Though seldom seen, wherever the prey is, there will it be. As his straining ears imagined a padded footfall, he built the fire up until the flames arose and lighted the rock walls of the canyon. Even the "cat" fears man's "red flower"—fire.
At dawn he dragged the dead body down to a gully and covered it up with leaves. He wondered how long the wolves would leave them there. He regretfully left them most of the deer, for urged on always with the thought of the woman, he must travel light. If the horrors of their surroundings palled on him, what must it be to her? A forlorn, transplanted thing she had come among these wild men and won their rude hearts.
Even Ulric, a long time before, had lived in a city. It was called Teotihuacan, which means "House of God," and was famed far and wide for its great pyramids for worship. This fair city contained many splendid houses, although Ulric did not know so much about that, as he was only one of the common people. It had been prophesied that the inhabitants would be destroyed because of their unbelief. Then the Lamanite hordes swept down upon them, and the men went out to fight them. The fields around Teotihuacan were spangled with black bits of obsidian where the opposing warriors shattered one another's spears. When the Indians began to massacre the women, they, with children clinging to their skirts, fought them back. After that Ulric didn't like to remember what happened.
He, with a few survivors had taken refuge in the subterranean city, where there were chambers just as above ground, and a black well with plenty of water. Only they had no sunlight and some of the women sickened and died. When their enemies had left, they sneaked out and made their way across the desert to the north until they reached the Sierra Madres, on the pinnacles of whose peaks they perched their eyries built of sundried mud. They carried up handfuls of soil from the valley and plastered it on the ledges, where they raised a little stunted maize. There, in deadly fear of the marauding bands of Lamanites that were wiping out their race, they eked out a miserable existence, a little lower than the beasts.
So outnumbered were they that only by the utmost caution did they manage to live. The rooms were dark as the apertures were small and had to be crawled through by means of rope ladders that they pulled in after them. They had got so used to climbing over the rocks that they sprang among them like goats.
People who exist in daily fear of their lives do not go in for art. So the cave dwellers' implements were crude, their pottery deformed, and their necessities scant. Obsessed with the idea of keeping the life in them from one day to another, they had lost their sense of feeling, when Gualzine came among them. She was sent accompanied by two attendants, from a neighboring cliff dwelling, for safe keeping during time of war. The other cliff house was demolished, so Gualzine took up her abode in the new place. She was the daughter of the High Priest and the last of her blood. A wan, washed out thing, she took little interest in her mediocre surroundings. Time was when she had been beautiful, as her portrait on the wall of the casa of the priests at Teotihuacan could prove. They called it "Queen of Hearts." But grim circumstance will leave its impress on the fairest form.
Though she toiled not, a new impetus evinced itself in the colony. Like the queen bee, others worked for her, and comforts appeared. She showed the boys how to mould their pottery better, and played with the children and hushed their wails, so that their dragged out mother might be less dispondent. She made ready threaded needles out of the thorns and fibers of the maguey that grows on the foothills, and taught the men how to make medicine from its juice. She was eyes to old Malcre when she sewed the skin garments in the poor light, and she cut out better patterns for their sandals. Because she would eat nothing but cooked food, the others gave up their way of eating it half raw. The men brought fresh pine boughs to sleep on, and they hunted up warmer covering because this frail thing had to be protected. When she fell sick it was a dire calamity. All the inmates loved her. Little wonder that Ulric showed such dog-like devotion.
Dropping with exhaustion, every step a pain, he approached Cave Valley. Finally he lost consciousness of his aching muscles; only one nagging instinct whipped him on. He must get to the house with his precious burden, fresh meat and grapes and good water from the Steps. That ought to put her on her feet again. The water was the hardest to carry. He was afraid that he might spill it. She would have liked the big thick bear robe. It would have been so soft while she was sick. Izehara had died and he couldn't bring it. Poor Izahara, up there in the cold. Then the old gnawing fear. What if she were gone and all of his torture were in vain? The thought spurred on his flagging strength, so he stumbled into the valley. Ulric looked towards the cliffs that he called home. In the evening haze he could not distinguish the familiar curl of smoke. Torn by uncertainty, he hurried up the side of the mountain. He stopped short. The growing feeling that something was wrong was realized. What was the matter with the garden? The corn, which was almost ripe, had been trampled down. At the same instant his foot touched something soft. He reached down, then drew back. The boy Kohath lay there with an arrow in his breast, stark dead. He had been shot down while he was carrying wood. Why hadn't they picked him up and carried him in? Cold chills shook him. What if they were all dead? What if the Indians were there now, waiting for him. Where was Gualzine? Cautiously, he crept along the terrace through the maize.
He waited for what to him seemed an age, while the wolves howled in the distance. No sign of life issued from the place. He could stand it no longer. He must find out what had happened to Gualzine. Careless of his own fate, he went down.