was converted by the Great Spirit into
red pipe-stone; therefore, it was always considered neutral ground,
belonging to all tribes alike, and all were to make their pipes out of
it and smoke together. While they were drowning together, a young woman,
Kwaptan, a virgin, caught hold of the foot of a very large bird that was
flying over at the time, and was carried to the top of a hill that was
not far away and above the water. There she had twins, their father
being the war-eagle that had carried her off, and her children have
since peopled the earth. The pipe-stone, which is the flesh of their
ancestors, is smoked by them as the symbol of peace, and the eagle
quills decorate the heads of their warriors.

Severed about seven or eight feet from the main wall of the quarry by
some convulsion of nature ages ago, there is an immense column just
equal in height to the wall, seven feet in diameter and beautifully
polished on its top and sides. It is called The Medicine, or Leaping
Rock, and considerable nerve is required to jump on it from the main
ledge and back again. Many an Indian's heart, in the past, has sighed
for the honour of the feat without daring to attempt it. A few,
according to the records of the tribes, have tried it with success, and
left their arrows standing up in its crevice; others have made the leap
and reached its slippery surface only to slide off, and suffer instant
death on the craggy rocks in the awful chasm below. Every young man of
the many tribes was ambitious to perform the feat, and those who had
successfully accomplished it were permitted to boast of it all their
lives.

CHAPTER XIV. TRAPPERS.

The initial opening of the trade with New Mexico from the Missouri
River, as has been related, was not direct to Santa Fe. The limited
number of pack-trains at first passed to the north of the Raton Range,
and travelled to the Spanish settlements in the valley of Taos.

On this original Trail, where now is situated the beautiful city of
Pueblo, the second place of importance in Colorado, there was a little
Indian trading-post called "the Pueblo," from which the present thriving
place derives its name. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad
practically follows the same route that the traders did to reach Pueblo,
as it also does that which the freight caravans later followed from the
Missouri River direct to Santa Fe.

The old Pueblo fort, as nearly as can be determined now, was built a