"Ages ago, my dear miss," laughed Norton, "you were too little to appreciate it. You should thank me for bringing you now."
Down through the middle of the plateau from its hidden source ran the purling stream which was destined to yield to sun and thirsty earth long before it twisted down the lower slopes of the hills. Along its edges the grass was thick and rich, shot through everywhere with little blue blossoms and the golden gleam of the starflowers. Further promise of yellow beauty was given by the stalks of the evening-primrose scattered on every hand, the flowers furled now, sleeping. In the groves were pines, small cedars, and a sprinkling of sturdy dwarf oaks. And from their shelter came the welcome sound of a bird's twitter.
"It's always about as you see it," Norton explained. "Too hard to get to, too small when one makes the climb to afford enough pasturage for sheep. And now the Palace itself."
Straight ahead the cliffs overhung the farther rim of the plateau. And there, under the out-jutting roof of rock, an ancient people had fashioned themselves a home which stood now as when their hands laboriously set it there. The protected ledge which afforded eternal foundation was slightly above the plateau's level, to be reached by a series of "steps" in the rock, steps which were holes worn deep, perhaps five hundred years ago. The climb was steep, hazardous unless one went with due precaution, but the four holiday-makers hurried to begin it.
So close to the edge of the rock ledge did the walls of the ruin stand that there was barely room to edge along it to come to the narrow doorway. Holding hands, Norton in the lead, Elmer in the rear, they made their breathless way. And then they were in the hushed, shaded anteroom.
The dust of untroubled ages lay upon the surprisingly smooth floor. Walls of cemented rock rose intact on two sides, broken here and there on a third, while the cliff itself made the fourth at the rear. And unusually spacious, wide, and high-ceiled was this room, which may have had its use when time was younger as a council-chamber. At one end was another door, small and dark and forbidding, leading to another room. Beyond lay other quarters, a long line of them, which might have housed scores in their time.
While Florrie, letting out little shrieks now and then interspersed with gay cries of delight, led a half-timorous way and Elmer went with her upon the tour of discovery, Virginia and Norton stood a moment at the front entrance looking down upon the fertile plateau and across it to the level miles running out to San Juan and beyond.
"Who were they?" asked Virginia, unconscious of a half-sigh as she withdrew abstracted eyes from the wide panorama which had filled the vision of so many other men and women and little children before the white man came to claim the New World. "They who builded here and lived and died here. What has become of them? Where did they go?"
"All questions asked a thousand times and never answered. I don't know. But they were good builders, good engineers, good pottery-makers, good farmers and hunters and fighters; rather a goodly crowd, I take it. Come, and I'll share my secret with you while Florrie and Elmer discover the skeleton a little farther on and stop to exclaim over it."