retire when the approaches were
carried by the enemy. This central building ultimately swallowed up all
the others, and so developed into the pueblo structures we have noticed.
The little walled inclosures surrounding the houses were largely in
the nature of defenses. Tradition asserts that in many cases they were
garden plats, and appearances sometimes confirm this. "They may also
have been the yard proper for each family, in which the latter slept,
cooked--in fact, lived--during the heat of the Summer months."<18>

Referring once more to the ruins near the McElmo, we are told that every
isolated rock and bit of mesa within a circle of miles of this place is
strewn with remnants of ancient dwellings. We presume these were small,
separate houses. They may have been outlying settlements of the tribe
whose main village was at Aztec Springs. We must also notice the small
tower in the corner. This was a watch tower. It was fifteen feet in
diameter, walls three and a half feet thick, and in 1876 was still five
feet high, It overlooked the surrounding country. The rainfall in the
past must have been more abundant, to support the population we are
justified in thinking once lived there. The nearest water is now a mile
away, and during the dry season some fifteen miles to the north, in
the Rio Dolores, and yet we have every reason to believe these
old inhabitants were very saving of water. They built cisterns and
reservoirs to store it up against the time of need.

Illustration of Tower on the Rio Mancos.-----------

We give a cut of the tower of the ruins of a similar village, or
settlement, to the one just described, which occurs twenty miles to the
southeast in the canyon of the Rio Mancos. Being so similar, we will
mention it here. In this case the tower had only two walls. Mr. Holmes
says the diameter of the outer wall is forty-three feet, that of the
inner twenty-five feet. The space between the two circles is divided by
cross-walls into ten apartments. This tower is placed also in the midst
of a group of more dimly marked ruins or foundations, extending some
distance in each direction from it. Mr. Holmes, however, states that
there are no ruins of importance in connection with this tower, but that
there are a number of ruins in the immediate vicinity. In this case,
then, the citadel (if such it was) was not directly connected with other
ruins.

The Rio Mancos, that we have just mentioned, was a favorite place
of