by a ladder. "No
gate? Isn't there a window somewhere that I could crawl through? Well,
well! Dear me! But it's delightful to see how safe these excellent people
have made themselves."

So with many tremblings, and with the aid of a lariat fastened around her
waist and vigorously pulled from above by two Moquis, Aunt Maria clutched
and scraped her way to the top of the foundation terrace.

"I shall never go down in the world," she remarked with a shuddering
glance backward. "I shall pass the rest of my days here."

From the first platform the travellers were led to the second and third by
stone stairways. They were now upon the inside of the rectangle, and could
see two stories of doors facing the plaza and the reservoir in its centre,
the whole scene cheerful with the gay garments and smiling faces of the
Moquis.

"Beautiful!" said Aunt Maria. "That court is absolutely swept and dusted.
One might give a ball there. I should like to hear Lucretia Mott speak in
it."

Her reflections were interrupted by the courteous gestures of a
middle-aged, dignified Moqui, who was apparently inviting the party to
enter one of the dwellings.

Pepita and the other two Indian women, with the wounded muleteers, were
taken to another house. Aunt Maria, Clara, Thurstane, and Phineas Glover
entered the residence of the chief, and found themselves in a room six or
seven feet high, fifteen feet in length and ten in breadth. The floor was
solid, polished clay; the walls were built of the large, sunbaked bricks
called adobes; the ceilings were of beams, covered by short sticks, with
adobes over all. Skins, bows and arrows, quivers, antlers, blankets,
articles of clothing, and various simple ornaments hung on pegs driven
into the walls or lay packed upon shelves.

"They are a musical race, I see," observed Aunt Maria, pointing to a pair
of painted drumsticks tipped with gay feathers, and a reed wind-instrument
with a bell-shaped mouth like a clarionet. "Of course they are. The Welsh
were always famous for their bards and their harpers. Does anybody in our
party speak Welsh? What a pity we are such ignoramuses! We might have an
interesting conversation with these people. I should so like to hear their
traditions about the voyage across the Atlantic and the old mill at
Newport."

Her remarks were interrupted by a short speech from the chief, whom she at
first understood as relating the adventures of his ancestors, but who
finally made it