She knelt beside him, and when her eyes became accustomed to the gloom of the hole she saw the skeletons and skulls of many animals.
The walls of the hole were of solid rock, though masonry was not in evidence. The floor was level and many times wider than the mouth. This made the whole assume the shape of a funnel upside-down or an Indian wigwam.
“Why, they couldn’t get out!” cried Charmian. “It is impossible to climb those walls.”
“And you’ll notice that the hole is directly in the middle of the narrow pass from the cliffs above,” said he. “This, Charmian, is an Indian man-trap. In years gone by it was made here by residents of the valley to trap any enemies that might come down the trail to attack them. The hole was covered with light boughs, perhaps, with earth spread on top to hide them. I know this to be a trick of the Klamath Indians and the Pitt River tribes. But we are hundreds of miles from their stamping ground. We are in the rocks, you’ll notice. There is not a grain of dirt near us. This accounts for the hole’s not filling up with debris and disappearing through all these years. It’s been gouged with infinite pains in comparatively solid stone. It’s conclusive now that at one time the Valley of Arcana was inhabited and was the scene of tribal warfare. That was doubtless years before the fire swept down the forest and the chaparral locked the valley against intrusion.”
“Oh, isn’t it all interesting?” she cried, dark eyes aglow.
But the enthusiasm died out of them as she took note of the continued gravity of her companion’s mien.
“Oh, you worry me so!” she complained again. “Please don’t look so solemn. Tell me, and let me help.”
“You can’t,” he told her, forcing one of those rare smiles that almost beautified his face. “I alone can work out an answer to the problem. And I will know the answer by to-morrow morning. Meantime I’ll try my best to forget it.”
A little farther on they found another man-trap, similar to the first. Then they left the cemeterial region of obelisks and passed out upon the broad floor of the cañon.
Here yellow California poppies were blooming late among the grasses, their orange-gold beauty staying the destructive hand of old Jack Frost as a soft answer turneth away wrath. The air was warm, delectable. The willows and cottonwoods were losing their leaves, but as yet their branches were far from nude. Over a carpet of grass the explorers wandered toward the river and the untarnished land about it—toward grotesque cliffs that in the distance upreared themselves from the level land, toward enchanted forests that intrigued them from afar.