"Oh, let us climb there!" cried Bess, pointing upward to a small space of terrace left green and shady between huge abutments of broken cliff. And they climbed to the nook and rested and looked out across the valley to the curling column of blue smoke from their campfire. But the cool shade and the rich grass and the fine view were not what they had climbed for. They could not have told, although whatever had drawn them was well-satisfying.
Light, sure-footed as a mountain goat, Bess pattered down at Venters's heels; and they went on, calling the dogs, eyes dreamy and wide, listening to the wind and the bees and the crickets and the birds.
Part of the time Ring and Whitie led the way, then Venters, then Bess; and the direction was not an object. They left the sun-streaked shade of the oaks, brushed the long grass of the meadows, entered the green and fragrant swaying willows, to stop, at length, under the huge old cottonwoods where the beavers were busy.
Here they rested and watched. A dam of brush and logs and mud and stones backed the stream into a little lake. The round, rough beaver houses projected from the water. Like the rabbits, the beavers had become shy. Gradually, however, as Venters and Bess knelt low, holding the dogs, the beavers emerged to swim with logs and gnaw at cottonwoods and pat mud walls with their paddle-like tails, and, glossy and shiny in the sun, to go on with their strange, persistent industry. They were the builders.
The lake was a mud-hole, and the immediate environment a scarred and dead region, but it was a wonderful home of wonderful animals.
"Look at that one--he puddles in the mud," said Bess. "And there!
See him dive! Hear them gnawing! I'd think they'd break their teeth. How's it they can stay out of the water and under the water?"
And she laughed.
Then Venters and Bess wandered farther, and, perhaps not all unconsciously this time, wended their slow steps to the cave of the cliff-dwellers, where she liked best to go.
The tangled thicket and the long slant of dust and little chips of weathered rock and the steep bench of stone and the worn steps all were arduous work for Bess in the climbing. But she gained the shelf, gasping, hot of cheek, glad of eye, with her hand in Venters's. Here they rested. The beautiful valley glittered below with its millions of wind-turned leaves bright-faced in the sun, and the mighty bridge towered heavenward, crowned with blue sky.
Bess, however, never rested for long. Soon she was exploring, and Venters followed; she dragged forth from corners and shelves a multitude of crudely fashioned and painted pieces of pottery, and he carried them. They peeped down into the dark holes of the kivas, and Bess gleefully dropped a stone and waited for the long-coming hollow sound to rise. They peeped into the little globular houses, like mud-wasp nests, and wondered if these had been store-places for grain, or baby cribs, or what; and they crawled into the larger houses and laughed when they bumped their heads on the low roofs, and they dug in the dust of the floors.
And they brought from dust and darkness armloads of treasure which they carried to the light. Flints and stones and strange curved sticks and pottery they found; and twisted grass rope that crumbled in their hands, and bits of whitish stone which crushed to powder at a touch and seemed to vanish in the air.
"That white stuff was bone," said Venters, slowly. "Bones of a cliff-dweller."
"No!" exclaimed Bess.
"Here's another piece. Look!...Whew! dry, powdery smoke! That's bone."
Then it was that Venters's primitive, childlike mood, like a savage's, seeing, yet unthinking, gave way to the encroachment of civilized thought. The world had not been made for a single day's play or fancy or idle watching. The world was old. Nowhere could be gotten a better idea of its age than in this gigantic silent tomb. The gray ashes in Venters's hand had once been bone of a human being like himself. The pale gloom of the cave had shadowed people long ago. He saw that Bess had received the same shock--could not in moments such as this escape her feeling living, thinking destiny.
"Bern, people have lived here," she said, with wide, thoughtful eyes.
"Yes," he replied.
"How long ago?"
"A thousand years and more."
"What were they?"
"Cliff-dwellers. Men who had enemies and made their homes high out of reach."
"They had to fight?"
"Yes."
"They fought for--what?"
"Tor life. For their homes, food, children, parents--for their women!"
"Has the world changed any in a thousand years?"
"I don't know--perhaps a little."
"Have men?"
"I hope so--I think so."
"Things crowd into my mind," she went on, and the wistful light in her eyes told Venters the truth of her thoughts. "I've ridden the border of Utah. I've seen people--know how they live--but they must be few of all who are living. I had my books and I studied them. But all that doesn't help me any more. I want to go out into the big world and see it. Yet I want to stay here more.
What's to become of us? Are we cliff-dwellers? We're alone here.
I'm happy when I don't think. These--these bones that fly into dust--they make me sick and a little afraid. Did the people who lived here once have the same feelings as we have? What was the good of their living at all? They're gone! What's the meaning of it all--of us?"
"Bess, you ask more than I can tell. It's beyond me. Only there was laughter here once--and now there's silence. There was life--and now there's death. Men cut these little steps, made these arrow-heads and mealing-stones, plaited the ropes we found, and left their bones to crumble in our fingers. As far as time is concerned it might all have been yesterday. We're here to-day.
Maybe we're higher in the scale of human beings--in intelligence.
But who knows? We can't be any higher in the things for which life is lived at all."
"What are they?"
"Why--I suppose relationship, friendship--love."
"Love!"
"Yes. Love of man for woman--love of woman for man. That's the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself."