THE CLIFF DWELLERS' DAUGHTER.
THE CITY IN THE GLOOM.
I.
THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE
The thing sprawled on the white stone of the Giant's Steps, in the canyon. Closer scrutiny proved it to be a man who lay on his stomach drinking out of a blue pool of water. He stood up and showed what a miserable thing he was. He had been white, and displayed the pitiable plight of the civilized man reduced to dire extremity. His horny feet were encased in ungainly moccasins, shaggy goatskin swathed him about the middle, while his poor shoulders shivered under their covering of rabbit skins pieced together. The muscles stood out like whip cords on his emaciated limbs. The head, unkempt and shaggy, had a ferocious appearance which was enhanced by the eyes that seemed starting out of his head.
He stooped and filled a misshapen jar with water, then gathered up a leather pouch that contained wild grapes, and a haunch of venison. They were all presents for Gualzine, the woman up at the clift house in gloomy Cave Valley. The deer had cost the life of a man. When the woman sickened and could no longer munch the corn nor drink the water of the place, Ulric and his friend Izehara, had ventured forth in search of fresh meat. A rash undertaking at any time, it was particularly dangerous when the cave dwellers were expecting an attack from their inveterate enemies, the Lamanites. So the chief of the tribe told them when they left, but the remembrance of the woman moaning on her pallet lent wings to their feet.
They shot the doe on the morning of the second day out. They startled her at dawn as she grazed. Though the arrow sped true, she ran a hundred and fifty yards before she fell. They found her panting in the brush. Ulric left Izehara to carve the meat and prepare the camp while he went higher up to look at the traps.
When he found that one of them had caught an old silvertip, he wished that the other man had come along. He beat her to death with his club, and when the quivering brute lay down, the day was well advanced. "I will bring Izehara up to help me skin her. It will make a warm robe for Gualzine." Then panic seized him. What if she were already dead?
Haunted by this new fear, he hurried back to camp where new horrors awaited him. By the side of the partially dismembered deer, Izehara lay writhing in the last stages of poisoning. He had been bitten by a rattle-snake. Ulric flung himself down and applied his lips to the wound. He was too late; even as he sucked the poison out, his friend looked at him for the last time, then closed his eyes forever.
The survivor built up the fire and gnawed at the rarely, broiled meat from a sense of duty, for he knew that he must keep his strength up. He devoted what daylight remained to getting in the wood. During the everlasting hours of the night he prodded himself to keep awake to watch the precious food and the corpse. The coyotes howled in the distance, but more to be feared was the mountain lion, that sends no halloo of its coming.