But the cliff-dwellers were gone! Dust! They were dust on the floor or at the foot of the shelf, and their habitations and utensils endured.

Venters felt the sublimity of that marvelous vaulted arch, and it seemed to gleam with a glory of something that was gone.

How many years had passed since the cliff-dwellers gazed out across the beautiful valley as he was gazing now?
How long had it been since women ground grain in those polished holes?
What time had rolled by since men of an unknown race lived, loved, fought, and died there?
Had an enemy destroyed them?
Had disease destroyed them, or only that greatest destroyer--time?
Venters saw a long line of blood-red hands painted low down upon the yellow roof of stone.

Here was strange portent, if not an answer to his queries.

The place oppressed him.