passed by Split Rock, the trail was bitten deep into the granite. I
think they could not have been more than three or four hundred years in
Ty-uonyi when I knew them. They came from farther up the river where
they had cities built into the rock. And before that? How should I know?
They said they came from a hole in the ground, from Shipapu. They traded
to the south with salt which they brought from the Crawling Water for
green stones and a kind of white wool which grew on bushes, from which
they made their clothes. There were no wandering tribes about except the
Dine and they were all devils."

"Devils they may have been," said the Navajo, "but they did not say
their prayers to a yellow cat, O Kabeyde."

"I speak but as the People of the Cliffs," said Moke-icha soothingly.
"If they called to Dine devils, doubtless they had reason; and if they
made prayers and images to me, it was not without a reason: not without
good reason." Her tail bristled a little as it curled at the tip like a
snake. Deep yellow glints swam at the backs of her half-shut eyes.

"It was because of the Dine, who were not friendly to the Queres, that
the towns were built as you see, with the solid outer wall and the doors
all opening on a court, at the foot of the cliff. It was hot and quiet
there with always something friendly going on, children tumbling about
among the dogs and the turkeys, an old man rattling a gourd and singing
the evil away from his eyes, or the _plump, plump_ of the mealing-stone
from the doorways. Now and then a maiden going by, with a tray of her
best cooking which she carried to her young man as a sign that she had
accepted him, would throw me a morsel, and at evenings the priests would
come out of the kivas and strike with a clapper of deer's shoulder on a
flint gong to call the people to the dancing-places."