e blocks of stone, detached in the progress of disintegration, were
scattered about.

"It has taken ages for this to happen!" the Judge heard himself
murmuring.

Trevison laughed lowly. "So it has, Judge. Makes you think of your school
days, doesn't it? You hardly remember it, though. You have a hazy sort of
recollection of a print of a pueblo in a geography, or in a geological
textbook, but at the time you were more interested in Greek roots, the
Alps, Louis Quinze, the heroes of mythology, or something equally foreign,
and you forgot that your own country might hold something of interest for
you. But the history of these pueblo towns must be pretty interesting, if
one could get at it. All that I have heard of it are some pretty weird
legends. There can be no doubt, I suppose, that the people who inhabited
these communal houses had laws to govern them--and judges to apply the
laws. And I presume that then, as now, the judges were swayed by powerful
influences in--"

The Judge glared at his tormentor. The latter laughed.

"It is reasonable to presume, too," he went on, "that in some cases the
judges rendered some pretty raw decisions. And carrying the supposition
further, we may believe that then, as now, the poor downtrodden
proletariat got rather hot under the collar. There are always some
hot-tempered fools among all classes and races that do, you know. They
simply can't stand the feel of the iron heel of the oppressor. Can you
picture a hot-tempered fool of that tribe abducting a judge of the court
of his people and carrying him away to some uninhabited place, there to
let him starve until he decided to do the right thing?"

"Starve!" gasped the Judge.

"The chambers and tunnels connecting these communal houses--they look like
mud boxes, don't they, Judge? And there isn't a soul in any of them--nor a
bite to eat! As I was about to remark, the chambers and tunnels and the
passages connecting these places are pretty bare and cheerless--if we
except scorpions, horned toads, centipedes, tarantulas--and other equally
undesirable occupants. Not a pleasant place to sojourn in until--How long
can a man live without eating, Judge? You know, of course, that the
Indians selected an elevated and isolated site, such as this, because of
its strategical advantages? This makes an ideal fort. Nobody can get into
it except by negotiating the slope we came up last night. And a rifle in
the hands of a man with a yearning to use i