After all, the old man had a wider knowledge of the world than either of us, and it often came in handy. When we were working in a pale pink house, with two stories, and a sort of balcony before the upper windows, we came on a closet in the wall of the upstairs room; in this were a number of curious things, among them a deerskin bag full of little tools. Henry said at once they were surgical instruments; a stone lancet, a bunch of fine bone needles, wooden forceps, and a catheter.
One thing we knew about these people; they hadn’t built their town in a hurry.
Everything proved their patience and deliberation.
- The cedar joists had been felled with stone axes and rubbed smooth with sand.
- The little poles that lay across them and held up the clay floor of the chamber above, were smoothly polished.
- The door lintels were carefully fitted (the doors were stone slabs held in place by wooden bars fitted into hasps).
The clay dressing that covered the stone walls was tinted, and some of the chambers were frescoed in geometrical patterns, one colour laid on another.
In one room was a painted border, little tents, like Indian teepees, in brilliant red.
But the really splendid thing about our city, the thing that made it delightful to work there, and must have made it delightful to live there, was the setting. The town hung like a bird’s nest in the cliff, looking off into the box canyon below, and beyond into the wide valley we called Cow Canyon, facing an ocean of clear air.