you see
something red flutter and move at the very edge of the rock top--Hopi
urchins, who have spied us like young eagles in their eyrie, and shout
and wave down at us, though we can barely hear their voices. It looks
for all the world like the top story of a castle above a moat.

At the foot of the sand-hill, I ask Hill Ki, why, now that there is no
danger from Spaniard and Navajo, the Hopi continue to live so high up
where they must carry all their supplies sheer, vertical hundreds of
feet, at least 1,500 if you count all the wiggling in and out and around
the stone steps and stone ladders, and niched handholds. Hill Ki grins
as he unhitches his horses, and answers: "You understan' when you go up
an' see!" But he does not offer to escort me up.

As I am looking round for the beginning of a visible trail up, a little
Hopi girl comes out from the sheep kraal at the foot of the Acoma Mesa.
Though she cannot speak one word of English and I cannot speak one word
of Hopi we keep up a most voluble conversation by gesture. Don't ask how
we did it! It is wonderful what you can do when you have to. She is
dressed in white, home-woven skirt with a white rag for a head
shawl--badge of the good girl; and her stockings come only to the
ankles, leaving the feet bare. The feet of all the Hopi are abnormally
small, almost monkey-shaped; and when you think of it, it is purely
cause and effect. The foot is not flat and broad, because it is
constantly clutching foothold up and down these rocks. I saw all the
Hopi women look at my broad-soled, box-toed outing boots in amazement.
At hard spots in the climb, they would turn and point to my boots and
offer me help till I showed them that the sole, though thick, was
pliable as a moccasin.

The little girl signaled; did I want to go up?

I nodded.

She signaled; would I go up the hard, steep, quick way; or the long,
easy path by the sand? As the stone steps seemed to give handhold well
as foothold, and the sand promised to roll you back fast as you climbed
up, I signaled the hard way; and off we set. I asked her how old she
was; and she seemed puzzled how to answer by signs till she thought of
her fingers--then up went eight with a tap to her chest signifying self.
I asked her what had caused such sore inflammation in her eyes. She
thought a minute; then pointed to the sand, and winnowed one hand as of
wind--the sand storm; and so we kept an active conversation up for three
hours withou