Chapter 12: The Community House

Professor Longworth regained his rifle and belt, before he examined the dead bears. “How do I know that a whole herd of grizzlies will not come rushing out of the bushes after us?” he said whimsically. “Never again will I be so careless.”

Then, in the bright moonlight, they contemplated the dead monsters. They reckoned that the old male would weigh at least a thousand pounds—he was larger than the one that Charles and Herbert had met—and the female but little less. Their huge claws, many inches in length, were like terrible steel barbs.

“Ursus horribilis,” said the Professor. “They truly deserve the name. At close quarters nothing could withstand them. Those claws would rip up either a lion or a tiger.”

“Are we to let these great skins go to waste?” asked Charles.

“No. Fortunately I have had much experience in taking pelts and we will remove them. Then we’ll lug them up to the first platform and leave them there to dry until we can come again for them, when we’ll add them to the one we’ve already got.”

But skillful though Longworth was and efficient though Charles proved himself to be it was broad daylight before they finished taking the hides from the three bears. Then it was a tremendous task to get them up to the first platform, and the two were thoroughly exhausted.

But long before this was done they had visitors. Five great triangular heads were thrust from the bushes, and five pairs of burning eyes regarded them.

“Mountain wolves,” said the Professor. “They are big, fierce fellows, but they won’t attack us. They are waiting for a great feast here after we are gone, and they will get it. It seems a pity to leave two thousand pounds or more of bear meat for such woods rovers.”

“They’ll not be alone,” said Charles. “Look up.”

Far in the blue the forms of vultures were hovering.

“And I suppose there’ll be mountain lions, too, and other guests,” muttered the Professor. “Well, we’ll keep ‘em waiting a while. It’s time for breakfast, Charles, and we’ll have some breakfast ourselves before leaving.”

They lighted the fire again and Longworth cut some of the tenderest steaks from the younger bear, which they cooked and found very good indeed. While this pleasant task was proceeding, a whining and growling came from the bushes. At least a dozen triangular heads appeared at the edge of the thicket. Overhead the vulture shapes had increased fivefold, and were hovering lower.

“The second table is in a hurry,” said the Professor, “but it will have to bide the good time of the first table. I’m not nearly through; are you, Charles?”

“Not by any means. Young bear is wonderfully good when you have a mountain appetite. Yes, thank you, I’ll take another piece. Does that whining and growling in the bushes annoy you, Professor?”

“It didn’t at first, but it does now. I’m getting too much of it. Suppose you take a rifle, my lad, and smash a hole in one of those ugly, triangular heads.”

Charles, nothing loath, sent a bullet at the largest of the heads. He heard a yell and saw a form leap upward and sink back into the bushes. Then came a terrific whining, barking and growling. It was such a horrible mingling of sound that Charles shivered.

“Merely a bit of cannibalism,” said the Professor, calmly, going on with his own breakfast. “They are eating the fellow you slew, and they are probably thanking you for the act. Ah, they are through now. They certainly ate him in a hurry.”

Noise in the bushes ceased, but no more heads were thrust out. Wolves learn fast and a single bullet had taught them the value of invisibility. The Professor rose presently and with an air of deep content stretched his arms.

“Now, Charles,” he said, “we’ll gather up our belongings and go, but we’ll do it with calmness and deliberation. The loss of a night’s sleep, a siege of seven or eight hours and much danger are not calculated to promote zeal and industry. We’ll leave slowly, and further down the valley, when we find a good place, we’ll take naps that we need badly.”

Charles saw the Professor’s mood and he shared it. He resented leaving the bodies of the bears to the wolves and vultures, and he intended to tantalize them as long as possible. They packed with great slowness, although the shadows of the hovering vultures sometimes fell on their faces, and two or three of the more reckless or more impatient wolves showed their heads again through the bushes.

They took with them enough tenderloin from the young bear to last two or three days, and finally departed. When they were less than a hundred feet away, they heard the rush of feet and the whirr of wings. They looked back and saw that the three bodies were covered with the black and gray of bird and beast.

“What an ignominious fate for the monarch of the mountains!” said Professor Longworth.

They kept along the edge of the shelf and then found an easy slope by which they descended into the valley. When they reached the bottom they came into a little grove of oaks. It was then about ten o’clock and the sun was growing warm. Both were becoming very weary and the Professor decided that they should spread their blankets in the heart of the grove and make up for their lost sleep.

“I think that we need not yet have any fear of Indians,” he said. “Undoubtedly this valley is too much isolated for them. At any rate I’m willing to take the risk. I want sleep badly.”

“I feel that I must have sleep or die,” said Charles, casting himself down on his blanket.

“You will have sleep and you will not die,” said the Professor, also stretching himself out on his own blanket.

The two were sound asleep in five minutes and nothing disturbed them in the grove. They were shaded by the oaks from the sun and a pleasant breeze blew, lulling them to deeper slumbers. It was the middle of the afternoon before they awoke, and when the Professor noted the time of day by the sun, his face showed satisfaction.

“Sleep not only knits up the raveled sleeve of care,” he said, “but it also strengthens sinew and tissue. We are men again, refreshed and reinvigorated. Now for some more of those bear steaks.”

After eating, they went further into the valley and found that a fine mountain creek flowed down its center. In places the water rippled over shallows, but at intervals it gathered in deep, still pools.

“Probably splendid trout here,” said Longworth, “but we’re not equipped for them now. As nearly as I can make out, Charles, this valley is about twenty miles long, and it seems to be closed, but undoubtedly we’ll find at the lower end an opening or slash in the mountains. In any event we’ll see.”

They traveled down the valley all the rest of the day. They saw several deer which were uncommonly tame, bearing out the Professor’s theory that man did not come there. They proceeded very deliberately as they had no reason for haste. In places the soil was very fertile and well wooded, but in others it was hard and rocky with signs now and then of a lava flow.

Above them they saw long mesas, thrust out like tongues, and back of these low peaks and ranges with higher mountains behind them. They also saw running back into the lower ranges little box canyons in which grew many low trees, with lofty pines scattered here and there. The cliffs, vivid red or yellow in color, were very soft, the Professor said, being composed mostly of pumice stone. Little streams flowed out of three of the canyons and emptied into the creek.

Finally they came to a huge wash which Professor Longworth entered, and from which presently came the pecking sound of his little geological hammer. But this sound was soon stopped by a wild cry of exultation. Charles, who had stopped at the edge, rushed down into the wash. The Professor had begun to peck again, but now frantically, with the hammer.

“It’s a find, a bone find, a find of prehistoric animals, Charlie, lad!” he cried. “Surely on this trip into the mountains I’m the luckiest man on earth!”

Longworth’s helmet which had been recovered undamaged was set on the back of his head, and he was making rock and earth fly from a huge bone that projected from the side of a gully. He had wholly forgotten the sun, which now blazed down upon him. But as Charles joined him he grew calmer.

“It’s tremendous luck that I came into this wash,” he said. “The bones of huge animals millions of years old are projecting everywhere. Here are the great lizard-like creatures and also crocodiles, gigantic monkeys and the Lord knows what. I’ve no doubt that a capable scientist could profitably spend his whole life in this valley.”

But the two only passed the day there. For a range of two or three miles they saw the bones, and Professor Longworth wrote in his notebook a long and minute description of the place.

“I shall come back here later with a properly equipped force,” he said. “Meanwhile we have to let them lie. Nobody else who knows anything about such things is likely to find them.”

“How do you account for the presence of such great animals so high above the sea?” asked the boy.

“It wasn’t high when the dinosaurus and the ichthyosaurus and the rest of them roamed about here. The vast plateau of western and southwestern North America seems to have been the greatest animal range in the world. Wyoming, which is now from 6,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea, was the heart of it, but the big game, and real big game it was, too, Charles, fairly swarmed here also. Huge animals, too huge to sustain well their own weight on land, waded in the marshes and shallow parts of the rivers, pulling down the long grass and tops of bushes for food. What a world that must have been, Charlie, lad! Think of the cave bears, by the side of which our grizzlies would have been puny, the monstrous saber-toothed tiger, two or three times as big as any that now grow, the immense mastodon and the mammoth perhaps fifty feet long. And back of them the great armored and lizard-like creatures, some of which may have grown one hundred and fifty feet in length. What a world! What a world! Charles, I would willingly take a year out of my life to be carried backward through time, and see this region as it was five million years ago!”

“Man then must have been pretty small potatoes and mighty few in a hill,” observed Charles.

“Undoubtedly he was,” said the Professor, whose eyes were still glowing. “Now, what was he five million years ago? We have nothing to go on, but he must have existed in some form even then. He may have run on four legs, but, whatever he was, he must have been physically a poor and inferior thing, hiding away in caves and burrows. The world belonged to the great animals. If you had no firearms, Charlie, lad, you would certainly be frightened if you met a saber-toothed tiger six feet high and fifteen feet long, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d be frightened if I had all the firearms in the world.”

Longworth laughed.

“So would I have been scared,” he said. “Man must have had a terrible time of it in those days. No doubt, countless millions of our ancestors were devoured by wild beasts. The mammoth, the mastodon, the saber-toothed tiger and the others must have looked down upon us as a very inferior order of beings. Perhaps it’s only in the last fifteen or twenty thousand years that we’ve been getting even.”

The Professor left the wash with great reluctance, and they camped among trees about two miles farther on. Here they passed an undisturbed night, and were ready the next morning to resume their journey down the valley.

As they had expected they found the great slash in the mountains through which the creek flowed. It was not more than fifty yards wide and was not visible until they came near. The stream here was about thirty feet wide and two or three feet deep, flowing over a rough, stony bed. But there was plenty of space between it and the mountain as it ran through the gorge, and they followed it until they emerged upon a vast sun-burned plateau, which looked like the wreck of a world consumed by fire.

“We’ll fill our water bottles again,” said Professor Longworth, “and follow the stream, though we’ll have to go high above it now. I’ve an idea that we are coming to a great canyon. This creek probably flows into the Colorado and goes ultimately through the Grand Canyon. It is the Grand Canyon of which all the world hears, but the west and southwest contain many other deep and beautiful canyons. There are dozens of great lateral canyons opening into those of the Colorado.”

They filled their water bottles, and took a long rest also. Then they began the passage of the great, volcanic plain, although the volcanic forces which had thrown up these mountains had been dead for ages. They soon left all timber behind them. The soil was stony and rough, and the sun blazing hot. They took occasional sips of water, but the evaporation was so great that they were as thirsty as ever five minutes later.

But thirst and heat did not dim Longworth’s enthusiasm, He looked upon every phase of this vast, dead region with the most eager interest.

“Perhaps nowhere else can anyone see the world in the making so well,” he said. “Here we behold in layer upon layer the processes of youth, maturity and decay. Have you observed, Charles, how this plain is rising?”

“I have. I have noticed it in several ways. I can see it with my eyes, and I can tell it by the strain upon my muscles. Moreover, Professor, I’m hot—awful hot.”

“But you can be and you are likely to be a great deal hotter,” said the Professor cheerfully. “We have left our little river, Charlie, lad, but it’s somewhere there on our right. In another mile we shall reach the crest of this plain, and then I want to turn in and see the stream.”

It was a long mile, with hard and sharp lava under foot and a ferocious sun overhead, but they made it and then turned in to the right, until they came to the stream, or rather its channel. Here they lay flat on their stomachs and gazed into the mighty depths below. The little river, eating away for untold centuries, had cut a tremendous slash across the vast plateau, on its way to the Colorado, and the two looked down upon a spectacle at once beautiful and appalling. They saw the thinnest thread of white water more than three thousand feet below. On both sides rose the cliffs, red and yellow, as the sun shone upon them, and carved by weather and time into fantastic shapes. The chasm did not seem to be more than two hundred feet across at the bottom, but at the top it was a thousand feet from edge to edge. Longworth examined it for more than hour through his glasses.

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” he said. “Ah, my boy, think what patience and industry allied can accomplish! See what a mighty chasm this little river has cut through solid stone in a few millions of years! And what a lesson it teaches us! Charlie, lad, it is one of the regrets of my life that I cannot live a thousand years. In a millennium I could learn something. I could make a fairly comprehensive study of earth and man. But as I cannot get the thousand, I’ll do the best I can in the seventy or eighty allotted to me.”

Charles was interested, too, on his own account and also because the enthusiasm of the Professor was contagious. All the singular phases of this strange, southwestern world appealed to him, and he had also the taste for knowledge.

“Professor,” he said, “the plateau seems to descend now. I can see mountains on the far side.”

“So can I,” said Longworth, and then he studied them through his glasses.

“They are at least forty miles away,” he said, “and they seem to be bare. But we’ll keep on until we reach them.”

“Suppose we turn back into one of the little box canyons,” said Charles, “and stay there until night. Then we can travel in the cool dark.”

“A good idea,” said Longworth. “These box canyons are hot, but sometimes you can find something at the head of them that will keep you cool.”

They turned at once from the stream toward the mountain on their left, and passed up one of the box canyons. It was hotter there than on the plateau, but when they came to its end, they found a deep hollow opening in the stone. Charles was surprised to find how far back it ran, and how cool it was under the shade of the stone.

“Our cliff-dwelling friends have been here,” said Longworth, “although they probably have been gone also for some centuries. It is likely that we’d find just such a house as this at the head of every one of these canyons. But one is enough for our purpose. We’ll sleep here in the shade.”

They slept in the dark, cool shade until the night was more than two hours old. Then they awoke and started again, refreshed greatly. They walked all night, cooked bear steaks at dawn, and finding another cliff house in a canyon, remained there throughout the day, sleeping most of the time. Before dawn on the following morning they reached the end of the plain and entered bare and sterile mountains. But they were fortunate enough to find a spring containing an abundance of cool, fresh water, and they slept beside it in the partial shade of some stunted pinons.