Masimptua was one of the chief men of the East Mesa. His house was as large and neatly-kept as any in Sichomovi, where there is more room to build large dwellings than in circumscribed Walpi with its narrow cells. His children were grown up and married, and a number of little ones called him grandfather. Still his resting place is among the rocks on the mesa slope below the town, unmarked, as are those of his ancestors who sleep outside of the walls of the ruined cities of the Southwest. It is pleasant to remember "Masi" in his cheerful days, before warning shadow fell across his sunny spirit. In those days he was a genuine Hopi, a little boisterous, perhaps, but truly openhearted. No man in all the tribe could relate more vividly the legendary history of the old times, hence Masi stands to all who knew him as the exponent of Hopi traditions. Often summer evenings, returning from his fields he would tarry at the camp of the white people at the Sun Spring for a friendly smoke and chat. Here under the genial influences, led on by skillful questioning, he would unfold many a tale as interesting as those of an Eastern storyteller, till the sunset faded and the bright stars twinkled in the clear night sky. One of his stories gives an idea of the happenings in Hopiland some centuries ago. At that time the people suffered from the attacks of the bands of Apache, who came out of their hunting grounds to the south in search of trouble. The trails to the mesa were closed and the Hopi went up and down the precipitous rock sides by means of a ladder which could be drawn up in time of danger. Masi could not avoid painting the prowess of the Hopi in strong colors while he described the last attack the Apache made when his grandfather was a boy. He gesticulated excitedly as though he were giving the death-blow to each of the fallen enemy that had fled before the valiant Hopi, and his hearer caught the contagion of his enthusiasm and slew with him the hated foe. Another tradition he related was about the ancient people. Looking toward the Southwest he said, "Do you see two small peaks close together on the horizon? There is one of the houses of the sun, where he rests when he is in the west. Our people once lived in a rock town on the peak to the left. The town was called '_Chub i o chala ki_,' 'The house of the place of the Antelopes,' where also there are pine trees, shrubs and flowers, grass and much water. Perhaps it was here, who knows?" said he, "that the people were almost overwhelmed by a great flood which kept rising over the plains and over the hills till it reached nearly the tops of the mountains where the ancestors were waiting in fear. When the boy and girl were thrown into the flood, then came safety, for the wrath of the earth-god was appeased and the waters went down. But the youth and maiden heroes were turned into two great stone pillars, which bear their names to this day." (See Myths.)