y could. Of course they never got
down. They starved to death up there, and when the war party came back
on their way north, they could hear the children crying from the edge
of the bluff where they had crawled out, but they didn't see a sign of a
grown Indian, and nobody has ever been up there since."

We exclaimed at this dolorous legend and sat up.

"There couldn't have been many people up there," Percy demurred. "How
big is the top, Tip?"

"Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the rock doesn't look nearly as tall
as it is. The top's bigger than the base. The bluff is sort of worn away
for several hundred feet up. That's one reason it's so hard to climb."

I asked how the Indians got up, in the first place.

"Nobody knows how they got up or when. A hunting party came along once
and saw that there was a town up there, and that was all."

Otto rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "Of course there must be
some way to get up there. Couldn't people get a rope over someway and
pull a ladder up?"

Tip's little eyes were shining with excitement. "I know a way. Me and
Uncle Bill talked it over. There's a kind of rocket that would take a
rope over--lifesavers use 'em--and then you could hoist a rope ladder
and peg it down at the bottom and make it tight with guy ropes on the
other side. I'm going to climb that there bluff, and I've got it all
planned out."

Fritz asked what he expected to find when he got up there.

"Bones, maybe, or the ruins of their town, or pottery, or some of their
idols. There might be 'most anything up there. Anyhow, I want to see."

"Sure nobody else has been up there, Tip?" Arthur asked.

"Dead sure. Hardly anybody ever goes down there. Some hunters tried to
cut steps in the rock once, but they didn't get higher than a man can
reach. The Bluff's all red granite, and Uncle Bill thinks it's a boulder
the glaciers left. It's a queer place, anyhow. Nothing but cactus and
desert for hundreds of miles, and yet right under the Bluff there's good
water and plenty of grass. That's why the bison used to go down there."

Suddenly we heard a scream above our fire, and jumped up to see a dark,
slim bird floating southward far above us--a whooping crane, we knew by
her cry and her long neck. We ran to the edge of the island, hoping we
might see her alight, but she wavered southward along the rivercourse
until we lost her. The Hassler boys declared that by the look of the
heavens it must be after midnig