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left. But one summer the invaders did not go back to their mountains as the people 

 expected, but brought their families with them and settled down. So, driven from their 

 homes and lands, starving in their little niches on the high cliffs, they could only steal 

 away during the night, and wander across the cheerless uplands. To one who has trav- 

 eled these steppes, such a flight seems terrible, and the mind hesitates to picture the suffering 

 of the sad fugitives. 



At the cristone they halted, and probably found friends, for the rocks and caves are 

 full of the nests of these human wrens and swallows. Here they collected, erected stone 

 fortifications and watch-towers, dug reservoirs in the rocks to hold a supply of water, 

 which in all cases is precarious in this latitude, and once more stood at bay. Their 

 foes came, and for one long month fought and were beaten back, and returned day after 

 day to the attack as merciless and inevitable as the tide. Meanwhile, the families of the 

 defenders were evacuating and moving south, and bravely did their protectors shield them 

 till they were all safely a hundred miles away. The besiegers were beaten back and 

 went away. But the narrative tells us that the hollows of the rocks were filed to the 

 brim with the mingled blood of conquerors and conquered, and red veins of it ran down 

 into the canon. It was such a victory as they could not afford to gain again, and they were 

 glad when the long fight was over to follow their wives and little ones to the South. 

 There, in the deserts of Arizona, on well-nigh unapproachable isolated bluffs, they built 

 new towns, and their few descendants, the Moquis, live in them to this day, preserving 

 more carefully and purely the history and veneration of their forefathers than their skill 

 or wisdom. It was from one of their old men that this traditional sketch was obtained. 



The bare floor of nearly white sandstone, upon which the butte stands" 

 is stained in gory streaks aud blotches by the action of an iron con- 

 stituent in another portion of the adjoining bluffs, and this feature 

 probably gave rise to the legend. Half a mile back, or north from this 

 historic butte, is a group of small cave-houses. A long bluff line, about 

 100 feet in height, of alternating bands of red and white sandstone, has, 

 along a line of its upper strata, quite a number of shallow caves, in 

 which were snug little retreats, securely walled in, the masonry perfect 

 and substantial. Along the top of the bluff were traces of old walls, but 

 well-nigh obliterated. 



While passing the mouth of a wide side-caiion, coming in from the 

 right, a tall, black-looking tower caught our eye, perched upon the very 

 brink of the mesa, overlooking the valley. Tying our riding-animals 

 at the foot, and leading the pack-mule, with photographic kit, we soon 

 struck into an old trail, worn deep into the rocks, winding aud twisting 

 among great bowlders, and overgrown and obstructed with rank growth 

 of sage, cedar, and cacti. In its day, the trail had been a good one; 

 now it was anything but such. Bad as it was, however, it was the only 

 way to the summit, aud we were thankful for it. Skirting the edge of 

 the mesa a few yards, we came to the tower, the trail passing ba(!k of 

 it and on up to a higher level. From above had rolled down a huge 

 block of sandstone, lodging upon the brink, and upon this the tower 

 was built, so that from below both appeared as one. They were of the 

 same diameter, about 10 feet, and some 18 feet in height, equally 

 divided between rock and tower. In construction, it was similar to 

 those already described, of single wall. It was evidently an outpost 

 or watch-tower, guarding the api^roach to a large settlement upon or be- 

 yond the mesa lying above it. From this point we now struck out for 

 another group of ruins lying upon a nameless stream, some eight or ten 

 miles farther west. Four or five miles we followed the McElmo down, 

 the trail good, the whole surface covered with a dense growth of arte- 

 misia and groves of cedar and pinon, with cottonwoods fringing the dry 

 stream. Branching off" at right angles, crossing the heads of two canons 

 which opened out quickly into great gorges, and then descending into a 

 valley densely covered with greasewood, we came upon the ruins we 

 were in search of. Through the valley ran a deep gnlcli, a narrow 

 thread of warm, brackish water appearing at intervals in its bed, and 

 gathering into pools in basins a short distance below the ruins. 



