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Having secured this privilege, he posted himself fifteen or twenty miles to the southwest of Tegua, behind a butte which was extensive enough to conceal his wild cavalry, even in its grazings. He undoubtedly supposed that, when the train should quit its shelter, it would go to the west or to the south. In either case he was in a position to fall upon it.
"Tegua is the most eastern of the Moqui pueblos. There are three on this bluff. Mooshaneh and two others are on a butte to the west. Oraybe is further north." "What a powerful confederacy!" said Aunt Maria. "The United States of the Moquis!" After a breathless ascent of at least eight hundred feet, they reached the undulated, barren, rocky surface of a plateau.
As for myself, I am anxious to reach the San Juan and get something to report about it." "The ladies will have a day or two of discomfort," returned Coronado; "but you and I will see that they run no danger." Nine days after the arrival of the emigrants at Tegua they set out for the San Juan. The wagons were left parked at the base of the butte under the care of the Moquis.
Here the whole population of Tegua had collected; and for the first time the visitors saw Moqui women and children.
From this cistern large earthen pipes led off in various directions to irrigate the terraces below. "It seems to me that we are discovering America," exclaimed Aunt Maria, her face scarlet with exercise and enthusiasm. Presently she asked, in full faith that she was approaching a metropolis, "What is the name of the city?" "This must be Tegua," replied Thurstane.
Incredible as the thing seemed, so incredible that they had not at first believed their eyes, they were at the base of the walls of a fortress. A confused, general murmur broke forth of "Ruins! Pueblos! Casas Grandes! Casas de Montezuma!" The architecture, unlike that of Tegua, but similar to that of the ruins of the Gila, was of adobes.
The place, as claimed by some historians, was then named El Teguayo, a Spanish adaptation of the word "Tegua," the name of the Pueblo nation, which was quite numerous, and occupied Santa Fe and the contiguous country. It very soon, from its central position and charming climate, became the leading Spanish town, and the capital of the Province.
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