Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
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_Instructor Literature Series--No. 257_
Kwasa the Cliff Dweller
[Illustration]
_By Katherine Atherton Grimes_
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY, DANSVILLE, N. Y.
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INSTRUCTOR LITERATURE SERIES
Kwasa the Cliff Dweller
BY
_Katherine Atherton Grimes_
ILLUSTRATED BY L. J. WILSON
[Illustration]
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY,
DANSVILLE, N. Y.
_Copyright, 1916, by F. A. Owen Publishing Co._
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[Illustration: “It was one that few boys would care to
attempt”--_Chapter 2_]
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Kwasa the Cliff Dweller
CHAPTER I The Game on the Terrace
“It did,” said Kwasa.
“It didn’t,” said Wiki.
“But I say there were three reds up,” insisted Kwasa.
“And I say one of the dice came up white,” argued Wiki.
“Well,” returned Kwasa good-humoredly, “we will not quarrel about a
game. I will throw again.”
Catching up the three small sticks of cane, painted red on the hollowed
inner side and white on the upper part, Kwasa tossed them deftly into
the air. They came down all together, landing on the stone pavement
with the white sides up.
Kwasa gave a cluck of triumph.
“Three whites; better yet.” Reaching across the stone slab covered
with a pattern of circles and lines which served as a game board, he
carefully moved a white pebble from the mark where it stood to one two
spaces nearer the center of the slab.
Wiki seized the dice eagerly. “Well done! Now it is my turn.”
Into the air spun the three sticks again, but as they came down Wiki
saw with disappointment that one showed the white side while the other
two had fallen with the red uppermost.
“No play,” cried Kwasa.
“But I have one more throw,” said Wiki, and this time three reds
gleamed against the gray rock floor.
“One space, anyway,” said Wiki, and this time a red pebble on the
farther side of the slab was set one space nearer the center.
Kwasa laughed.
“When I have beaten you I will show you how to hold the dice,” he
boasted playfully. “Old Honau showed me the trick. He can bring down
the white every time.”
“I am thirsty,” said Wiki, laying down the dice and jumping up.
“So am I,” said Kwasa, “but it is too far down to the spring. Let us go
to the reservoir.”
The lads ran lightly across the long, narrow court and climbed a niche
staircase hewn in the rock wall at the back of the cliff. A dozen steps
brought them to the top of the wall, from which they looked down into a
huge hollow in the rock, which appeared to be partly natural and partly
the result of human labor. It was nearly full of water, which fed
slowly into it from a small stream trickling down from the higher side
of the bluff.
On top of the wall stood a graceful olla, or vase-shaped jar of
pottery, strikingly ornamented with red and black. About the neck was a
short, twisted rope of yucca fiber, long enough to let the jar down to
the water. The boys dropped it down and brought it up full, holding it
carefully that it might not strike the side of the wall.
“Bah,” said Wiki, tasting it, “it is too warm to drink, now that the
sun is on it. I would rather have gone to the spring.”
“Come, then,” cried Kwasa, jumping down from the wall. “If we go to the
spring perhaps we may see something of the hunters. It is time they
were returning, my grandmother says.”
Kwasa told the truth when he said it was a long way to the spring. For
the great rock-built house, or rather cluster of houses, in whose inner
court the boys had been playing, was placed three hundred feet from the
bottom of a canyon in a huge cavern which Nature had left in the face
of the precipitous cliff. Along the outer edge of the cavern, following
the outline of the opening, was a high wall of masonry pierced with
numerous openings that served as doors and windows. So exactly had the
builders matched the color of the rocky cliff face, and so skilfully
was the great structure placed in its lofty niche, that a traveler in
the canyon below could hardly have told it was there at all.
This outer wall was in some places four stories high. Back of it
the building was terraced down to the floor of the cave, each story
projecting beyond the one above it so that its roof made a sort of
porch for the upper rooms. Rude ladders were everywhere, leading from
each story to the next, for the people who lived in this peculiar
dwelling liked to go up and down from the outside. Each story was
divided into many rooms, most of them rather small, but several near
the center of the structure being of good size. In some of these were
stone fireplaces for cooking, and one, larger than any of the others,
was set apart for ceremonial use.
Back of the great house, or rather village, for it was the home of
many families, was a long and narrow court running well back under
the sheltering slope of the cavern roof. Here the children could play
and the women could weave and grind and make pottery and mats in
well-guarded safety, for back of them and overhead rose the mighty arch
of the cavern, and between them and the cliff’s edge stood the solid
sandstone structure.
Where the cave roof slanted down to meet the floor there were other
rooms, built close in under the rock. These were storerooms where food
was kept. In them were great piles of beans and corn, rolls of piki or
paper bread which the women were forever baking over the fireplaces,
and immense quantities of buffalo meat, dried and pounded fine and
laid away between layers of tallow. In one of these rooms was kept
the colored corn and beans used in the sacred rites which were held
at certain times in the ceremonial hall, or in the queer, underground
chamber in the center of the court.
Above the cavern the cliff rose sheer and unbroken for hundreds of
feet, but below it the rocky wall fell more unevenly to the valley
far below. The vivid brown and yellow and red of the upper expanse
was varied only here and there by clumps of cedar or pinon or scrub
oak, with scattering bunches of yucca and cactus between, but on the
lower slope the vegetation was somewhat more dense. All had the same
reddish-brown tinge, for it had been a long time since the rains of the
last spring had washed away the wind-blown dust which whirled down in
clouds from the bare and forbidding surfaces above.
Across the canyon rose another bluff, but this was unbroken from top
to bottom by ledge or cavern. To the southwest the canyon swept away
majestically, broadening in the distance to a stretch of comparatively
level land through which, in the rainy season, a small river ran. At
the head of the canyon, some distance to the northeast, was a large
spring of sweet, cold water, which, supplemented by the reservoir at
the back of the cavern, furnished an ample supply for the village.
Down the steep stairway leading from the village to the valley Kwasa
and Wiki went quickly. A stranger would have had a hard time finding
the half-hidden niches cut in the face of the cliff, but the boys,
sure-footed as mountain goats, were soon in the valley, running eagerly
toward the spring.
“Hush,” warned Kwasa, suddenly crouching behind a tuft of brown yucca.
Looking where he pointed, Wiki saw the slender figure of a young man
bending over the spring. He drank eagerly, then taking his cupped
hands, poured the cool water over his dusty limbs as if seeking relief
in its freshness. His face, the boys saw as he turned it toward them,
was weary and seared with the hot, reddish-brown dust, but young and
pleasant, and he did not appear to be much older than themselves.
“He is none of our people,” whispered Wiki.
“No, but I like him,” exclaimed the impulsive Kwasa.
“How do you know?” asked Wiki sharply. “He may be a spy of the Utes for
all we know.”
“No,” said Kwasa, “for if he were--”
“Here are the hunters,” cried Wiki joyfully, forgetting all caution and
jumping up as a band of men turned into the canyon from the lower side.
“They are well laden,” observed Kwasa. “The men of the Snakes never
hunt in vain.”
The young man at the spring, hearing their voices, suddenly
straightened himself and looked eagerly about. Seeing the boys
running toward the hunting band, he followed slowly, his hand resting
cautiously upon his spear shaft, but his frank, brown face expressing
nothing but friendliness.