With all the joy of discoverers we speedily climbed the precipitous bank to the narrow shelf on which the ancient city was built. Strung together on their precarious ledge like beads on a necklace were rows of rooms, compared to which a kitchenette in a New York apartment would be spacious. Above them were second and third stories, the ceilings long ago fallen, and only a few decayed piñon vegas to show where they had been. On one building the tumbled masonry exposed a framework of willow wattles. A thousand years before, perhaps, some Indian had cut the saplings fresh from the brook where we had just bathed. The great stone slabs of the altars and the cedar beams must have been dragged up from below,—a stupendous work of patient human ants. In the fine, crumbly floor dust, we found innumerable bits of pottery, painted in the early red, black and white, and fragments of the still earlier thumb-nail. Toby tirelessly collected armfuls of them, and tied them in bandana handkerchiefs. The place had hardly been excavated. We pawed the dust, each believing we might discover some souvenir the Smithsonian would envy us, and ethnologists refer to wistfully in their reports, yet somehow, we did not. But many interesting things came to light, feathers twisted together into ropes, obsidian arrow-heads, sticks notched by a stone adze, grinding stones such as the Hopis use today, and the altar stones found in each apartment. No wonder their builders worshipped, living so near Heaven.
These ruins, called Beta-Takin, or “Hillside House” were well named. Above was only the deep blue sky, framed in the smooth red arch that roofed these swallows’ nests. Below were steep slopes of crumbling sandstone, the glowing flowers near the river, and beyond, castellated peaks of bold outline. I climbed with caution to the furthest tip of the crescent town, and my traitor knees began to crumple like paper. I had suddenly begun to wonder, at the wrong moment, whether any cliff dwelling babies had ever fallen over that edge.
Hostein Chee was finishing his last diamond hitch when we returned to camp. Our horses were changed; some who yesterday had been mere pack animals were promoted to the rank of saddle horses. The Golfer had drawn a powerful black mule, and had mounted him jauntily. The Golfer was new to horses, but anyone could ride a mule. Just then, as he bent to adjust a stirrup, the familiar jingle of the departing pack and the music of Hostein Chee’s alien profanity came to those long ears. Forgetting his recent rise in station, the mule leaped eagerly forward to join his mates. Briar and bush did not stop the pair; they tore downhill over boulders and through thickets. Young alders slapped the Golfer in the face, but he hung on until the mule, in despair at seeing demure Annie trot out of his vision, took the stream at a leap. At that moment, those who were ahead say that the black mule caught up with Annie.
The Golfer had lost interest in the amorous pursuit, and was sitting up picking the cactus thorns out of himself when we arrived.
“What happened?” we asked, in the way people will ask questions.
“I’d thought I’d get off,” answered the Golfer.
But thereafter, he and the black mule became firm, if not fast companions.
The gorge we had passed through in the dark we retraced to find full of color. Great aspens bordered the heights, while the river bed was full of flowers. As we came to the opening the canyon broadened, and the reddish cliffs became higher and took on strange shapes of beasts and humans. A whole herd of elephants carved in the sandstone seemed guarding the entrance into Segi canyon, meticulously complete, even to white tusks, wrinkled trunks and little eyes, as if these had been the freehand plans the Creator of elephants had sketched on the wall before he began to work them out according to blue-print.
We worked through and across Segi canyon until we stood on a ledge of rock, and looked over miles of rose, purple and stormy blue, toward corrugated walls high enough to fence in the world. And then began a descent of two hours, while the sun blazed up in this shadeless waste of rocks. We scrambled over boulders bigger than our horses, dragging the reluctant animals after us on the rein, ready to dodge quickly if they slipped. A few lizards glided under cover as we advanced, the only living creatures in sight, though from the heights came occasionally the melancholy story of a ring-dove or a hoot-owl. The trail clung to sheer walls, its switchbacks rougher and at times far steeper than the Grand Canyon trails. Since its discovery ten years ago, little has been done to improve it, necessarily, because of its extreme length and the fact that it is not situated in a national park. For these reasons, it will probably never lose its primitive wildness.
We lunched under a few spreading junipers, where water in muddy rock basins was to be found. The sun was low when we started again, for in that country it does not pay to ride through the heat of mid-day. The region, broken no longer by gigantic canyons, softened to a dull monotony of sage and rolling hills. Camp was already made, when at evening we rode into a small, semi-enclosed valley at a short distance from a second cliff-town, under an arched recess of rock high above us. While the men unpacked, Martha, Toby and I found a tiny pool yielding a basin full of water, but ice-cold, it soothed our weary bodies wonderfully. About all we need for our physical selves in this world is a bath after dust and heat, food after hunger, sleep after weariness, warmth after cold, and freedom from worry,—and camp life completely satisfies for a time, because these simple desires are both intensely stimulated and gratified. Our campfire warmed the chill night air, and gave us an hour’s relaxation and gayety. But sleep could not be held off long, and at nine, we all retired to our tents under a thicket of junipers.