narrowed as he went up; it became a slant, hard for him to stick on; it was smooth as marble.  Finally he surmounted it, surprised to find the walls still several hundred feet high, and a narrow gorge leading down on the other side.  This was a divide between two inclines, about twenty yards wide.  At one side stood an enormous rock.  Venters gave it a second glance, because it rested on a pedestal.  It attracted closer attention.  It was like a colossal pear of stone standing on its stem.  Around the bottom were thousands of little nicks just distinguishable to the eye.  They were marks of stone hatchets.  The cliff-dwellers had chipped and chipped away at this boulder fill it rested its tremendous bulk upon a mere pin-point of its surface.  Venters pondered.  Why had the little stone-men hacked away at that big boulder?  It bore no semblance to a statue or an idol or a godhead or a sphinx.  Instinctively he put his hands on it and pushed; then his shoulder and heaved.  The stone seemed to groan, to stir, to grate, and then to move.  It tipped a little downward and hung balancing for a long instant, slowly returned, rocked slightly, groaned, and settled back to its former position.

Venters divined its significance.  It had been meant for defense.  The cliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, had cunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to be dislodged by strong hands.  Just below it leaned a tottering crag that would have toppled, starting an avalanche on an acclivity where no sliding mass could stop.  Crags and pinnacles, splintered cliffs, and leaning shafts and monuments, would have thundered down to block forever the outlet to Deception Pass.

“That was a narrow shave for me,” said Venters, soberly.  “A balancing rock!  The cliff-dwellers never had to roll it.  They died, vanished, and here the rock stands, probably little changed....But it might serve another lonely dweller of the cliffs.  I’ll hide up here somewhere, if I can only find water.”

He descended the gorge on the other side.  The slope was gradual, the space narrow, the course straight for many rods.  A gloom hung between the up-sweeping walls.  In a turn the passage narrowed to scarce a dozen feet, and here was darkness of night.  But light shone ahead; another abrupt turn brought day again, and then wide open space.

Above Venters loomed a wonderful arch of stone bridging the canyon rims, and through the enormous round portal gleamed and glistened a beautiful valley shining under sunset gold reflected by surrounding cliffs.  He gave a start of surprise.  The valley was a cove a mile long, half that wide, and its enclosing walls were smooth and stained, and curved inward, forming great caves.  He decided that its floor was far higher than the level of Deception Pass and the intersecting canyons.  No purple sage colored this valley floor.  Instead there were the white of aspens, streaks of branch and slender trunk glistening from the green of leaves, and the darker green of oaks, and through the middle of this forest, from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which marked the course of cottonwoods and willows.