roomed
houses were clustered also around the sloping sides. About a hundred
yards south from their dwellings the people of the mounds built for
their own protection a strong wall entirely across the mesa, which at
that point is contracted to about 200 feet in width, with deep vertical
cliffs on either side. The base of the wall is still quite distinct, and
is about 3 feet thick.

But no reconciliation was ever effected between the Walpi and the
Sikyatki and their allies, and in spite of their defensive wall frequent
assaults were made upon the latter until they were forced to retreat.
The greater number of them retired to Oraibi and the remainder to
Sikyatki, and the feud was still maintained between them and the Walpi.

[Illustration: Plate VII. Horn House ruin, plan.]

Some of the incidents as well as the disastrous termination of this feud
are still narrated. A party of the Sikyatki went prowling through Walpi
one day while the men were afield, and among other outrages, one of them
shot an arrow through a window and killed a chief's daughter while she
was grinding corn. The chief's son resolved to avenge the death of his
sister, and some time after this went to Sikyatki, professedly to take
part in a religious dance, in which he joined until just before the
close of the ceremony. Having previously observed where the handsomest
girl was seated among the spectators on the house terraces, he ran up
the ladder as if to offer her a prayer emblem, but instead he drew out a
sharp flint knife from his girdle and cut her throat. He threw the body
down where all could see it, and ran along the adjoining terraces till
he cleared the village. A little way up the mesa was a large flat rock,
upon which he sprang and took off his dancer's mask so that all might
recognize him; then turning again to the mesa he sped swiftly up the
trail and escaped.

And so foray and slaughter continued to alternate between them until the
planting season of some indefinite year came around. All the Sikyatki
men were to begin the season by planting the fields of their chief on a
certain day, which was announced from the housetop by the Second Chief
as he made his customary evening proclamations, and the Walpi, becoming
aware of this, planned a fatal onslaught. Every man and woman able to
draw a bow or wield a weapon were got in readiness and at night they
crossed the mesa and concealed themselves along its edge, overlooking
the doomed village. W