rs. The time was sure to come
when the crops would no longer be adequate for all. Furthermore, a
positive danger threatened the people in their dwellings. The rock,
being extremely friable, crumbled constantly; and now and then inhabited
caves were falling a prey to the wear and tear of the material in which
they had been excavated. As this slow decay was sure to continue, it was
logical to expect that room must be found for the houseless outside.
Already the Corn clan had been compelled to build a house in the bottom
of the valley. All this further tended to curtail the space for
agriculture, and rendered a diminution of numbers prospectively
imperative.

These facts had been recognized by Tyope, and he had talked with the
Koshare Naua about them for some time past. They were the only persons
who had thought of them, not so much deploring the necessity arising
therefrom in the future as hailing them as welcome pretexts for their
immediate personal aims. Neither Tyope nor the Naua had such high
ambition as to aspire to a change of the basis of social organization.
Neither of them had any conception of government but what was purely
tribal, but they both aspired to offices and dignities such as tribal
organization alone knows. These seemed unattainable for them as long as
there were other powerful clans at the Rito besides their own, whereas
in case some of the former were expelled, it would leave vacant and at
their disposal the positions which they coveted.

Tyope, for instance, looked forward to the dignity of head war-chief,
or maseua; but as long as Topanashka lived he saw no chance for himself.
He therefore concocted with the young Navajo the sinister plan of
murdering the old man. It was even uncertain, in presence of the two
powerful clans of Tanyi and Tyame, whether after the death of Topanashka
it would be possible for him to secure the succession. For the chief
penitents, who selected officially the new incumbent, while they were in
no manner accessible to outside influence, might consider the general
tendency of affairs, and for the same reasons that they chose Hoshkanyi
Tihua for tapop might determine upon appointing some member of Tanyi or
Tyame as maseua. Tyope had foreseen such a contingency, and had
therefore suggested to Nacaytzusle the propriety of converting the
isolated murder into a butchery of the adult men as far as possible. His
suggestion to surprise the Rito while the Koshare were at work in t