He stopped as suddenly as he began.
"There was some great work in the Gunnison canyon, was there not?" queried Wilbur.
The old man made no reply, and the son answered the question.
"When they had to lower a man from the top into the canyon, seven hundred feet below," he said, "Dad was the first to volunteer. I reckon, son, there's no greater story worth the tellin' than the Uncompahgre tunnel. And then, I ain't told nothin' about the big Washington and Oregon valleys, where tens of thousands now have homes an' are rearin' the finest kind of men an' women. But, as dad says, we're comin' home. There's four centuries of our history and there's seven centuries of Moki traditions, an' still there's nothing to tell me who the people are who built the cliff-town where I was born. Dad, he thinks that when the water comes, perhaps the stones will speak. I don't know, but if they ever do, I want to be there to hear. It's the strangest, wildest place in all the world, I think, and while it is harsh and unkindly, still it's home. Dad's right there. These forests are all right," he added, remembering that the boy was attached to the Forest Service, "but for me, I want a world whose end you can't see an' where every glance leads up."
"Do you suppose," said Wilbur, "that in the days of the cliff-dwellers, and earlier, the 'inland empire' was densely populated?"
"Some time," the other replied slowly, "it must have been. Not far from my cliff home is the famous Cheltro Palace, which contains over thirty million blocks of stone."
"How big is it?" asked Wilbur.
"Well, it is four stories high, nearly five hundred feet long, an' just half that width."
Wilbur whistled.
"My stars," he ejaculated, "that is big! And is there nothing left to tell about them?" he asked.