n three mesas in the northern desert.
One of the largest, Orabi, has a thousand inhabitants. Walpi numbers
about two hundred and thirty people, all living in this one great
building of many rooms. They are divided into brotherhoods, or
phratries, and each brotherhood has several large families. They are
ruled by a speaker chief and a war chief elected by a council of clan
elders.

Margaret learned with wonder that all the water these people used had to
be carried by the women in jars on their backs five hundred feet up the
steep trail.

Presently, as they drew nearer, a curious man with his hair "banged"
like a child's, and garments much like those usually worn by
scarecrows--a shapeless kind of shirt and trousers--appeared along the
steep and showed them the way up. Margaret and the missionary's wife
exclaimed in horror over the little children playing along the very edge
of the cliffs above as carelessly as birds in trees.

High up on the mesa at last, how strange and weird it seemed! Far below
the yellow sand of the valley; fifteen miles away a second mesa
stretching dark; to the southwest, a hundred miles distant, the dim
outlines of the San Francisco peaks. Some little children on burros
crossing the sand below looked as if they were part of a curious
moving-picture, not as if they were little living beings taking life as
seriously as other children do. The great, wide desert stretching far!
The bare, solid rocks beneath their feet! The curious houses behind
them! It all seemed unreal to Margaret, like a great picture-book
spread out for her to see. She turned from gazing and found Gardley's
eyes upon her adoringly, a tender understanding of her mood in his
glance. She thrilled with pleasure to be here with him; a soft flush
spread over her cheeks and a light came into her eyes.

They found the Indians preparing for one of their most famous
ceremonies, the snake dance, which was to take place in a few days. For
almost a week the snake priests had been busy hunting rattlesnakes,
building altars, drawing figures in the sand, and singing weird songs.
On the ninth day the snakes are washed in a pool and driven near a pile
of sand. The priests, arrayed in paint, feathers, and charms, come out
in line and, taking the live snakes in their mouths, parade up and down
the rocks, while the people crowd the roofs and terraces of the pueblos
to watch. There are helpers to whip the snakes and keep them from
biting, and catc