And would you believe it, but it was the sacred truth, this
little American, albeit a mere boy, had the strength of a man. He
made that big heathen Navajo brute Pancho, the mayordomo of Don
Preciliano Chavez, of Las Vegas, stand stark before him in his
nakedness, with his hands raised to Heaven and compelled him, under
pain of instant death, to say his Pater Noster and three Ave Marias.
Others said that Don Jose Lopez was a man of foresight and discretion
and saw that the Indians were on the warpath and very dangerous.
Therefore, he prayed to his patron saint for spiritual guidance and
succor. San Miguel, in his wisdom, sent this young American heretic,
as undoubtedly it was best to fight evil with evil. And when the
devil, in the guise of a coyote, led the Indians to the attack, then
he was sorely wounded by the unerring aim of the gringito's rifle.
Others said that Don Jose Lopez had set up a shrine for the image of
his renowned patron saint, San Miguel, in his provision wagon, which
was being driven by the American boy, and the boy took the bullet
which wounded the coyote so sorely out of the saint's mouth, who had
bitten the sign of the cross thereon. And the evil one, in the
likeness of the coyote, rolled in his agony on the grass when he was
hit by the cross-marked bullet.
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