Whether or not the infection of revolt spread by "moccasin telegram" from Canada to Mexico, the storm broke, and broke with frightful violence over the Southwest. The immediate cause was religious interference. All pueblo people have secret lodges held in underground _estufas_ or _kivas_. To these ceremonies no white man however favored is ever admitted. White men know as little of the rites practiced in these lodges by the pueblo people as when Coronado came in 1540. To the Spanish governors and priests, the thing was anathema--abomination of witchcraft and sorcery and secrecy that risked the eternal damnation of converts' souls. There was a garrison of only 250 men at the Palace; yet already the church boasted fifty friars, from eleven to seventeen missions, and converts by the thousands. But the souls of the holy _padres_ were sorely tried by these _estufa_ rites, "_platicas de noche_," "night conversations"--the priests called them. Well might all New Spain have been disturbed by these "night conversations." The subject bound under fearful oath of secrecy was nothing more nor less than the total extermination of every white man, woman and child north of the Rio Grande. Some unwise governor--Trevino, I think it was--had issued an edict in 1675 forbidding the pueblos to hold their secret lodges in the _estufas_. By way of enforcing his edict, he had forty-seven of the wise men or Indian priests (he called them "sorcerers") imprisoned; hanged three in the jail yard of the Palace as a warning, and after severe whipping and enforced fasts, sent the other forty-four home. Picture the situation to yourself! The wise men or governors of the pueblos are always old men elected out of respect for their superior wisdom, men used to having their slightest word implicitly obeyed. Whipped, shamed, disgraced, they dispersed from the Palace, down the Rio Grande to Isleta, west to the city on the impregnable rocks of Acoma, north to that whole group of pueblo cities from Jemez to Santa Fe and Pecos and Taos. What do you think they did? Fill up the underground _estufas_ and hang their heads in shame among men? Then, you don't know the Indian! You may break his neck; but you can't bend it. The very first thing they did was to gather their young warriors in the _estufas_. Picture that scene to yourself, too! An old rain priest at San Ildefonso, through the kindness of Dr. Hewitt of the Archaeological School, took us down the _estufa_ at that pueblo, where some of the bloodiest scenes of the rebellion were enacted. Needless to say, he took us down in the day time, when there are no ceremonies. [Illustration: An adobe gateway of old-world charm in Santa Fe]