“Oga P’ Hoge Pare!”

No mistake was possible; the Tano was a brother, a Koshare like Zashue, and delighted to meet another from the far-distant west.  More and more lively the men became on both sides; clumsy attempts at explanation were made; words, signs, gestures passed between them, while walking briskly on; and all were merry and in good spirits.

It was night.  Behind the gigantic wall of mountains in the east a whitish glare arose, the light of the rising moon.  The group had reached the banks of the Rio de Santa Fe, near where now stands the church of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe.  Before them lay a dusky wilderness, abutting against steep hills.  On the highest of those, which overlooks the present town in the north, a terraced mound could be distinguished, and from its sides luminous points twinkled in ruddy light.  The thumping of drums, shrill flutes, and an undefined noise rhythmic in its character, in which human voices and numerous rattles were confusedly mingled, issued from a quarter above which a glow arose like that of a fire burning within.  That irregular pile was the pueblo of Oga P’ Hoge; it stood where Fort Marcy was subsequently erected by the United States troops.

The moon had risen and rested on the higher crests of the mountains.  Its light penetrated the basin in which now the town of Santa Fe extends, on both banks of the little stream and south of it.  When to-day the moon thus stands over the heights, and looks down the turrets and cupolas of the capitol, hospitals and seminaries glisten in phosphorescent light, and the towers of the cathedral loom up solemnly, casting on the ground before it jet-black shadows.  Over elegant dwellings, over modest flat roofs of adobe houses, over military buildings, institutes for the education of those of all races and creeds, the moonlight rests peacefully.  Brilliant music sounds in the plaza from the heights; in the northwest a spark rushes down in serpentine windings nearer and nearer,—­the approaching railway train!  From the south a shrill whistle is heard,—­another iron horse sweeping up with people and news from the outside world.  Shade-trees rustle in the evening breeze, and their leaves dance, alternately plunged in silvery brightness and transparent night.

To-day the heights of Fort Marcy are deserted, bleak by daylight, pale and yet frowning when shines the moon.  Since the seventeenth century life has sprung up at its base.  At the time when Hayoue and Zashue lived, life was above, and looked down upon a wilderness beneath.  To-day the hills are wild.  Formerly juniper-bushes, cedar, and cactus alone peopled the banks of the river, growing along the rills and on the drift-heaps formed by the torrent.

The group of men, with Hayoue and Zashue in their midst, halted on the south bank.  This did not suit Zashue; it struck him as rather unfriendly or at least as suspicious.  Their companions were evidently waiting for orders, ere they crossed the river.