Chapter 9: New Resources

Their excursions to the plateau back of the cliff village now became numerous, and they were continually making discoveries of value and interest. In a secluded rift or narrow valley Herbert found young maize growing, shooting up stalks tender and yet small, but fresh and green. It was a plot about a quarter of an acre in extent, moistened by drainage from the surrounding slopes, and with a tiny stream flowing down the center, to be lost fifty yards further on in a mighty gulf below. The corn was growing irregularly, but it showed signs of abundant life, and Herbert brought the others to see his discovery.

“This is highly interesting and it also provides a new source of food for us,” said the Professor, looking at the young stalks attentively through his great glasses. “It indicates that Indians lived here long after the cliff dwellers departed or were driven away. Perhaps it is not many years since the Indians themselves left, owing to some kind of superstitious terror, to which savage tribes are subject. It may have been a pestilence or an epidemic, which they attributed to the wrath of the gods of the cliff dwellers. Consequently this place has become, as the Hawaiians would say, tabu to them. So much the better for us, as it gives us the finest kind of protection from their raids.”

“An’ the corn?” said Jedediah Simpson. “How about the corn growin’ here ez fine an’ sassy ez ef it wuz sproutin’ out o’ the good soil aroun’ Lexin’ton, K—y?”

“It is wild corn now. It was planted first by the Indian squaws who now and then do a little cultivation, when the soil is favorable and, when the place was abandoned, the falling grain renewed the stalks year after year. If we stay here long enough we will reap where the Apache women have sown. But we must set some dead falls and snares to protect our future grain from graminivorous and herbivorous wild animals.”

“‘Graminivorous an’ herbivorous,’” said Jedediah Simpson in a whisper to Herbert. “Do you think anybody else could sling big words like them, jest ez smooth an’ easy ez a baby drinkin’ milk. Don’t you think the Purfessor is the greatest man the world hez ever seed?”

“He is certainly a great man,” said Herbert with the utmost sincerity. “For us in this wilderness there could be no greater.”

“He knows everything in the world,” continued Jedediah Simpson in an awed whisper.

They set the snares and dead falls after the usual western fashion, catching a number of wild animals, the skins and flesh of which they could use. This seemed to warn the others away, and the young cornfield was not molested. Herbert, who looked upon it as his by right of discovery, found an ancient and crude hoe in a dark corner of a little cliff house that they had not visited hitherto. It was made of sharp flat stone, with a wooden handle, rotted by age. But Herbert easily replaced the handle, and went forth to work in his corn field, hoeing carefully around each stalk, that is, turning up the fresh loose earth in a little hill. Jedediah Simpson, who knew all about raising Indian corn, helped him with instructions, but Herbert insisted upon doing the work himself. He took a pride in it, and the field soon showed the effect of his systematic care. Favored by one or two kindly rains the stalks shot up in an astonishing manner, and there was ample promise of fine roasting ears in the time to come.

Jedediah Simpson lay at the edge of the field in the shade of an oak, his long thin frame stretched out on the grass, and his broad-brimmed light felt hat covering his forehead to the eyes. He was the picture of content and ease. Herbert in the sun was wielding his stone hoe with vigor, turning up fresh loose earth about every individual stalk.

“Good boy, Herb,” drawled Jedediah in long, slow tones. “Thar ain’t no better occupation fur a growin’ lad than hoein’ corn. I done my share o’ it when I wuz a boy in the neighborhood o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, the fairest spot on this round rollin’ earth, an’ now see what I am. You keep right on, Herb, an’ you’ll be shore to rise to the heights that I’ve riz to.”

Herbert laughed.

“Come on, Jed,” he said. “The sun’s bright an’ fine.”

“Not me,” replied Jedediah. “I know somethin’ ‘bout that sun, when you’re hoein’ corn. No, you work right along, Herbert, an’ I’ll take a nap in the shade o’ this tree.”

They let their fire go out one night a little later, and, when the Professor examined their store of matches, he was somewhat worried to find it so small.

“We must save the matches,” he said, “and I will use my fire sticks, although it’s hard work I assure you.”

“Fire sticks?” said Charles inquiringly.

“It’s a method I learned from the civilized Apaches in the eastern part of the territory, and, as a precaution, I have had the fire sticks with me ever since I came to Arizona.”

The two lads and Jedediah followed at the Professor’s heels, curious to see him make fire with sticks. He produced from his stores a stick about two and a half feet long and half an inch thick.

“This,” he said, “is a piece of the stem of the o-oh-kad-je, as the Apaches call it, that is, the fire stick. Now this stick has to cooperate with a piece of yucca, and the rest is hard work, as you shall soon see.”

He laid a piece of dry soft yucca on the ground and planted his foot firmly upon it. He dipped the end of the fire stick in some sand, and pressed it firmly into a shallow depression of the yucca. Then he began to whirl the fire stick rapidly between his hands.

The little professor was a man of great strength. Charles and Herbert did not appreciate until now how very strong he really was. He had long arms, flexible and enduring as steel, and he twirled the stick with amazing rapidity, all the time keeping the end firmly fixed in the yucca.

A minute, two minutes. Perspiration stood out on the face of Professor Erasmus Darwin Longworth, but the speed of the revolving fire stick did not decrease. Gradually a very fine charcoal was ground from the yucca, and when the Professor thought he had enough, he spread it out on the dry grass. Then he blew a light breath or two upon it and it sprang into a flame, which was quickly communicated to small sticks of dry yucca, and then to larger wood, soon making a fine roaring fire.

Professor Longworth put away his fire stick and sat down, panting but triumphant.

“Friction, my lads, it’s friction that does it, as it does many other things in this world. That is probably one of the most primitive human methods of making a fire, but it works. And primitive as it is, it doubtless took savages thousands of years to evolve it.”

Charles tried his hand at the fire stick a few days later, and succeeded, although the task exhausted him, but Herbert failed entirely and went in disgust to his corn field.

The Professor and Charles found at the furthest corner of the plateau remains of an Apache village which had ceased to exist probably twenty years before. Scattered about were pieces of pottery in a good state of preservation, which confirmed the Professor in his opinion that the Apaches had left in a panic.

“Superstition and terror were certainly at their heels,” he said. “They had suffered a great disaster of some kind, and they thought that the god of the cliff dwellers was coming down upon them with the sword of wrath. Here are a number of their cooking utensils, quite intact. See this.”

He picked up a large pot of unglazed earthenware, made from red clay, holding perhaps three gallons.

“This,” said he, “in the tongue of the Apache is the a-mat, that is, the pot to cook in, and this is the haht-ki-ivah or bowl to hold food.”

The latter was also made of red, unglazed earthenware, and was broad and shallow, holding at least four gallons. They found other bowls and pots. Some were decorated with narrow horizontal or zigzag lines, made of lighter-colored clay. None of them had legs. When used for cooking they were, as the Professor explained, supported over the fire on three stones which were called o-kuth-ku-nu.

They discovered in a little gully, half hidden in drift, two globular water jars of red clay covered with loosely woven basketwork. Each jar would hold about four gallons, and, cleaning them out, they set them aside, resolved at some convenient time to take them down to the cliff village.

Charles found in the same gully a curious flat stone, about eighteen inches long and eight inches wide, evidently shaped by the hand of man. He held it up before the Professor.