view, when I felt something coming behind me
swiftly and stealthily. I had no time to turn before it sprang and one
dark skinny arm went around my neck.

It was an Indian, who held me with a grip like closing steel. I was
almost helpless, from the pressure on my throat when Jim turned, hearing
the scuffle and sprang to my help.

It took all his strength to tear the old Indian hag loose, for such it
was. She was a terrible object to my startled eyes, with her grey bush
of hair, parchment withered skin, the lean lines of her throat and the
eyes beaming with the weird light of insanity.

Her strength seemed to leave her suddenly and she sat crouching in a
dark corner. Keeping her eyes fastened on us and her lips moving in some
strange incantation. Suddenly she sprang up with her claw-like hands
stretched toward us, spitting at us; a very picture of demoniacal fury.
Then she subsided again.

It was more like the rage of a wild beast than of a human being. And it
gave me a sensation of horror to think that she had had me in her grip.
Next to the tarantula she seemed the most repulsive.

"The old lady seems to have taken a sudden fancy to you," said Jim, as
we stood looking at her.

"What is she doing up here all alone?" asked Tom.

"She may have been able to hide when the Apaches made their raid," Jim
replied, "or possibly she was so old that she was worthless and I guess
she is something of a sorceress, so they thought it best to leave her
alone. She is trying to get the Indian sign on Jo now."

The old hag was pointing at me, with one long skinny finger and
muttering; something that repeated the same words over and over again.
She started to rise up and I shrunk back. I hated being singled out by
her.

"Sit down you," thundered Jim, "down, I tell you. No more of your cursed
nonsense."

The old woman actually obeyed him and she sank back, her grey head
shaking with palsy. I guess she thought that Jim was the Big Chief all
right.

"Come on, boys," he said, "let's call on somebody else. The poor old
lady is too eccentric and we don't want to excite her."

So we went out, but we found nothing more of especial interest, except
that Jim unearthed a blanket that had evidently belonged to some Navajo.
It was thick and warm, with white ground and grey design.

After finishing with the village we went out on the mesa to look around.
We found that it was covered with quite a depth of soil and there were
signs that it