The few cliff-dwellings he had seen--all ruins--had left him with haunting memory of age and solitude and of something past.

He had come, in a way, to be a cliff-dweller himself, and those silent eyes would look down upon him, as if in surprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded the valley.
Venters felt sure that he was the only white man who had ever walked under the shadow of the wonderful stone bridge, down into that wonderful valley with its circle of caves and its terraced rings of silver spruce and aspens.
The dog growled below and rushed into the forest.

Venters ran down the declivity to enter a zone of light shade streaked with sunshine.

The oak-trees were slender, none more than half a foot thick, and they grew close together, intermingling their branches.

Ring came running back with a rabbit in his mouth.