdy young beech that they had
pried out of the ground.  He was laid in the hollow in his war-dress,
with silver cross on his breast and bow and arrows in his hand; then,
the weight on the trunk being released, the sapling sprang back to its
place and afterward rose to a commanding height, fitly marking the
Indian's tomb.  Chief Blackbird, of the Omahas, was buried, in
accordance with his wish, on the summit of a bluff near the upper
Missouri, on the back of his favorite horse, fully equipped for travel,
with the scalps that he had taken hung to the bridle.

When a Comanche dies he is buried on the western side of the camp, that
his soul may follow the setting sun into the spirit world the speedier.
His bow, arrows, and valuables are interred with him, and his best pony
is killed at the grave that he may appear among his fellows in the happy
hunting grounds mounted and equipped.  An old Comanche who died near
Fort Sill was without relatives and poor, so his tribe thought that any
kind of a horse would do for him to range upon the fields of paradise.
They killed a spavined old plug and left him.  Two weeks from that time
the late unlamented galloped into a camp of the Wichitas on the back of
a lop-eared, bob-tailed, sheep-necked, ring-boned horse, with ribs like
a grate, and said he wanted his dinner.  Having secured a piece of meat,
formally presented to him on the end of a lodge-pole, he offered himself
to the view of his own people, alarming them by his glaring eyes and
sunken cheeks, and told them that he had come back to haunt them for a
stingy, inconsiderate lot, because the gate-keeper of heaven had refused
to admit him on so ill-conditioned a mount.  The camp broke up in
dismay.  Wichitas and Comanches journeyed, en masse, to Fort Sill for
protection, and since then they have sacrificed the best horses in their
possession when an unfriended one journeyed to the spirit world.

Myths and Legends




                          HORNED TOAD AND GIANTS

The Moquis have a legend that, long ago, when the principal mesa that
they occupy was higher than it is now, and when they owned all the
country from the mountains to the great river, giants came out of the
west and troubled them, going so far as to dine on Moquis.  It was hard
to get away, for the monsters could see all over the country from the
tops of the mesas.  The king of the tribe offered the handsomest woman
in his country and a thousand horses to any man who would deliver his
people from these giants.  This king was eaten like the rest, and the
citizens declined to elect another, because they were beginning to lose
faith in kings.  Still, there was one young brave whose single thought
was how to defeat the giants and save his people.

As he was walking down the mesa he saw a lizard, of the kind commonly
known as a horned toad, lying under a rock in pain.  He rolled the stone
away and was passing on, when a voice, that seemed to come out of the
earth, but that really came from the toad, asked him if he wished to
destroy the giants.  He desired nothing so much.  "Then take my horned
crest for a helmet."

Lolomi--that was the name of him--did as he was bid, and found that in a
moment the crest had swelled and covered his head so thickly that no
club could break through it.

"Now take my breastplate," continued the toad.  And though it would not
have covered the Indian's thumb-nail, when he put it on it so increased
in bulk that it corseleted his body and no arrow could pierce it.

"Now take the scales from my eyes," commanded the toad, and when he had
done so Lolomi felt as light as a feather.

"Go up and wait.  When you see a giant, go toward him, looking in his
eyes, and he will walk backward.  Walk around him until he has his back
to a precipice, then advance.  He will back away until he reaches the
edge of the mesa, when he will fall off and be killed."

Lolomi obeyed these instructions, for presently a giant loomed in the
distance and came striding across the plains half a mile at a step.  As
he drew near he flung a spear, but it glanced from the Indian's armor
like hail from a rock.  Then an arrow followed, and was turned.  At this
the giant lost courage, for he fancied that Lolomi was a spirit.
Fearing a blow if he turned, he kept his face toward Lolomi, who
manoeuvred so skilfully that when he had the giant's back to the edge of
a cliff he sprang at him, and the giant, with a yell of alarm, fell and
broke his bones on the rocks below.  So Lolomi killed many giants,
because they all walked back before him, and after they had fallen the
people heaped rocks on their bodies.  To this day the place is known as
"the giants' fall."  Then the tribe made Lolomi king and gave him the
most beautiful damsel for a wife.  As he was the best king they ever
had, they treasured his memory after he was dead, and used his name as a
term of greeting, so that "Lolomi" is a word of welcome, and will be
until the giants come again.




                             THE SPIDER TOWER

In Dead Man's Canon--a deep gorge that is lateral to the once populated
valley of the Rio de Chelly, Arizona--stands a stark spire of weathered
sandstone, its top rising eight hundred feet above its base in a sheer
uplift.  Centuries ago an inhabitant of one of the cave villages was
surprised by hostiles while hunting in this region, and was chased by
them into this canon.  As he ran he looked vainly from side to side in
the hope of securing a hiding-place, but succor came from a source that
was least expected, for on approaching this enormous obelisk, with
strength well-nigh exhausted, he saw a silken cord hanging from a notch
at its top.  Hastily knotting the end about his waist, that it might not
fall within reach of his pursuers, he climbed up, setting his feet into
roughnesses of the stone, and advancing, hand over hand, until he had
reached the summit, where he stayed, drinking dew and feeding on eagles'
eggs, until his enemies went away, for they could not reach him with
their arrows, defended as he was by points of rock.  The foemen having
gone, he safely descended by the cord and reached his home.  This help
had come from a friendly spider who saw his plight from her perch at the
top of the spire, and, weaving a web of extra thickness, she made one
end fast to a jag of rock while the other fell within his grasp--for
she, like all other of the brute tribe, liked the gentle cave-dwellers
better than the remorseless hunters.  Hence the name of the Spider
Tower.




                              THE LOST TRAIL

The canon of Oak Creek is choked by a mass of rock, shaped like a
keystone, and wedged into the jaws of the defile.  An elderly Ute tells
this story of it.  Acantow, one of the chiefs of his tribe, usually
placed his lodge beside the spring that bubbled from a thicket of wild
roses in the place where Rosita, Colorado, stands to-day.  He left his
wife--Manetabee (Rosebud)--in the lodge while he went across the
mountains to attend a council, and was gone four sleeps.  On his return
he found neither wife nor lodge, but footprints and hoofprints in the
ground showed to his keen eye that it was the Arapahoes who had been
there.

Getting on their trail he rode over it furiously, and at night had
reached Oak Canon, along which he travelled until he saw the gleam of a
small fire ahead.  A squall was coming up, and the noise of it might
have enabled him to gallop fairly into the group that he saw huddled
about the glow; but it is not in the nature of an Indian to do that,
and, tying his horse, he crawled forward.

There were fifteen of the Arapahoes, and they were gambling to decide
the ownership of Manetabee, who sat bound beneath a willow near them.
So engrossed were the savages in the contest that the snake-like
approach of Acantow was unnoticed until he had cut the thongs that bound
Manetabee's wrists and ankles--she did not cry out, for she had expected
rescue--and both had imperceptibly slid away from them.  Then, with a
yell, one of the gamblers pointed to the receding forms, and straightway
the fifteen made an onset.

Swinging his wife lightly to his shoulders Acantow set off at a run and
he had almost reached his horse when his foot caught in a root and he
fell headlong.  The pursuers were almost upon him when the storm burst
in fury.  A flood of fire rushed from the clouds and struck the earth
with an appalling roar.  Trees were snapped, rocks were splintered, and
a whirlwind passed.  Acantow was nearly insensible for a time--then he
felt the touch of the Rosebud's hand on his cheek, and together they
arose and looked about them.  A huge block of riven granite lay in the
canon, dripping blood.  Their enemies were not to be seen.

"The trail is gone," said Acantow.  "Manitou has broken it, that the
Arapahoes may never cross it more.  He would not allow them to take you.
Let us thank the Manitou."  So they went back to where the spring burst
amid the rose-bushes.




                           A BATTLE IN THE AIR

In the country about Tishomingo, Indian Territory, troubles are foretold
by a battle of unseen men in the air.  Whenever the sound of conflict is
heard it is an indication that many dead will lie in the fields, for it
heralds battle, starvation, or pestilence.  The powerful nation that
lived here once was completely annihilated by an opposing tribe, and in
the valley in the western part of the Territory there are mounds where
hundreds of men lie buried.  Spirits occupy the valley, and to the eyes
of the red men they are still seen, at times, continuing the fight.

In May, 1892, the last demonstration was made in the hearing of John
Willis, a United States marshal, who was hunting horse-thieves.  He was
belated one night and entered the vale of mounds, for he had no scruples
against sleeping there.  He had not, in fact, ever heard that the region
was haunted.  The snorting of his horse in the middle of the night awoke
him and he sprang to his feet, thinking that savages, outlaws, or, at
least, coyotes had disturbed the animal.  Although there was a good
moon, he could see nothing moving on the plain.  Yet the sounds that
filled the air were like the noise of an army, only a trifle subdued, as
if they were borne on the passing of a wind.  The rush of hoofs and of
feet, the striking of blows, the fall of bodies could be heard, and for
nearly an hour these fell rumors went across the earth.  At last the
horse became so frantic that Willis saddled him and rode away, and as he
reached the edge of the valley the sounds were heard going into the
distance.  Not until he reached a settlement did he learn of the spell
that rested on the place.





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