rds in Kansas City, and Percy wanted to see
a big store in Chicago. Arthur was interlocutor and did not betray
himself.

"Now it's your turn, Tip."

Tip rolled over on his elbow and poked the fire, and his eyes looked
shyly out of his queer, tight little face. "My place is awful far away.
My Uncle Bill told me about it."

Tip's Uncle Bill was a wanderer, bitten with mining fever, who had
drifted into Sandtown with a broken arm, and when it was well had
drifted out again.

"Where is it?"

"Aw, it's down in New Mexico somewheres. There aren't no railroads or
anything. You have to go on mules, and you run out of water before you
get there and have to drink canned tomatoes."

"Well, go on, kid. What's it like when you do get there?"

Tip sat up and excitedly began his story.

"There's a big red rock there that goes right up out of the sand for
about nine hundred feet. The country's flat all around it, and this here
rock goes up all by itself, like a monument. They call it the Enchanted
Bluff down there, because no white man has ever been on top of it. The
sides are smooth rock, and straight up, like a wall. The Indians say
that hundreds of years ago, before the Spaniards came, there was a
village away up there in the air. The tribe that lived there had some
sort of steps, made out of wood and bark, bung down over the face of the
bluff, and the braves went down to hunt and carried water up in big jars
swung on their backs. They kept a big supply of water and dried meat up
there, and never went down except to hunt. They were a peaceful tribe
that made cloth and pottery, and they went up there to get out of the
wars. You see, they could pick off any war party that tried to get up
their little steps. The Indians say they were a handsome people, and
they had some sort of queer religion. Uncle Bill thinks they were
Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and left home. They weren't
fighters, anyhow.

"One time the braves were down hunting and an awful storm came up--a
kind of waterspout--and when they got back to their rock they found
their little staircase had been all broken to pieces, and only a few
steps were left hanging away up in the air. While they were camped at
the foot of the rock, wondering what to do, a war party from the north
came along and massacred 'em to a man, with all the old folks and women
looking on from the rock. Then the war party went on south and left the
village to get down the best way the