Part 12 (2/2)

”They're brand-blotting the last bunch of cattle brought into the Hole.”

”Brand-blotting?”

”Yes. You wouldn't care to see it--especially when Cochise takes part.”

Elsie uttered a smothered little gasp that quickened again all of Lennon's repressed tenderness and compa.s.sion. He looked around, trying to think of some means to divert her. His glance fell upon one of the bowls of ancient pottery.

”May I ask you to show me the rest of this cliff house? Or are the other rooms in ruins?”

Elsie instantly brightened.

”Oh, no, course not. Only some of the top ones have tumbled in. Dad won't mind if we show Jack the mummies, will he, Mena?”

”Fetch candles,” directed Carmena, clearly as relieved as the others at the thought of diversion.

They started to ramble through the interior of the cliff house, taking with them a light ladder to climb to the upper stories. In the lower rooms at the near end were stored quant.i.ties of corn on the cob, dried fruit, and vegetables, honey, dried beef, bacon, and other foods. The family was sufficiently stocked to withstand a half year's siege.

The upper rooms were for the most part empty. Others showed only fragments of broken pottery. Some had been broken in through their side walls or were open above and littered with the debris of their roofs.

Lennon surmised the existence of several sealed lower chambers, at the back.

Carmena led the way down again and zigzagged through connected rooms toward the far end of the great community house. To the rear of the front row of rooms was a large chamber heaped with cliff-dweller mummies.

”Slade had them all dumped in here,” explained Carmena. ”Like the Indians, Elsie is still scared of them. But they have been dead a long time, poor things. They'll not hurt anybody. They'd protect you, Blossom, if Cochise should get up the cliff and you hid in that corner.

He thinks them bad medicine. Slade laughs at Indian spirits. He says that corn spirits are the only ones that can put a spell on a man.”

”They--they're an awful hold on Dad,” quavered Elsie. ”He didn't ever used to speak cross to me.”

In the flickering candle light Carmena's eyes glinted with a look that Lennon thought to be fierce resentment. She thrust past him to the doorway.

”Wait. I'll be back,” she called.

Elsie was tremblingly eager to follow, but Lennon lacked her fear of the desiccated builders of the cliff house. At one end of the room he had come upon what to him was a very interesting heap of their no less ancient possessions. Most of the beautiful old pottery had been smashed, but among the fragments Lennon found several ceremonial stones and tablets, a bone awl, many obsidian arrowheads, and a few broken turquoise ornaments.

His search was cut short by the return of Carmena. She carried a modern Indian basket-vase that would have been very convenient for holding Lennon's collection. But she gave him no chance to ask for it. She stared in at him and Elsie from the doorway, her dark eyes glittering strangely in the candle light. Her lips were hardset in a bitter smile.

”He's--asleep. Come,” she said.

Lennon followed the eager Elsie, who was vastly relieved to leave the mummy vault. Yet she was no less mystified than Lennon by her foster-sister's manner. She shrank back behind him when, after pa.s.sing through two corn-stacked rooms near the far end of the cliff house, Carmena stopped before an entrance that had been closed with a door of heavy planks. The thick iron hasp was secured with a big padlock.

Carmena handed her candle to Lennon and took a key from her basket.

”Oh, Mena!” whispered Elsie. ”Oh, you can't be going to--to---- You know how angry Dad--and Slade----”

For answer, Carmena thrust the key into the padlock.

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