llions
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?"

"For 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 thought