Near the southern rim of the plateau, quite isolated from the house-blocks, is the great church, still in good repair. Later on during that first afternoon we sat facing the western sky beyond its precincts, and within sight, as we believed, of the famous cleft over which Villagrá made his epoch-making leap in the fight of 1598. Directly in front of us rose two colossal pillars of eroded rock forming a portal through which our eyes were led across the plain to where, over the riven mountain walls, sunlight and an indescribable depth of purple shadow were blending into amethystine haze as the Sun God sank to his rest, just as one has seen it over a boundless ocean. Who can do less at such a moment than join in reverent worship of the Sun? Soon came the men, one by one, from their toil up the steep finger-and-toe trail to home and supper, followed upon the Burro Trail by a great company of those patient little beasts driven by boys into a corral directly behind the church. All was deserted, peaceful, so we also strolled toward our house of friendly hospitality, climbing by its ladder over the first storey and then by shallow steps in the adobe to the next terrace. There our hostess met us in the open door and signified that all our belongings were to the left, beyond a low parapet, on the terrace of a friend, now absent, and therefore available for our use. [Illustration: ÁCOMA “DOORWAYS” ENTRANCE FROM THE GROUND _Bolton_] [Illustration: THE TWO UPPER STOREYS, ÁCOMA _Bolton_] To our dismay our host and our Laguna guide were just leaving “for a meeting of great importance,” and with them all our cherished hopes of evening talk and tales of the long ago (_hamaha_) and the far away. Rather apologetically a man was pointed out to us, sitting by the door, “Mr. Miller, who will talk with you.” I found him to be one who had known several students of Zuñi folk-lore, and who confirmed various things about which we asked, but we learned nothing new. Our disappointment was the old experience. The self-respect of the Indians admits no curious inquiry into their private life, and why should it? How can they discriminate between the truly interested and friendly student of their poetry, and the selfish and unscrupulous exploiter of their sacred inheritance? They have so long been made the target of the unsympathetic white man who treats them as fair game, that they have every justification for suspicion. Trying as it was to us, who merely longed to preserve and record their swiftly vanishing traditions, we could not find it in our hearts to murmur. How many of us would disclose to a casual stranger to whom we had generously accorded a night’s hospitality, the treasures of our ancestral heritage?