THE MASS AT ÁCOMA
The whole country seemed fluid to the eye under this constant change of accent, this ever-varying distribution of light.
Jacinto interrupted these reflections by an exclamation.
“Ácoma!” He stopped his mule.
The Bishop, following with his eye the straight, pointing Indian hand, saw, far away, two great mesas. They were almost square in shape, and at this distance seemed close together, though they were really some miles apart.
“The far one”—his guide still pointed.
The Bishop’s eyes were not so sharp as Jacinto’s, but now, looking down upon the top of the farther mesa from the high land on which they halted, he saw a flat white outline on the grey surface—a white square made up of squares. That, his guide said, was the pueblo of Ácoma.
Riding on, they presently drew rein under the Enchanted Mesa, and Jacinto told him that on this, too, there had once been a village, but the stairway which had been the only access to it was broken off by a great storm many centuries ago, and its people had perished up there from hunger.
But how, the Bishop asked him, did men first think of living on the top of naked rocks like these, hundreds of feet in the air, without soil or water?
Jacinto shrugged. “A man can do whole lot when
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