11 Ancient Tower

But they did not rest long. The first night after their return the two boys withdrew early to their beds in the little cave houses. As the houses were small and close every one of the four now had a house of his own as a bedroom. Charles’ was next to Herbert’s and with a brief good night they entered, each into his own place.

Charles stood in the room a minute or two before lying down. Much sweeping and dusting and dousing with water had made it fresh, sweet and clean. All the mold and old smells of ages were gone, and he rejoiced to be in the strange but snug little place again. He looked out at the window cut in the rock, in the fashion of a rude circle seven or eight inches in diameter, and saw a patch of dark sky. No star appeared in his area of vision and he knew that all of them were now hidden by clouds. A wind began to moan in the great canyon, and the air took on a chill.

Charles knew that they were about to have one of the rare rains that fall in that region, and he was glad of it. He would feel all the finer and more comfortable in his cliff cell with a storm without. The wind rose higher, and the air poured in at the little window in a full fresh stream. He also left the low door open and another current came there. The direction of the wind showed him that the rain would not enter at the door, and the atmosphere of the room would remain fresh, vital and cool. His strength had increased greatly in the wild mountain life and his lungs, already very strong, had expanded greatly. Like a strong engine consuming quantities of fuel he demanded much air.

He watched a little longer until he saw streaks of lightning blaze across the horizon and heard the deep muttering of thunder in their own and other mighty canyons. The sound in that vast maze of high mountains and tremendous gorges was inexpressibly solemn and majestic, even terrifying. Charles, despite habit, could never hear it without awe, and he felt sure that the old cliff dwellers who passed their lives amid such surroundings must have created all their gods out of the thunder, the lightning and the storm.

He saw the lightning blaze and then strike with an incredible detonation on the black basalt of a cliff a mile away. For a moment the stone stood out in the intense light, and balls and shafts of fire seemed to leap from it. Then the darkness closed in again, but twenty seconds later the lightning was playing around the crest of a high, bald peak, crowning it with fire. Soon both lightning and thunder ceased and the rain rushed down.

Then Charles took off his clothes, and lay down on his bed. They had not neglected to provide themselves with comforts and good beds were among their early achievements. He had made a smooth layer of turkey feathers, over which he spread tanned skins upon which he lay luxuriously, drawing the blanket over his body, because the air was now very cool. He fell at once into a deep sleep, slept on through the storm, and long after it had passed. Herbert in the next room was sleeping the same way.

Professor Longworth and Jed Simpson were up early the next day, but they moved quietly about the village.

“Let them sleep,” said the Professor. “Best thing for their nerves that they could do.”

The whole canyon, after the storm and rain, was filled with pure air, with a touch of crispness in it. The village seemed to have come fresh from the bath, and Professor Longworth, as he strode up and down the terrace, gazed at the peaks and ridges with a kindling eye.

“What a world! What a world!” he murmured. “And how it is defended from the advance of man!”

It was the isolation and the tremendous ramparts of nature that appealed to Professor Longworth. Man could come there but little, and it was for him to find out and explore. He had with him just the comrades that he liked, friends but no rival. He would not have exchanged his position then for that of any other man in the world. But he did not spend his time in dreaming. He formed a resolution which he intended to carry out in a few days.

Charles and Herbert did not awake until past noon, and, while they ate breakfast, Jed and the Professor ate luncheon with them. Jed had exerted his culinary skill to the utmost. He had caught trout, and they had venison, canned food and coffee. The boys ate with ravenous appetites, and the Professor regarded them approvingly.

“Your nerves are all right,” he said. “I ordered this large meal for you purposely, but I take it that you do not want any buffalo steaks on your bill of fare.”

“No! No!” said Charles and Herbert together.

The Professor laughed.

“I don’t wonder that you were scared,” he said. “This is a strange region and its principal note is weirdness. I do not know any more interesting country in the world and I mean to look further into it. You and I, Charles, are going, the day after to-morrow, on an exploring expedition across the mesa back of the peninsula. The race of people who made villages like this did not confine their houses to the sides of cliffs. They also built on the mesas, in the valleys and on the mountain tops. It was a strange old life. I can reproduce much of it, but I cannot reconstruct it as a whole.”

Charles was delighted at the prospect of the trip. Jed and Herbert were to keep house, and both were content to stay. They had many things which they wished to do about the village.

Charles and the Professor started early on the appointed morning, each carrying a rifle, pistol, hatchet and knife. The hatchets were to be used in preparing camps. They also took blanket rolls, although the weather was fine and rain was highly improbable. In such a dry region it was not likely that two big rains would fall within a month of each other. As a precaution, they strapped two great bottles of water to their waists, although the Professor hacl a wonderful genius for finding water and he believed that it was plentiful in the mountains.

Skilled campers and travelers, their burdens were not great, and easily reaching the top of the cliff they waved farewell to Herbert and Jed. According to the Professor’s calculations they would be gone about a week.

They traveled the full length of the peninsula, mostly through forest, and the size of some of the trees indicated a fine depth of soil upon that lofty ridge. There were tall pines, large oaks, aspen and cedar and low scrub and sage brush. Twice they came to little fountains, emerging at the base of low hills. The last of these, just as it came from the earth, had formed a basin for itself, worn out in the solid rock six inches deep and a foot across. After filling the pool the water flowed in a stream across the mesa and then fell down a cliff a thousand feet high where it was lost in a fine mist. The fountain itself was shaded by two massive and splendid oaks.

It was an attractive place, and they took their noon rest and food beside it. The Professor pointed out the tracks of animals in the turf on either bank of the stream.

“Bear, deer, wolves, mountain lions and other beasts come here to drink,” he said. “In the old days—how many centuries ago I cannot tell—it is likely that men often came, too, but they have passed—forever, I suppose.”

“But the prospect for game looks good,” said the boy, “and on a trip of a week we’ll need it.”

“So it does,” said the Professor. “We can undoubtedly find wild turkeys and mule deer.”

“This plateau seems to have plenty of both wood and water,” said Charles. “Then why don’t the Indians roam here?”

“It’s extreme isolation and the fact that it is broken up so terribly by sharp ridges and mighty gorges,” replied Longworth. “Savage man is naturally lazy and the Apaches, Utes, Piutes and Navajos prefer easier country. The cliff dwellers, I presume, came here originally for protection, and now that they are gone the country is left to the winds and the wild beasts. I think the heat of the noonday sun is abating somewhat now, Charles, and we might as well be moving.”

“Just one more drink before we go,” said the boy.

Lying flat on his chest he took a long, cool drink. It was splendid water, coming somewhere from great cool caverns in the heart of the mountain. Longworth drank also, and then they replenished their large thermos bottles. Then they resumed the journey, although they sauntered along at their leisure, looking at the tracks of animals, and examining the country with questing eyes.

They had now left the peninsula and the mesa and were descending a great slope, covered with thin grass and with patches of pine here and there. They looked upward, as from the side of a bowl, and all around them were ranges and peaks in inextricable confusion as if they had been hurled at random by the mighty hand of the Infinite. Most of the slopes were dark far up with heavy masses of evergreen, but above the pines rose the bald and stony peaks, some crested with snow.

“It seems to me,” said the boy, “that the country always grows wilder.”

“At least it remains as wild,” replied the man, “and I am glad that it does. I am here to see Nature’s great, and not her commonplace, achievements. Our slope is descending fast now, and by night we shall be at least three-quarters of a mile below our village.”

“What is that ahead of us?” asked Charles, gazing down the slope. “Is it a tall pinnacle of rock, carved by the weather?”

Professor Longworth took forth his field glasses, gazed intently, and then his face began to show traces of excitement.

“Not at all, Charlie, lad!” he exclaimed. “That is one of the things for which I have been looking, but which I scarcely hoped to find. That was done, not by nature, but by the hand of man. It is a tower built by the cliff dwellers and I can see from here that it is a magnificent specimen almost perfectly preserved.”

The tower was about two miles away, but looking very much nearer in the amazingly thin and clear mountain air. The Professor, full of eagerness, now dropped his sauntering gait, and hurried toward it. Charles, his curiosity also aroused, kept by his side. He soon saw with the naked eye the truth of the Professor’s words, as he could discern the lines between the stones of which the tower was made.

As they came nearer, they saw that the tower stood on a shelf overlooking a deep valley. Charles judged that it was about fifty feet in height, twenty feet square at the base and ten feet square at the top. It was built of large stones, laid one upon another without mortar, but very skillfully.

“Stop,” said Professor Longworth, when they were within fifty feet of the tower. “I want to exult, Charlie, boy, just a little bit, before we touch hand or foot to the prize.”

Charles understood him perfectly, and standing side by side they gloated together.

“There is another a quarter of a mile further on,” said the Professor, pointing with a long forefinger, “but time and the storms have taken half its height. The one before us is probably the finest in all these mountains. It is indeed a rare triumph for us to find it.”

“What was it for?” asked the boy.

“It is hard to say. Most likely it was at once a watch tower and a tower of defense. Also, it may have had some connection with the sacred rites of that ancient race. Now, having paid due respect to it, Charlie, we’ll enter the tower and examine it in every part.”

There was a large opening on the side facing the mountain. Evidently it had been a low door, but some of the stone about it had fallen away and the hole now exceeded the height of a man.

“I shall be very much surprised,” said Longworth, “if we do not find inside a stone stairway leading to the top, although it is sure to be exceedingly narrow.”

“In order that it might be held easily against enemies?”

The Professor nodded.

“Here we are now,” he said, stepping boldly in at the door. Then he stopped and sniffed the air repeatedly. Charles did likewise.

“It’s the odor of an animal,” said the man.

“And of a big one,” said the boy, “or it would not be so strong. Look, here is some of his hair that he left as he came in or went out.”

He took two or three wisps of coarse brown hair from the crannies between the stones about the doorway, and held them up for the Professor to see.

“They belong to His Majesty,” said Longworth.

“His Majesty?”

“The grizzly bear, the most formidable of all our wild animals, as you and Herbert have cause to know. The interior of the tower’s base would form a snug winter den for one of those monsters and it has certainly been used for such a purpose. But His Majesty is not at home at present. Doubtless he has left it, until winter comes again, and meanwhile, we will invade without fear. Ah, here is the stairway that I expected. Follow me, Charles, and be careful of the steps.”

There was full need for care. The little winding stairway of stone was not more than a foot broad, and there was no coping. The stones themselves, despite the mold of time and the drift from dust and vegetation, were as slippery as glass.

“They have been trodden by thousands of feet for centuries,” said the Professor. “No archaeologist is skilled enough to tell how long this tower has stood here. Keep as close to the wall as possible, Charlie. Broken bones are best when you are in a big city near a great hospital.”

Fifteen feet up and they came to the fragments of a platform. Wide, flat stones projected from the whole circle of the tower, and there were remains of wooden rafters long since fallen in. But there was no trace of ironwork, nor did they ever find it in any work of the cliff dwellers.

There were two narrow windows level with the platform, one overlooking the valley, and here they stopped a minute or two for breath. Charles saw through the window the depths of the valley, apparently a mass of vegetation now browning with late summer, and he understood how useful the tower might have been to people who watched for enemies coming from below.

“There was another platform about fifteen feet above this,” said the Professor, “and I can see there the light from windows also.”

They climbed slowly to the second platform, and then to the roof, which was partly open, where stones had fallen in. The Professor surmised that in ancient times it had been closed wholly, except for a kind of trap door.

Feeling the stones carefully in order that they might see that they were firm enough to sustain their weight, they drew themselves carefully upon the top of the tower. Here they rested a while, looked out upon the vast expanse of mountains, and then into the deeps of the valley.

“It is a much bigger valley than the one in which you and Herbert found the buffaloes,” said the Professor. “It is four or five miles wide and even with my field glasses I cannot see its end. I judge by this tower and the ruined one farther on that it was inhabited by a race unlike the cliff dwellers and hostile to them. In its original condition, this tower was impregnable against everything except hunger and thirst. I suggest that we descend now and make an examination of its base. I want to see just how it was built.”

They climbed down laboriously and carefully, and when they reached the bottom, Charles was glad to rest some minutes and take long breaths. But he did not take his rest inside the tower. It seemed to him that the animal odor was stronger than ever, and he and the Professor retreated to the shade of a great oak that grew near. Here the air was pure and sweet and crisp with the mountain tang.

“It is growing late,” said the Professor, “and as we are in no hurry I think we’d better camp here. Unless I’m fooled greatly we’ll find a spring among the cedars over there. They look as if they had their feet in moisture, and it is also likely that the ancient people would build the tower near water.”

Charles explored the cedars and found a small but good spring, with which they replenished their thermos bottles, upon which they had drawn heavily after the descent of the tower. The shade of the oak was obviously the best place for a camp and they spread their equipment under its branches.

Charles brought fallen brushwood and built a fire. The Professor made coffee in a small pot, and cooked venison over the coals. Charles was sure that they could find wild turkeys among the pines and oaks, but they decided not to hunt them yet awhile.

They ate and drank with sharp appetites, put out the fire and laid their rifles and heavy belts again the tree. They hung their knapsacks of provisions and thermos bottles on a high bough, and then, spreading their blankets on the grass, lay comfortably upon them. The Professor produced his pipe, and smoked with great content.

“In an hour it will be dark,” he said, “and we can sleep here in entire safety under this tree. I do not think there is the remotest danger from Indians. It is possible that not a warrior has trodden this slope in a hundred years.”

“And if they’ll keep off for another hundred,” said Charles, “we’ll be all right. I’ve had one sight of Apaches, and it’s enough for me.”

“I’ll have to-morrow morning for a good look at the tower,” said the Professor, “but there is light enough left for me to do a little work now.”

He drew forth his little geological hammer and, going to the base of the tower, began to pick at the stones. He soon became so absorbed in his congenial task that he wholly forgot the passage of time and the deepening of the twilight. Charles forgot them, too, because the walk of the day and the climbing of the tower had made him tired. Lying on the blanket in a state of relaxation, he fell into a pleasant doze, from which he was suddenly roused by a sound that roared in his ears, tremendous and terrific.

Undoubtedly it was his condition on the halfway road to sleep which made the sound so overwhelming, but its real volume was mighty enough. Charles sprang to his feet as if he had been touched with electricity, and he saw two enormous grizzly bears rushing down upon them.

“Run, Professor, run!” he cried impulsively, and he caught a glimpse of Longworth as he dropped his little hammer and rushed into the tower.

Charles had no chance to reach the tower, but the trunk of the great oak, under the boughs of which he was resting, was not five feet away. Fear put the wings of Mercury on his heels. One jump and he was at the tree. Another jump and he had seized the lowest bough. A mighty convulsive jerk, and, drawing himself up, he leaped for a higher bough, just as the claws of one of the grizzlies tore the bark where his heels had been. Breathless, the perspiration dropping from his brow, he climbed higher and higher, until he sat on a thick bough a full thirty feet from the ground. Then for a while he hugged the body of the tree and trembled, while he listened to the roaring and growling below.

“Stick tight, Charlie, boy!” cried a voice high up in the air. “I looked out of a window, saw that you were safe, and then came up here.”

Professor Longworth was perched on the very top of the tower. He had lost his huge pith helmet in his flight, and his hair was flying wildly. He panted from his great exertion in his run up the stairway. The bears, a male and female, meanwhile rushed back and forth between tower and tree, tearing at both and growling horribly. They were joined soon by two half-grown youngsters which imitated their parents.

“Well, Charlie,” called the Professor, “we’ve had sudden visitors. I hope you like ’em.”

“I like ’em better with trees and towers between them and us. It seems that we were right, Professor, about their having had a den in the tower, but we were not right about their having abandoned it. They’re at home every evening.”

Professor Longworth laughed nervously.

“Do you appreciate the fact, Charles,” he called, “that we have left all our weapons on the ground? Even my geological hammer is down there. I have only my penknife, and, with that, I’m not dreaming of tackling two full grown and two half-grown grizzlies, mad with rage at our invasion of their house.”

“This tree and I do not part company, at least not for a while,” Charles called back. “It’s the finest tree I ever saw, a beautiful tree, a protecting tree, it grew here for the especial purpose of saving my life, and has been waiting for me a hundred years, maybe.”

He was trying to take it lightly, but it was a hard task. He still trembled a little, but his will was resuming control of his nerves. The bears were yet running to and fro, froth on their lips. They pawed at the guns and pistols, and the boy was afraid that they would seize them in their teeth and twist them out of shape. But finding that they were mostly cold metal and not good to eat they soon let them alone, and then began to roar for the food which was suspended from one of the boughs.

The bears, stretch as they would, could not quite reach the knapsacks containing the supplies, and they roared and growled again in disappointment and anger. Finally they gave it up. Then one of the great animals crouched at the foot of the tower, and the other at the foot of the tree. The smaller two prowled about like two curious boys, looking into everything. One of them found the pith helmet and took its brim in his mouth.

The Professor’s anger was aroused, and he began to shout maledictions. He valued that helmet. It had stood as a friend many a day between him and the blazing sun.

“Drop it! Drop it!” he cried. “What do you mean, you ignorant and silly bear? It’s not good to eat! Drop it, I say!”

Some impish spirit of mischief possessed the young bear. He dropped back on his haunches, still holding the helmet lightly by the brim in his teeth, and looked up at the Professor. It seemed to the imagination of Charles that he closed one eye, and winked at the Professor who continued shouting at him to drop the helmet.

The noise attracted the attention of the other young bear which came up, smelled at the helmet, and patted it lightly with his paw. Professor Longworth groaned.

“The young rascals,” he cried. “They will not leave a shred of my helmet, and there is not another in all these mountains.”

The sportive instincts of the young bears were alive, but they were not manifested in the way that the Professor expected. The one that held it in his teeth dropped it to the ground, and the other struck it lightly with his paw. It rolled like a ball four or five feet, and the other knocked it back again.

Charles was compelled to laugh, but Professor Longworth was very angry. His pride was hurt.

“The scamps!” he said. “It makes my blood hot for two young bears to have fun with an important article of my apparel.”

The helmet rolled nearer to the edge of the cliff, and one of the youngsters, giving it a harder slap than usual, it whirled over, catching in a projecting bush five or six feet below. Both bears crept cautiously to the edge, and tried to reach a paw down, and hook it back again. But they soon gave it up, and lay down under the boughs of the oak. The Professor breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“So far as I can make out in the dusk,” he called, “my helmet is unhurt, and I shall rescue it later. But these demons seem prepared to stay here forever. Have you any suggestion to make, Charles?”

“I can’t think of any now. I suppose that we shall have to wait.”

The night had now come, but it was uncommonly bright. The sky was a clear blue, sown with brilliant stars. The boy and the man could see each other perfectly, and they talked at intervals from height to height. Any hope that the bears would go away was dissipated by the fact that the tower was their home. They remained stretched out but watching, one the tower and the other the tree.

“Let this be an important lesson to us, Charles,” said the Professor. “Never again in the wilderness should we lay aside our pistols, no matter where we may be. I can see our weapons there against the trunk of the tree, but they might as well be a hundred miles away.”

“Maybe my fellow here will soon leave the tree,” said Charles, whose hardihood was coming back. “I think I’ll go down a little and see.”

“Be sure of your grip. Don’t fall!” called the Professor.

Charles descended cautiously about ten feet, and then drew back in fright. Both bears instantly rushed to the trunk of the tree, and, rearing to their full height, clawed ferociously at the bark. Their eyes were shot with blood, and foam ran from their mouths. Charles climbed back into his safe seat.

“We’ll just wait,” said the Professor.

But the waiting was very long. The bears did not show the slightest sign of raising the siege. Even the youngsters stretched themselves on the turf and watched. The night advanced hour by hour. More stars came out, and danced in the vast light sky. The valley became a great blue gulf and beyond the bald crests nodded in the dimness to one another.

Charles grew very stiff and tired, and moved about on his bough. He went down a little again to test the bears a second time, but they became as wild as before. Resuming his original place they waited two or three hours longer. It was then past midnight and the siege was becoming intolerable. An idea occurred to the boy.

“Professor, you see how my descent arouses them,” he called. “Now you go down the tower, part of the way, showing yourself at the windows. They’ll go mad, rush in the tower and try to get at you. Then I’ll skip down the tree, seize a rifle and belt of cartridges, skip back up again, and the rest will be easy.”

But the Professor shook his head, and protested vigorously.

“You must not think of it!” he cried. “The risk is far too great. A single slip, and they would have you.”

“But I won’t make the slip.”

“How can you tell? Anyone might fail at such a time. No, no, Charlie, we must wait!”

“But Professor, waiting does us no good. We have been on our perches seven or eight hours now, and the bears show no signs of leaving. Why should they go? Their home is here and they see breakfast, dinner and supper waiting for them up above. They’re suited, if we are not.”

Charles insisted so earnestly that Longworth finally consented to what he called a half trial.

“Charles,” he said, “you’re not to leave the tree unless the bears come wholly within the base of the tower. Then you would have a fair chance of getting back. You promise that, do you not?”

“Yes, I promise. Suppose we begin now.”

“All right, I’m going down now within twelve or fifteen feet of the bottom, and you may be sure that I won’t make any slip on the stone steps.”

The Professor was looking over the edge of the roof. The four bears were all lying on the ground, apparently asleep. He picked up a loose piece of stone, hurled it at the old male, and then began the descent of the steps.

All four of the bears were raging in an instant, and rushed toward the tower. The Professor thrust his head out of a window at the first platform and taunted them with all the wrath of a treed man, and all the knowledge and vocabulary of a scholar. He denounced their ancestry of geological eras, millions of years back. He poured maledictions upon them by name and species to their remotest and most doubtful kin. He assailed their shape, manners and character, in English, Latin and Greek, in words of from one to ten syllables, and, descending to the lower platform, he said it all over again with additions and adornments.

As he came nearer, the bears, evidently thinking that they were about to obtain their food at last, became excited to an extraordinary degree. They clashed in at the doorway, and Charles knew that their paws were on the first steps, their mouths slavering.

The boy had already slipped down to the boughs just out of reach. Now he dropped lightly to the ground and seized his rifle and belt of cartridges, throwing both over his shoulder. Meanwhile he heard the continual crackle of Professor Longworth’s vituperation, he did not know that any man had so rich a vocabulary, and he did not dream that anyone could talk so fast and so fiercely. Mingled with his voice came the terrible growling and snarling of the bears. The Professor, in fact, was only two or three feet beyond their reach, and they were perfectly mad with the desire to get at him. The boy had completely disappeared, for the moment, from the bear mind. Certainly Professor Longworth was doing his full duty.

Charles drew himself up with care to the first bough. There he paused until he could secure rifle and cartridges against the danger of dropping them. Then he went up to his old seat which was the securest in the tree, and sang out at the top of his voice to the man:

“All right, Professor. I’m safe, and I have the rifle and the cartridges. The rest is just detail.”

Longworth’s stream of language ceased abruptly, and he reascendcd to the roof. The puzzled bears came out of the tower, and began to smell at the fresh footprints of Charles under the tree. The boy, meanwhile, was examining his rifle to see that it was all right.

“Take your time, Charles,” called the Professor. “Don’t risk any shock and the loss of your seat after a shot.”

“I won’t,” replied the exultant boy. “I’m not going to throw away my advantage.”

Those bears knew nothing about rifles, and probably had never seen a human being before. Their rage was transferred now from the tower to the tree and as before they tore at it. Their wrath was not diminished when a steel bullet struck the old male in the throat and plowed downward through his body. The shock hurled him to the ground but he sprang up and tore at the tree more fiercely than ever. He was a truly terrible sight, wild with rage, blood pouring from his terrible wound. Charles had planned to finish one before he began on another, and picking his spot he sent a bullet into the old male’s heart. Even then the tremendous vitality of the animal sustained him for some minutes, but finally he staggered and died.

It took four shots to kill the female, two finished one of the youngsters, and the other taking alarm dashed into the brush. Charles might have shot him as he ran, but he let him go.

“Well done, Charles!” shouted the Professor from his tower. “The siege is over, thanks to your daring and skill, and we can betake ourselves to solid earth again.”

The two, immensely relieved, descended to the ground.

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