A STORY OF NORTHERN ARIZONA.
BY KIRK MUNROE,
Author of "Rick Dale," "The Fur-Seal's Tooth," "Snow-Shoes and Sledges," "The Mate Series," etc.
CHAPTER IX.
HOW THE VALLEY OF PEACE WAS DISCOVERED.
n the evening of the day that had introduced Todd Chalmers to the modern cliff-dwellers of the Valley of Peace, he and they gathered about a cheerful fire burning on the open hearth of the castle, and the Professor gave him a history of their coming to that place as follows:
"It is now twelve years since I filled the chair of Biblical Literature and American Ethnology in Calvert College. About that time I was confronted by certain problems that could only be solved by a visit to the pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, in which, as thee doubtless knows, the manner of life remains to-day practically unchanged from what it was at the time of their discovery by the Spaniards. Through the liberality of thy father were the means for making such a visit furnished.
"Apprehending no danger, I brought with me my wife and my only son Reuben, a well-grown lad of eighteen. We travelled from Albuquerque in a light wagon drawn by two stout mules, and provided with all necessaries for our comfort. Everything went well with us until after we left Zuñi for the Moqui towns of northeastern Arizona, 'the seven cities of Cibola,' as they were named by the Spaniards. Toward them we travelled in company with two Mexican traders who, though they had never visited the Moqui towns, thought they knew the way.
"The Mexicans proved unreliable guides, however, and by the time we crossed the Flax River had managed to lead us from the trail. Still, we believed ourselves to be moving in the right direction, and pushed on, though the country became more and more desolate with every mile.
"Toward evening of the day on which we crossed the river our wagon was halted by the breaking of a piece of harness, and the Mexicans, keeping on, were quickly lost to view behind a rise of ground. I soon had the harness mended, and Reuben, who was mounted on a saddle-horse, rode ahead to catch sight of our companions before they should gain too great a distance.
"INDIANS ON THE WAR-PATH!" HE SHOUTED.
"I followed with all speed, but had not passed the rise when the lad came dashing madly back, shouting: 'Indians! Indians on the war-path!' In another minute he had told his story. A band of Apaches who had broken from their reservation had killed the Mexicans, and were busily engaged in examining their bales of goods. They were so surprised by Reuben's approach that they could only let fly a few arrows as he turned and fled. Being on foot, they pursued him but a short distance; but one of their arrows had struck him and passed through his body, inflicting a most dangerous wound.
"I got him into the wagon, and then, not knowing what better to do, turned it at right angles to the course we had been pursuing, with the idea of making a circuit around the Indians. After that I hoped to regain our original direction, for I knew that in reaching the Moqui towns lay our only hope of safety.
"For three days we wandered over the burning sands and amid the magic paintings of the desert, while our poor lad suffered agonies from his wound. By nightfall of the third day, our horse having already given out and been abandoned, the mules were too weak to travel another step, and I turned them loose to die. One staggered but a few yards before he fell, while the other wandered feebly out of sight.
"That night, amid the crashings of a thunder-storm, our poor boy was mercifully relieved of his sufferings by death, and our only comfort was that we should shortly follow him. But we were to be reserved for further work, and even as we sat with our dead, the cry of one who was to save us was borne to our ears. I stepped from the wagon to listen, and by a flash of lightning saw the figure of a little child standing beside a dark object that lay on the ground. This proved to be an Indian woman, alive and conscious, but too feeble to rise.
"Believing her to be starving, I carried her food, which both she and the child ate ravenously, and by daylight she was able to come to us. By signs I tried to learn from her if any of her people dwelt so near that we might hope to reach them; but she gave me to understand that she was lost, and knew not in what direction they might be found. The child, who was no other than this dear boy"—here the speaker laid his hand lovingly on Nanahe's shoulder—"was in so much better plight than his mother that she had evidently sacrificed her own strength to save his.
"Months afterward we learned that she had been the Moqui wife of a Navajo brave, who had died shortly before our meeting with her. She had hardly been left a widow when a party of Navajos decided to make a raid on the flocks of their Moqui neighbors, and demanded that she should guide them to the best locality for their purpose. This, in spite of all threats, she refused to do, whereupon they drove her with her child into the desert, which they regarded as the place of lost spirits, forbidding her ever to return, under penalty of torture to her child and death for herself. So she, like ourselves, had wandered hopelessly until she had discovered the dying mule that I had turned loose, and followed his trail to our vicinity. From the first I called her Hagar.
"All the previous day we had been slowly approaching a great white mesa toward which, without special reason, I had directed our course. Now we were close beside it, and I conceived the idea that at its base we might find some shaded crevice in which to lay our dead boy. At any rate, I could better bear to leave him there than out on the pitiless desert. So with mother's aid and that of Hagar, I finally succeeded in bearing him to the place I desired. We found a deep cool recess in the rocky wall, and there laying him down, rested for a while before undertaking to complete our sad task.
"We were in so pitiable a plight from weakness and our recent exertions that the woman Hagar seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness, and allowed her child to wander unnoticed from her side. All at once there came from him a shrill cry, accompanied by a muffled crash from the inner end of the recess, to which he had penetrated. Hagar sprang to her feet and sped toward the sound, while I followed close after. We found the little one lying unharmed at the foot of a rocky slope, while just beyond, as though it had leaped over him, lay a bowlder apparently newly fallen from above.
"Glancing up in the direction from which it must have come, I was amazed to perceive a ray of light shining from beyond the barrier. Cautiously making my way up the slope, I discovered the light to shine through a small opening caused by the displacement of the bowlder already mentioned. Looking through this as through a window, I beheld a sight so marvellous that for a time I could not believe in its reality. I need not attempt to describe it to thee, Todd Chalmers, for thee is already familiar with the aspect of the Valley of Peace, and can judge of my feelings at coming thus unexpectedly upon it.
"Soon after we discovered a ruined hut of stone that told of former human occupancy of the valley, and, as it stood near a stream, we lighted our fire close beside it. Taking Hagar with me, and again visiting the wagon, we brought back a number of things most needful for immediate use. Among them was a fowling-piece, which was the only firearm that I possessed. With this I fired at and killed a rabbit that regarded us from a short distance without the least trace of fear. The effect of that shot was prodigious. It roared and echoed among the cliffs like a thousand thunders, and caused the appearance of such an amount of animal life as satisfied me that we were in no danger of starving so long as we should remain in the valley.
"After a supper of stewed rabbit, thin cakes of cornmeal that Hagar deftly baked on the heated surface of a flat stone, and tea, the Indian woman and I made one more trip to the wagon, from which we brought in all our bedding. Then, after collecting a sufficient supply of firewood to last until morning, we sought our rude couches, and prepared to pass our first night in the wonderful place to which we had been so strangely led.
"The next day we brought in all our effects from the wagon, cleaned out the old hut, rebuilt its walls, chimney, and fireplace, and stretching our wagon cover above it, found ourselves comfortably housed. In all this work Hagar proved herself invaluable, knowing much better than I how to handle clay and building stones, while even little Nanahe, working under his mother's direction, willingly performed such light tasks as came within the limit of his strength."
CHAPTER X.
MODERN LIFE IN AN ANCIENT CLIFF DWELLING.
"No sooner was our work on the hut completed," continued the Professor, "than I determined to make an exploration of the valley, for I had yet to learn of its size, what it produced, whether it contained any inhabitants besides ourselves, and if there was any entrance to it other than the one by which we had come. So, after an early breakfast, I set off down the stream that flowed past our camp, carrying the fowling-piece over my shoulder.
"As I advanced, the fertility of the soil was a constant source of delight, for it not only produced a heavy growth of grasses, besides the useful amole, or soap-root, and many other plants, but a great variety of trees, among which I recognized cottonwood, cedar, the piñon or nut-bearing pine, and peach-trees that had run wild from some long-ago planting. These last showed the valley to have been visited by human beings since the coming of Spaniards to this country, for by them were peaches introduced. I also found an abundance of cotton-plants with full bolls, which, though small in size from lack of cultivation, would yield a serviceable fibre. No trace of human beings was to be seen save the ancient ruins of a few huts, together with mounds of broken pottery and stone implements of every description.
"When late in the day I regained camp, almost my first greeting from mother was, 'Whatever thee has discovered, Rufus, I am persuaded that we who remained behind have found something of still greater value.'
"Then she told me how, with the keen instinct of her race for such things, Hagar, while gathering pine-nuts, had run across a trail leading up the face of the cliffs, and had followed it to this very place. Mother had also climbed to the platform, taken a hasty glance at its marvels, and then, leaving Hagar and the child up there, had returned to meet me, and conduct me to the wonderful place they had found.
"Smiling at her excitement, for I could not then realize the value of the discovery, I followed her up the steep acclivity, wondering at her endurance, especially when we came to the last fifteen feet of perpendicular steps. When we finally gained the place where Hagar smilingly awaited us, I was amazed at the width of the platform and the extent of the view to be obtained from it. I longed for the spy-glass which had formed part of the equipment of our wagon, and which had been left in the hut. I even proposed to return and get it, thinking that the platform and view from it embraced the whole of Hagar's discovery. At that mother interfered, and saying that she had something of much greater importance than a view to show me, directed my attention to the further end of the platform. Then for the first time I became aware of a small house occupying the entire space beneath a jutting of the cliff.
"It was built of stone, so deftly laid and so colored by time that even a short distance away it could not be distinguished from the adjacent rock. From the shape of its doorway, which was thus"—here the Professor traced a rude diagram in the ashes of the hearth—"but which we afterward altered to suit our own notions, I knew that the structure was a cliff-dwelling of the most ancient pattern.
"In an instant I was as excited as mother, though with a different reason, for this was the very type of dwelling I had been most anxious to study, and if it should prove to have remained unvisited since its abandonment, my fondest hopes of discovery would be fulfilled. Nor was I disappointed, for an examination of the interior revealed a profusion of unbroken pottery, implements of stone, horn, and bone, pictographs or rude drawings on the walls, agate and jasper fragments of fossil trees, such as I had noticed in abundance at the lower end of the valley, and many other things, all in such a fine state of preservation as gave instant proof that here was a treasure not yet duplicated in America.
"Over all these things and on the floor the dust of ages lay thick, and rose in suffocating clouds with our every movement. Heedless of it, I penetrated each of the three rooms contained in the house, wild with delight over what I saw. I was somewhat taken aback when I found that mother, who had seemed to share my enthusiasm, was all this time regarding the place with the eye of a housewife, and as one in which we might establish a home for such time as we should remain in the valley. Finally, however, she won me to her way of thinking, and though we returned to the camp for that night, we set to work early the next day to put 'Cliff Castle,' as mother called it, in a habitable condition.
"On my second visit to it I discovered the steps leading to the top of the mesa and the ruined watch-tower that crowns it. There I also found a rock cistern, and a broken conduit, that could be opened at pleasure, by which its waters had formerly been conveyed to the house. This, with Hagar's skilled assistance, I soon repaired, and by nightfall of that day we had the ancient cliff dwelling cleansed and ready for occupancy. Another day was necessary for the removal of such goods as we needed from below, but with that accomplished, we were comfortably settled in what has been from that day to this our home.
"Of course much has been done to it since then in the way of enlargement, the making of a more generous provision for light and ventilation, and in the adding of many comforts, but in its general aspect Cliff Castle stands to-day unchanged from the time it was built, many centuries before the continent of America was discovered by Columbus.
"Although so long as my meagre supply of ammunition lasted I had no difficulty in procuring all the meat needed for our table, a supply that Nanahe has kept up since by means of his throw-stick, I began the making of a field as soon as our dwelling was put in order. My greatest labor lay in fencing this against goats and rabbits. When it was ready I planted it with corn, oats, beans, and squashes, the seed for which were yielded by a bag of feed for our poor mules that I had procured in Zuñi. I also set out peach-trees and grape-vines, improving greatly the quality of their fruit by cultivation, and a little later I captured two young goats, from which our present domestic flock has been reared.
"In all our labors, both mine in the field and mother's in the house, Hagar was our invaluable assistant and instructor. She it was who taught me to use the ancient stone hoes and planting sticks of my remote predecessors, to construct wattled fences, to cure meat so that it might be kept, and to work in clay until I could produce rude but serviceable articles of pottery. She taught mother how to spin cotton thread on the stone spindles that we found in this and other cliff dwellings, and afterwards to weave them into a coarse cloth on a rude loom that she herself constructed.
"She gave lessons in making matting of yucca fibre, in plaiting baskets, dressing hides, and in sewing rabbit-skins with bone needles. Before we began to harvest our planted crops, she gathered up large quantities of certain grass-seeds, ground them into flour on old stone metates, and made of this a palatable bread. She taught us where to look for wasp honey, as well as how to extract sugar from grapes and peaches.
"I discovered the deposit of salt that seasons our food, and the selenite that, cleaved into thin sheets, serves instead of glass to close our windows against the cold of winter; but nearly every other comfort with which thee finds us surrounded we owe to the knowledge, skill, and cheerful industry of that splendid woman. She remained with us nearly two years. Then, with her life work nobly accomplished, she left us, and we buried her beside our dear boy.
"Since then Nanahe has been as our own well-loved son, bravely filling his mother's place. With his increasing strength he has gradually assumed the duties that my failing powers have caused me to relinquish, until now he is our mainstay and dependence, as well as the delight of our declining years. He has been quick to learn all that I could teach him, and is fitted for a wider sphere of activity than that in which he now moves. But I know not how we could exist without him, nor how he might gain the outer world, even though we knew in what direction lay its most accessible point.
"In all these years I have not been able to determine our locality nor our distance from any known place, nor have we been visited by any human being beside thyself since coming to the valley. On account of the marvellous coloring of the desolate region surrounding us I have called it the Painted Desert, though I am not certain that the name originated with me, for I have a dim memory of hearing it before. I cannot satisfy myself, however, as to whether the Moqui towns lie to the east or the west of us. I am of the former opinion, but Nanahe, for some reason, inclines to the latter. At the same time, neither of us can form any idea of how far away they may be."
"I do not know," said Todd, "for I am very much ashamed to say that I was so filled with visions of hunting as to neglect my opportunities for gaining profitable information while with my brother's expedition. I too, however, am of the opinion, that the Moqui towns lie to the eastward of this place. Nor do I think they can be at any great distance, certainly no further than two active young chaps such as Nanahe and I might cover without danger during a time of rains. Don't you think, sir, that we might make the attempt?" concluded the boy, eagerly.
"What does thee think would become of mother and me if thee should take Nanahe from us?" asked the old man.
"We would only be gone a short time, and would return with such assistance as would enable you also to rejoin the world from which you have been cut off so long," replied Todd.
"My son, when first we came here I too was impatient of imprisonment, and fretted against it; but since then I have come to a knowledge that, with our present freedom from the cares and anxieties of the world, our life is happier here than it could possibly be elsewhere. More than that, this place is our home, which we have learned so to love that mother and I hope never to leave it, save for the better land of our Father. I would not seek to detain thee here one moment against thy will, nor would I hinder the departure of Nanahe if I knew of a way for his going and an object to be gained. At present neither of these seems to be offered; but in the Lord's own time, if it be His will, they are certain to come, and until then we must be content to await His pleasure. Therefore, my dear lad, satisfy thyself as well as may be in this place, gain from it whatever of health, strength, and knowledge thee can, and have faith to believe that in due time a way of escape will be opened to thee."
Todd accepted this advice in silence and with a heavy heart, for to him the Valley of Peace, in which he could not regard himself as other than a prisoner, was only a refuge from the perils of its encircling desert; while the great, outer world from which he was cut off contained all of life that he deemed worth the having. Therefore during the next few weeks, while he found much pleasure in the company of Nanahe, under whose guidance he explored every foot of the valley and became an expert climber of its frowning cliffs, he brooded constantly over plans of escape. He even went so far as to propose to the Indian lad that they two should set forth on a search for the Moqui towns in spite of the Professor's protest, but was met with an unqualified refusal.