Charlevoix county herald., 1918-06-14

you can recall"
LET me ask you this" Dayton re-
turned. "Are you and Glace detec-
tives?"
"In a sense. yes. In Glace's case,
unequfvocally So"
Every well then" Dayton lowered
his voice still further and began: II
have known Professor Wingarde and
his daughter for years. Possibly you
may have heard of his name, for he
has been known of late as an authori-
ty on archaeology of no little weight.
"For a long time he has desired to
make a trip to the cliff dwellings in
this part of your country, In order to
prove or disprove theory of his in
regard to those vanished people.
Briefly, he believed that in them
would be found the progenitors OF the
later Maya and Aztec civilizations, and
some months ago he announced that
he was about TO make the trip.
"As | just told you. am engaged
to Miss Wingarde. For years, ever
since her mother died, in fact, she has
been in the habit of accompanying her
father on his various journeys about
the world. She declared that she
would come over here with him, and
suggested that come along.
"That was the way We arranged II.
We crossed and went on to Mexico,
where the professor made some in
yestigations of the various ruins he
could reach, as preliminary step. to-
ward his Investigations up here. II
was In the City of Mexico itself that
we met Mr. Laredo, and from him the
professor received no little help in his
work"
Dual's eyes sought Laredo's. "You
are interested in archaeology" he in
Quired.
"Not in the same way as the Senior
Professor" the Mexican returned.
always, however, have ! felt an In
terest in the people of Montezuma. l
have studied their history no little"
1.-THE call of the blood?" said Semi.
It seemed to me that Laredo's eye
lids narrowed They left Duaps and
turned on me as though to judge how
much l had told him. Perhaps" he
replied at length.
Dayton nodded.
"That's right. Laredo here told US
no was a descendant Of MonteZuma.
He's up on their past records. Well.
after we'd poked about a bit we came
on up, outfitted, and got guides from
the Indian camp a bit over here. We
employed two brothers who said they
knew the region where the cliff dwell
ings were to be found, and as it was
beastly rough going, we left Evelyn at
the hotel and the professor and made
1t alone.
"And on my word it was trip. Any
man but one as deeply interested in
the subject as Wingarde would have
chucked it, assure you. But not he.
Seems he'd picked up bit OF some
thing l hadn't heard about-somethtng
about place up there where sone
sort of idol or image was stored.
don't know where he'd dug up the 10
formation, and / never asked him, but
he was as eager about 1t as a dog on
a hot trail You didn't put him on,
did you, Laredo?"
"No," Laredo answered shortly
and shook his head.
"After a bit" Dayton went on,
"we got up there, however. Rotten
country. One can see why the original
Inhabitants moved out. Regular tum-
BILE of hills and draws-or canons. as
you folks call 'em.
mot much water, and what there
was pretty poor stuff. We logged
along, though, getting deeper and
deeper into the tumble of hills, and the
were going, though I'm blessed if
could have told from one day to
another.
Then one day we came to a place
where there was ruin, way up in the
side wall of cliff. 1t looked like a
much effort to reach, but Wingarde
was delighted to get there. The next
morning we tried to get up to the
thing. There'd been a sort of road
along the cliff once, but it was pretty
well gone to pieces, and we had the
deuce of time from the start.
After a bit, though, what, with the
Indians help and good bit of work
with ropes and some grapples we'd
brought, managed to get up on the
ledge where the ruin stood and pull
the professor up on sling. Then
we had look at the place.
at wasn't much but tumble OF
stones. They must have built without
mortar, just piling the stones up in a
thick wall and thinking them up with
mud maybe. Anyway, the thing vas
pretty much fallen to pieces. though
we did find sort of central space,
which might once have been big
room.
"And right in the center of that
| there was blackish sort OF stone,
about six feet long and three feet
wide and maybe three feet high. II
looked just like big piece of cut
stone to me, but when Wingarde saw
1t he let out whoop, and ran over
and stood leaning his hands on its ton.