elf, too! An old rain priest at San Ildefonso, through the
kindness of Dr. Hewitt of the Archaeological School, took us down the
_estufa_ at that pueblo, where some of the bloodiest scenes of the
rebellion were enacted. Needless to say, he took us down in the day
time, when there are no ceremonies.

[Illustration: An adobe gateway of old-world charm in Santa Fe]

The _estufa_ is large enough to seat three or four hundred men. It is
night time. A few oil tapers are burning in stone saucers, the pueblo
lamp. The warriors come stealing down the ladder. No woman is admitted.
The men are dressed in linen trousers with colored blankets fastened
Grecian fashion at the waist. They seat themselves silently on the adobe
or cement benches around the circular wall. The altar place, whence
comes the Sacred Fire from the gods of the under world, is situated just
under the ladder. The priests descend, four or five of them, holding
their blankets in a square that acts as a drop curtain concealing the
altar. When all have descended, a trap door of brush above is closed.
The taper lamps go out. The priests drop their blankets; and behold on
the altar the sacred fire; and the outraged wise man in impassioned
speech denouncing white man rule, insult to the Indian gods, destruction
of the Spanish ruler!

Of the punished medicine men, one of the most incensed was an elderly
Indian called Pope, said to be originally from San Juan, but at that
time living in Taos. I don't know what ground there is for it, but
tradition has it that when Pope effected the curtain drop round the
sacred fire of the _estufa_ in Taos, he produced, or induced the
warriors looking on breathlessly to believe that he produced, three
infernal spirits from the under world, who came from the great war-god
Montezuma to command the pueblo race to unite with the Navajo and Apache
in driving the white man from the Southwest. If there be any truth in
the tradition, it is not hard to account for the trick. Tradition or
trick, it worked like magic. The warriors believed. Couriers went
scurrying by night from town to town, with the knotted cord--some say it
was of deer thong, others of palm leaf. The knots represented the number
of days to the time of uprising. The man, for instance, who ran from
Taos to Pecos, would pull out a knot for each day he ran. A new courier
would carry the cord on to the next town. There was some confusion about
the untying of those knots. Some say the