wiki made no comment when i announced our acceptance of his offer of hospitality—if that was what it was. he merely turned on his heel and strode off, and i was forced to extend myself to catch up with him. kachina elected to accompany tawannears and peter. the remaining white-kilted men straggled back to resume the occupations they had abandoned when the girl's whistle blew. nobody paid any more attention to the awataba, whose smokes were rising all along the northern cliffs. a party of young girls were rounding up the scattered flock of sacred turkeys, and the river-bank was dotted with women washing clothes. the agricultural work in the fields was going on as if there had been no interruption.

both banks of the river for a league or more were lined with open gardens, and immediately beneath the breast on which homolobi was built were a series of fenced gardens and stone storehouses, easily defensible. the nearer we approached the village, the more remarkable it became. access to it was had by means of ladders and a trail which one man could hold against an army. its houses, solidly constructed of stone blocks laid in mortar, were three and four stories in height, joined together and surrounded by a wall that was strengthened with round and square towers. it crowded the top of the breast and was protected from assault from above by a bulging protuberance in the cliff overhead.

"have your people lived here long?" i asked wiki.

"since the beginning of time," he returned sententiously.

"have you many other villages?"

he eyed me askance a moment, then answered:

"the spaniards and others before them have destroyed all save ours. some of our brethren live under the tutelage of christian priests in the south, but they build their homes upon open rocks. we are the last of the dwellers in the cliffs."*

* this amazing statement has been corroborated by scientists of the smithsonian institution, who agree it is probable some of the cliff-dwellings were inhabited in recent historic times.—a.d.h.s.

"that is why you hate the spaniards," i said.

"yes, englishman. wherever they have gone they have slain our people. but for what you said to kachina and the fight you made to protect her and the sacred turkeys we should have slain you instantly. even the awataba had the hardihood to pursue you, in spite of the death you dealt them, because they supposed you were spaniards, and they knew that if spaniards escaped from their country, they would come back, bringing others with them, and in the end slay or enslave all not of their color."

"the spaniards have always been enemies of the english," i replied, anxious to propitiate him. "it was the english who first denied the right of the spaniards to exploit your country for themselves."

have i said that wiki had green eyes that sometimes sparkled and again seemed to flame? they stabbed at me like two daggers as he remarked—

"the english are white; we are red."

i said no more on that score. the man was as intelligent as i had first imagined, and cunning, too, possessed of information you would scarce expect to find in this isolated community in the heart of the great rock desert.

"we are friends," i protested, recurring to my original argument. "we have come amongst you practically without arms."

"you should not have come otherwise," he retorted.

we crossed an irrigation-ditch at this point, and i commented upon its excellent workmanship. he nodded his head without replying, but his manner declared as if he had shouted it: "fool of a white man! do you think your people are the only ones who can work in stone?"

i essayed once again to draw him out.

"how is it that you have no fear of the awataba?" i asked.

"they are children," he answered in his earlier phrase.

"but they are many times your number."

"they fear us."

we had entered the walled enclosures at the base of the breast, and he waved his hand to the bursting storehouses.

"when they starve they ask us for food, and if we have it to spare, we give them some. they know that if they fight us, we would never lift a hand to aid them, and they are too ignorant to help themselves."

i had no opportunity for further conversation, for we had come to the first of a series of ladders, each wide enough for two people to climb it at once, propped in ledges of the cliff-side. wiki went up them, hand over hand, with the agility of a sailor. as i put my foot upon the lowest rung to follow him, i heard a giggle behind me, and kachina pushed in front, dragging tawannears by the hand. she had discovered a new game, it seemed, which consisted in her pointing to a given object and pronouncing its name in her tongue, and then having tawannears christen it in the seneca dialect. she was going into all the details of the ladder and the trail with him—his face a study in rapture and sheepishness—when wiki called down a sharp command to her. she sobered instantly, and raced up the ladders after the priest, who continued beside her.

the people of homolobi watched our ascent with grins of amusement. the feat looked simple enough from the ground, but 'twas as difficult, in its way, as our climbing of the ice mountain of tamanoas. the ladders were the easiest part of it. after them came several sections of rock-trail over the swell of the breast as far as a projection which answered to the nipple, where another ladder led to the topmost section of the trail, which ran at an angle up to the entrance of the village walls, a door that peter must turn sideways to enter.

inside we were in total darkness, and i experienced a chilling fear of treachery. but the worst that happened to us was to crack heads and shins on unseen stairs, angles and doorposts as we were drawn through a dingy warren of passages. wiki guided me, and strangers conducted tawannears and peter. kachina must have skipped ahead of us, for she was the first person we identified when we stepped suddenly out of a gloomy vestibule into the bright, sun-smitten plaza or central space of the village.

this space was sufficiently large to accommodate all the population of the village, which must have numbered upwards of fifteen hundred souls. it was surrounded by the communal houses, in which these people lived, houses which made the long houses of the iroquois appear as primitive as the skin teepees of the dakota. they rose high above us, each story receding the depth of a room from the area of the one below it, so as to provide a succession of unroofed porches or verandas. these roof-tops were crowded with people, and several hundred men lounged in the central plaza.

directly opposite us and situated in a notch or recess in the cliff-side was a building of somewhat different proportions. it had the same peculiar recession of the upper stories, but instead of having four floors it had only three, the first story being twice as high as in the adjoining houses. there was a great doorway midway of its windowless facade, with monstrous stone figures, creatures with the bodies of men and the heads of fabulous beasts, entwined with snakes, on either side.

in front of this doorway stood three people, of whom kachina was the least remarkable. the one in the middle of the group was a very fat old woman, gray-haired, with dull, snaky eyes. she was dressed like kachina in a white robe, bordered with crude red, and she held herself with a certain conscious dignity that was imposing, whatever you might think about her character and personal cleanliness.

on her left was the voluble young man, who had evinced so strongly his disapproval of us after the fight; and not content with his kilt of serpent's-skins he now had a rattlesnake coiled around his neck, its head poised next his left ear. he took a step forward as we appeared in the plaza, and began declaiming in a harsh voice, the snake at his ear hissing an accompaniment. occasionally he would suspend his oration, and pretend to stop and listen to what the snake was telling him. the people heard him with awe; but i thought i surprised a look of mild cynicism upon wiki's face. as for kachina, she made no attempt to conceal her feelings.

after the voluble young man and the snake had talked until you could have heard the rustling of a grass-blade she interrupted them as ruthlessly as she had me. and she was not content with merely saying what she thought. she danced it, too. that is literally what i mean. she would say something, lift her eyes skyward, raise her arms in a beseeching gesture, and then dance a slow, stately measure, or perhaps a swift, heady one. betwixt dances she was making demands of something inside the temple or arguing with the fat old woman or with wiki.

when she ceased the voluble young man tried to continue his oration, but wiki stepped to the front and cut him off. then there was a four-sided debate, in which the fat old woman joined, and presently, she raised her arms in a gesture of invocation, blinked her eyes shut, waited—whilst everyone, including ourselves, became tense—and ejaculated a single sentence. after which she reopened her eyes, and waddled into the dark recesses of the temple, attended by the young man, no longer voluble, but very sullen, and hauling the snake from its embrace.

wiki expressed no sentiment in his face or actions, but kachina showed delight as plainly as she had disapprobation of the young man's suggestions, and she danced away by herself in the direction of a narrow door in one corner of the temple-block.

wiki crooked his finger.

"come," he said, and led us through another door to a stair which fetched us to the terrace on the roof of the fore part of the temple proper. we crossed this roof, eyed suspiciously by several men who wore the serpent's-skin kilt, to a doorway opening into a room probably twelve feet square. it had no windows, and its walls and floor were bare of furnishings.

"you may sleep here," wiki announced briefly. "food will be brought later."

"are we at liberty to go out if we please?" i asked is he was leaving.

"why not?" he returned indifferently. "but you must be careful. your faces are strange to our people."

we pondered this statement until our doubts were presently set at rest by a visit from a party of the temple priests—the wearers of the serpent's skin kilts—headed by the voluble young man. they stalked in whilst i was dressing an arrow-cut in tawannears' shoulder, their faces bleakly scowling, gathered up our guns, powder-horns and shot-pouches and walked out again. peter started to rise, but sank to his haunches at a word from me.

"we better break dot feller's headt," he grumbled.

"that was what they wanted," i said.

"otetiani is right," agreed tawannears. "the guns are useless. if we had resisted they would have made it an excuse to kill us."

"ja, dot's maype true," admitted peter thoughtfully. "andt what do we do now, eh?"

"nothing," i answered. "'tis sound strategy to hold our hands. this situation is still shaping. i know not what other powers there may be, but of the four leaders we have seen, i think wiki has to make up his mind about us. the serpent priest hates us for reasons of his own. the old woman has given no sign. the girl kachina has s fancy for tawannears, but there is as much danger as advantage in that. your feet are set upon a crooked path, brother."

tawannears smiled, as i had not seen him smile in years, with a kind of glad expectancy.

"there is an echo calling in my heart, brother," he said. "i do not yet know what it is saying, but it calls louder and louder. perhaps——"

kachina glided through the doorway.

"do not heed what kokyan does or says to you," she ordered me curtly. "he is jealous, poor, crawling ant! and he thinks he can spoil my plans."

"who is kokyan?" i queried.

she stared at me, childishly puzzled that anyone should be no continually ignorant.

"he who has just left."

"oh, the young man with the snake?"

"yes, stupid buffalo," she derided me.

"and why is he jealous!"

she dimpled like any other girl, and dug her sandal-toe in the dust of the floor.

"because of me, of course."

"of course," i echoed. "but he is not jealous of me, for instance?"

"oh, no," she answered frankly. "he is jealous of tawannears."

she pronounced the seneca's name with a delicious lisp.

"is he your lover?"

"he wants to be." she became confidential. "he has been this way since he succeeded his father as priest of yoki and voice of chua.* he has brought rain two years running now, and everybody says how mighty a priest and spell-master he is. but wiki says i must serve him first of all as sacred dancer, for massi sent me direct to him and not to kokyan. besides, i don't like kokyan. he is a good warrior and a clever priest—but i don't like him."

* the snake.

"is kokyan chief priest?"

"how ignorant you are, englishman! of course not! wiki is chief priest—and angwusi is priestess of tawa, the sun, the giver-of-life. kokyan is only priest of yoki. but when a priest of yoki is as successful as he is, he becomes really as important as the chief priest and the priestess. and then kokyan has been telling the young men how much better things would go if he was chief priest or had more influence in the council."

"but what does your chief say to all this?" i questioned.

"chief? what chief?"

"the chief of the village! and the war-chiefs."

she gurgled with laughter.

"you are own brother to the awataba, englishman! we do not have such chiefs. we look down on warriors. when we must fight, we all do; but we make no practice of war. the priests and the council govern the village."

"who are the council?" i pressed.

"oh, the priests—and the elders—the priests select them. but i am tired of talking with you, englishman. i came here to learn tawannears' speech. i told wiki i should. he told me i must not, and i said if i could not i should marry kokyan to-night. wiki does not want me to marry kokyan."

she sank down betwixt the seneca and me, pointing a finger at peter.

"what is that houaw's* name?"

* bear's.

"wait, wait!" i pleaded. "tell me why you left us on the ladder and went ahead into the village."

"no, i am tired of all that," she declared mutinously. "i shall talk with tawannears now."

"but 'tis he wishes to know," i lied. "and he must learn through me."

her face brightened.

"oh! indeed, you are stupid, englishman! why did you not say so before?"

"because i had no chance," i laughed.

"you are an awataba," she insisted. "you must have killed a spaniard, and taken his clothes. but you asked why wiki called me. it was because i talked with tawannears—and i am going to talk to him whenever i please. so i just told fat old angwusi! wiki said that kokyan would make trouble, and that i must go ahead and tell angwusi he was bringing you up to the village because you had saved me and the sacred turkeys and were not spaniards."

"and then?" i prompted her.

"why, then, i went to the kiva,* and kokyan was talking to angwusi against wiki, and i told him i would dance against him if he continued to be foolish. and he said that chua the snake had counseled him that you three were to be the doom of homolobi and you must all be slain for a sacrifice to chua."

* ceremonial place or temple.

"so that was what he was talking about when wiki brought us in?"

"yes, he told the people what chua had said, and that you would probably bring heavy rain to spoil the harvest or a drought next summer. and chua prophesied to him again whilst he talked, and said you came here plotting evil, especially the red one called tawannears.

"then i danced for massi, and cried to all the gods, and as i danced they told me that chua's voice had been mistaken, that men who saved the sacred dancer and the sacred turkeys of massi's shrine could not be massi's enemies. kokyan said it was not true, that you were chua's enemies. but i cried into the temple, and massi answered back that such things were best left unsaid, that they made it seem that chua was divided from massi.

"kokyan did not know what to say to that." she giggled reminiscently. "so wiki talked to angwusi, and she made a prayer to tawa for light."

"what did tawa say!" i demanded, for she had turned again to tawannears.

"that it was too early to decide."

that, mark you, was the width of the margin betwixt my comrades and i and death—what an old indian woman chose to say that the sun had told her to say!

"is it left so?" i asked uneasily.

"how else!" she snapped pettishly. "i did not come here to talk to you."

"but for how long is it left so?"

"until the festival at the end of this moon—the moon which precedes the harvest. but if you say any more, englishman, i will go to angwusi and ask her to have tawa say that the others may be saved, but you must be cast from the cliff."