n of their
forefathers than their skill or wisdom."<22>

Mr. Jackson thinks this legend arises from the appearance of the rocks.
The bare floor of nearly white sandstone, upon which the butte stands,
is stained in gory streaks and blotches by the action of an iron
constituent in the rocks of another portion of the adjoining bluffs.
That may well be true, but we believe that there are germs of truth in
the story. Driven from their homes, where did the fugitives go? Some of
them may have gone east, but probably the body of the migration was to
the south. It has been the tendency of all tribes, but especially of the
sedentary tribes, to pass to the south and east, and this is also the
traditions among the inhabitants of still existing pueblos.<23> We find
that every available portion of New Mexico and Arizona bears evidence of
having been once populated by tribes of Indians, who built houses in
all respects like those already described. In northern New Mexico, Prof.
Cope has described a whole section of country as being at one time more
densely populated than the thickly inhabited portions of the Eastern
States. He says: "The number of buildings in a square mile of that
region is equal to, if not greater than the number now existing in
the more densely populated rural districts of Pennsylvania and New
Jersey."<24>

In one location he found a village of thirty houses, built of stone,
and all in ruins. He found, over a large extent of country, that every
little conical hill and eminence was crowned with ruins of old houses.
We, of course, can not say that these ruins are necessarily younger than
those to the north of the San Juan, and yet we think from Prof. Cope's
description that they do not present such evidence of antiquity as do
the crumbling ruins previously described. And then, besides, they were
always located in easily defended positions.

The village spoken of was really a Cliff Village, being arranged along
the very edge of a precipitous mesa, the only access to it being along a
narrow causeway. Then again, although we have described many ruins near
which no water is to be had, at least, in dry seasons, yet we have every
reason to suppose water was formerly more plentiful and easily attained.
But in this section it must always have been a serious question with
them to obtain enough water for necessary purposes. They must have
had to store away water in vessels of pottery, whose ruins are now
so abundant. It is