"There's a big red rock there that goes right up out of the
sand for about nine hundred feet. The country's flat all around
it, and this here rock goes up all by itself, like a monument.
They call it the Enchanted Bluff down there, because no white man
has ever been on top of it. The sides are smooth rock, and
straight up, like a wall. The Indians say that hundreds of years
ago, before the Spaniards came, there was a village away up there
in the air. The tribe that lived there had some sort of steps,
made out of wood and bark, bung down over the face of the bluff,
and the braves went down to hunt and carried water up in big jars
swung on their backs. They kept a big supply of water and dried
meat up there, and never went down except to hunt. They were a
peaceful tribe that made cloth and pottery, and they went up there
to get out of the wars. You see, they could pick off any war party
that tried to get up their little steps. The Indians say they were
a handsome people, and they had some sort of queer religion. Uncle
Bill thinks they were Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and
left home. They weren't fighters, anyhow.

"One time the braves were down hunting and an awful storm came
up--a kind of waterspout--and when they got back to their rock they
found their little staircase had been all broken to pieces, and
only a few steps were left hanging away up in the air. While they
were camped at the foot of the rock, wondering what to do, a
war party from the north came along and massacred 'em to a man,
with all the old folks and women looking on from the rock. Then
the war party went on south and left the village to get down the
best way they could. Of course they never got down. They starved
to death up there, and when the war party came back on their way