The Children of Cupa

by Mary Ellen Mannix

"You see, as we come nearer," replied the Indian, "that in the centre is a large, round spot where nothing is growing—no grass, no bush, no tree."

It was true. In strange contrast to the fresh verdure all around, this single, bald, unlovely spot, black as though fire had burned it, stood forth.

"Once, very long ago," said Mauricio, "there lived a tribe of Indians in those mountains over there where the Volcan smokes. They came every year here to this valley for their fiesta—all the tribe. Once they were at war with some others who dwelt beyond the Volcan, near to the peaks of the Cuyamaca. Then it happened that the son of the chief of the Volcans was wounded and captured in a fight, and they took him to the camp of the Cuyamacas, and there he was tended by the women.

"Then, when he was well and able to go again back to his own people, he vowed that he would have for his wife the daughter of the chief of the Cuyamacas, the fairest of her tribe, and that there should be peace forever between the Cuyamacas and the Volcans. Now, the chief of the Cuyamacas was very, very old, and he was not unwilling that peace should be before he died. Not so the chief of the Volcans. He called down all the wrath of the great spirit on his son, and the young man, angered at his father, swore that he would disobey him and join the side of the enemy against him. 'The great good spirit will desert thee,' said his father. 'Thou and thy posterity shall be accursed.'

"'Then I call upon the spirit of evil to aid me,' said the rash young brave, and bursting away from his father he betook himself to this valley. When he reached it he saw in the middle of the broad space a large, flat stone which before had not been in the valley. And a voice said in his ear: 'Lift up the stone.' But he said: 'I can not; it is twenty times broader, and many times heavier than I.' 'Lift up the stone,' said the voice again.

"Then he obeyed, and there came forth a legion of rattlesnakes, scattering in every direction; but they touched him not. He slept, and in the morning returned to the camp of the Cuyamacas and married the daughter of the chief. But the people did not trust him, and his wife taunted him with his ingratitude to his parents. He bowed his head and went forth once more. In the bitterness of his grief he wandered to the valley, and there he saw lying dead around the ashes of a camp-fire many braves and squaws and papooses of his tribe. His father and mother were there, and his sisters and his fellow-braves. All about them were the cascabeles darting to and fro, and then he knew that the evil spirit had done this thing because he had called upon him for aid.

"So he lay down in the centre of the valley, where the stone had been, and he cried out: 'I renounce you, O Spirit of Evil! Be it done unto me, O Spirit of Good, as it has been done unto my people.' Then there came a great fire out of the earth beneath him, and even to his bones he was destroyed. But perhaps he was thus purified from his sin. Since that time this place has been known as the 'Valley of the Rattlesnakes.' Where the young chief was burned no blade of grass has since grown."

"A very interesting story," said Mr. Page.

"But who told of it if they were all dead?" queried Walter, a little skeptical.

Mauricio shrugged his shoulders. "That I can not say," he replied. "It was an old story long before my grandfather was born."