There was a sickening, crashing thud, and twenty Navajos fell to
earth with crushed skulls, each cabeza having been whacked
simultaneously, right and left, fore and aft, by two stone clubs in
the hands of a pair of devils.
It had always been an enigma to me that the Pueblo Indians, who were
not to be matched as fighters against the Apache and Navajo had been
able to defend their villages against the onslaught of these fierce
tribes, their hereditary enemies. Don Juan Mestal enlightened me on
that topic. He said the explanation therefor was to be found in a
certain religious superstition of the Navajos and Apaches, which
circumstance the Pueblo Indians took advantage of and exploited to
the saving of their lives. When they had reason to expect an attack
on their villages, the Pueblo laid numerous mines and torpedoes on
all the approaches and streets of their towns. While these mines did
not possess the destructive power of dynamite or gunpowder, they were
equally effective and powerful, and never failed to repulse the
enemy, especially if reinforced by hand grenades of like ammunition,
thrown by squaws and pappooses from the flat roofs of their houses.
By some means or other it had become known to the descendants of
Montezuma that when an Apache stepped on something out of the
ordinary "he scented mischief" and believed himself unclean and
befouled with dishonor, and fancied himself disgraced before God and
man; and forthwith he would hie himself away to do penance at the
shrine of the nearest water sprite.
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