"Any snakes over there?"
"Comf'table thick. You might get a pretty good mess of 'em, if you was to take your time. I never bother to look for 'em."
Sundown gazed at his length of nether limb and sighed.
"Snakes won't bother you none," said Wingle, reassuringly. "They get tired, same as anybody, and they'd have to climb too fur to see if you was to home."
Sundown rose and saddled a horse. He mounted and rode slowly toward the rim of the distant cañon. At the cañon's brink, he dismounted and led his horse down the trail, stopping frequently to gaze in wonderment at the painted cliffs and masses of red rock strewn along the slopes. High up on the perpendicular face of the cañon walls he saw many caves and wondered how they came to be there. "Makes a fella feel like sayin' his prayers," he muttered. "Wisht I knowed one."
He drifted on down the trail, which wound around huge fragments of rock riven from the cliffs in prehistoric days. He was awed by the immensity of the chasm and talked continuously to his horse which shuffled along behind paying careful attention to the footing. Arrived at the stream the horse drank. Sundown mounted and rode along the narrow level paralleling the river course. The cañon widened, and before he realized it he was in a narrow valley carpeted with bunch-grass and dotted with solitary cypress and infrequent clumps of pine. He paused to inspect a small mound of rock which was partially surrounded by a wall of neatly laid stone. Within the semicircular wall was a hole in the ground—the entrance to a cave. Farther along he came upon the ruins of a walled square, unmistakably of human construction. He became interested, and, tying his horse to a scrub-cedar, began to dig among the loose stones covering the interior of the square. He discovered a fragment of painted pottery—the segment of an olla, smooth, dark red, and decorated with a design in black. He rubbed the earth from the fragment and polished it on his overalls. He unearthed a larger fragment and found that it matched the other piece. He was happy. He forgot his surroundings, and scratched and dug in the ruin until he accumulated quite a little pile of shards, oddly marked and colored. Eventually he gathered up his spoils and tied them in his handkerchief.
Leaving his horse, he meandered down the valley until he came to another and larger cave. "Wonder what's down there?" he soliloquized. "Mebby one of them Injuns. Been there a thousand years waitin' for somethin' to turn up. 'Nough to make a fella tired, waitin' that long." He wanted to explore the cave, but he was afraid. Moreover, the interior was dark. He pondered. Finally his natural fondness for mild adventure overcame his fear. "Got some matches!" he exclaimed, joyfully. "Wonder if it's deep? Guess I could put me legs in first, and if nothin' bites me legs, why, I could follow 'em down to bottom." He put his head in the hole. "Hey!" he hallooed, "are you in there?" He rose to his feet. "Nothin' doin'. Well, here goes. I sure want to see what's down there."
In his excitement he overlooked the possibility of disturbing a torpid rattler. He slid feet first into the cave, found that he could all but stand upright, and struck a match.
The ancient Hopis buried their dead in a sitting posture on a woven grass mat, with an olla, and frequently a bone dagger, beside them. In the clean, dry air of the uplands of Arizona the process of decay is slow. Sundown, unaware of this, hardly anticipated that which confronted him as the match flamed blue and flared up, lighting the interior of the cave with instant brilliance. About six feet from where he crouched was the dried and shriveled figure of a Hopi chief, propped against the wall of the cave. Beside the figure stood the painted olla untarnished by age. The dead Indian's head was bowed upon his breast, and his skeleton arms, parchment-skinned and rigid, were crossed upon his knees.
Sundown scrambled for the circle of daylight above him. "Gee Gosh!" he panted, as he got to his feet outside the cave. "It was him!" He clambered over the circle of stones and backed away, eyeing the entrance as though he expected to see the Hopi emerge at any moment. He crouched behind a boulder, his pulses racing. He was keyed to a high tension of expectancy. In fact, he was in a decidedly receptive mood for that which immediately happened. He noticed that his horse, a hundred yards or so up the valley, was circling the cedar and pulling back on the reins. He wondered what was the matter with him. The horse was usually a well-behaved animal. The explanation came rapidly. Sundown saw the horse back and tear loose from the cedar; saw him whirl and charge down the valley snorting. "Guess he seen one, too!" said Sundown making no effort to check the frightened animal. Almost immediately came the long-drawn bell of a dog following a hot scent. Sundown turned from watching his vanishing steed and saw a huge timber-wolf leap from a thicket. Behind the wolf came Chance, neck outstretched, and flanks working at top speed. The wolf dodged a boulder, flashing around it with no apparent loss of ground. Chance rose over the boulder as though borne on the wind. The wolf turned and snapped at him. Sundown decided instantly that the sepulcher of the dead Hopi was preferable to the proximity of the live wolf, and he made for the cave.