clay
to build a many-storied town for nearly a thousand souls was all to be
repeated. Their crops, too, and all other supplies, stored in dark
little rooms of the terraced houses, had been destroyed, and they were
in sore want. Truly a bitter punishment had been sent them by "those
above" for their treachery to Juan de Zaldivar.

When his men had sufficiently recovered from their wounds Vicente de
Zaldivar, the leader of probably the most wonderful capture in history,
marched victorious back to San Gabriel de los Espanoles, taking with him
eighty young Acoma girls, whom he sent to be educated by the nuns in Old
Mexico. What a shout must have gone up from the gray walls of the little
colony when its anxious watchers saw at last the wan and unexpected
tatters of its little army pricking slowly homeward across the snows on
jaded steeds!

The rest of the Pueblos, who had been lying demure as cats, with claws
sheathed, but every lithe muscle ready to spring, were fairly paralyzed
with awe. They had looked to see the Spaniards defeated, if not crushed,
at Acoma; and then a swift rising of all the tribes would have made
short work of the remaining invaders. But now the impossible had
happened! Ah'ko, the proud sky-city of the Queres; Ah'ko, the cliff-girt
and impregnable,--had fallen before the pale strangers! Its brave
warriors had come to naught, its strong houses were a chaos of smoking
ruins, its wealth was gone, its people nearly wiped from off the earth!
What use to struggle against "such men of power,"--these strange
wizards who must be precious to "those above," else they never could
have such superhuman prowess? The strung sinews relaxed, and the great
cat began to purr as though she had never dreamt of mousing. There was
no more thought of a rebellion against the Spaniards; and the Indians
even went out of their way to court the favor of these awesome
strangers. They brought Onate the news of the fall of Acoma several days
before Zaldivar and his heroes got back to the little colony, and even
were mean enough to deliver to him two Queres refugees from that dread
field who had sought shelter among them. Thenceforth Governor Onate had
no more trouble with the Pueblos.

But Acoma itself seemed to take the lesson to heart less than any of
them. Too crushed and broken to think of further war with its invincible
foes, it still remained bitterly hostile to the Spaniards for full
thirty years, until it was again conquere