spitable plains, enduring incredible privations and dangers. At
last, after those thousands of footsore miles, they walked into the
Mexican town of Tampico, on the great Gulf. They were received as those
come back from the dead. We lack the details of that grim and matchless
walk, but it is historically established. For nine years these poor
fellows zigzagged the deserts afoot, beginning in northeastern Kansas
and coming out far down in Mexico.

Sebastian died soon after his arrival in the Mexican State of Culiacan;
the hardships of the trip had been too much for even his strong young
body. His brother Lucas became a missionary among the Indians of
Zacatecas, Mexico, and carried on his work among them for many years,
dying at last in a ripe old age. As for the brave soldier Docampo, soon
after his return to civilization he disappeared from view. Perhaps old
Spanish documents may yet be discovered which will throw some light on
his subsequent life and his fate.

III.

THE WAR OF THE ROCK.

Some of the most characteristic heroisms and hardships of the Pioneers
in our domain cluster about the wondrous rock of Acoma, the strange
sky-city of the Queres[10] Pueblos. All the Pueblo cities were built in
positions which Nature herself had fortified,--a necessity of the times,
since they were surrounded by outnumbering hordes of the deadliest
warriors in history; but Acoma was most secure of all. In the midst of a
long valley, four miles wide, itself lined by almost insurmountable
precipices, towers a lofty rock, whose top is about seventy acres in
area, and whose walls, three hundred and fifty-seven feet high, are not
merely perpendicular, but in most places even overhanging. Upon its
summit was perched--and is to-day--the dizzy city of the Queres. The few
paths to the top--whereon a misstep will roll the victim to horrible
death, hundreds of feet below--are by wild, precipitous clefts, at the
head of which one determined man, with no other weapons than stones,
could almost hold at bay an army.

This strange aerial town was first heard of by Europeans in 1539, when
Fray Marcos, the discoverer of New Mexico, was told by the people of
Cibola of the great rock fortress of Hakuque,--their name for Acoma,
which the natives themselves called Ah'ko. In the following year
Coronado visited it with his little army, and has left us an accurate
account of its wonders. These first Europeans were well received there;
and the sup