Simple as was the incident, the flash of scarlet against the blue-black sky, the dignity and silence of the Indian, made the climax we had been awaiting. Nothing else happened. But it had been a night whose setting was so sharply defined, its premonitions so vibrantly tense with drama, that only that little was needed to carve it on our memory. We saw the town later, in broad daylight, swept by an unclean sand-storm, pitilessly stripped of romantic atmosphere. But the romance was obscured, not obliterated, for its roots are sunk deep in the past. Isleta has one of the finest built-up estufas of the pueblo towns. It has a thousand inhabitants, whose proximity to the railroad gives them the blessing or curse of the white man’s civilization. It has a church, whose ancient adobe flanks have been topped by two wooden bird-cages for steeples, for when the Indian adopts our ideas, his taste is rococo; when he clings to his own art, he shows a native dignity and simplicity. Lastly, Isleta has a ghost, well authenticated, and attested to by a cardinal, an archbishop, a governor, and other dignitaries, to say nothing of Juan Pancho, a man who does not lie. It is probably the oldest ghost in the United States. About the time of the first Spanish penetration into the Southwest, a friar made his way to the Pueblo country through the hostile tribes to the east. In one of the towns north of Santa Fé, probably Tesuque, he found shelter and a home. The friendly Indians, although keeping him half-prisoner, treated him kindly. He soon gained their respect and affection, as he applied his knowledge of medicine to their physical, and as a priest administered to their spiritual needs, without giving offense to the Pueblos’ own beliefs. He seems to have been a gentle and tactful creature, who won his way by the humane Christianity of his daily life. Gradually, as they became better acquainted with him, they admitted him to the inner circle of village life, even to the sacred ceremonies and underground rituals of the kiva. He was taught the significance of their medicine and of their tribal and religious symbols. Almost forgetting his alien blood, they had made him one of themselves on the day, twenty years later, when news came of the approach of armed conquistadores, with Coronado at their head, seeking plunder and the treasures of Cibola the legendary. Whether such treasure existed has never been known. If it did, the secret was closely guarded by the Indians. Perhaps the monk had been made their confidant. At any rate, he knew enough to make certain factions in the tribe regard him as an element of danger, when he should again meet with men of his own race, hostile to the people of his adoption. Would he remain true, thus tempted? It was a question of race against individual loyalty, and one Indian, more fanatic and suspicious than his brothers, cut the Gordian knot of the difficulty with a dagger, planted squarely in the back of the God-fearing friar.