dvantages, looking
dubious and doubtful.

Good Fox announced, "We will hold a council about it. As is our custom,
all have words to say about such a thing."

Abruptly he led his people away, into the excavations and over a slight
rise of ground, behind which they disappeared.

Sidney murmured, "I don't like that so much."

"They must do as they want." George led the way to the card table and
they sat there. On it rested Huk's aspergill.

"He gave it to me," Sidney explained.

George placed Good Fox's netted clay water jug and his atlatl and furred
quiver of lances on the table, together with the pictures he had taken
of the ancient Indians. They waited.

Sidney, glancing at the low hill behind which the Indians had gone,
said, "What they're doing is choosing between living in modern
civilization and remaining dead. What do you think they'll do?"

"I don't know," said George. "They didn't think so much of us."

"But they couldn't choose death and complete oblivion!"

"We'll see."

They waited some more.

"At least," said Sidney, indicating the articles on the table, "we'll
have these for evidence." He held up the sheaf of papers containing
Huk's story. "And this, giving the real reason the cliff dwellers left.
I haven't told you what it was, George. It's so simple that--"

He didn't complete his sentence, for just then Huk, Good Fox, Moon
Water, and the other warriors made their choice. It was announced
dramatically.

The water jug, the aspergill, and the atlatl and quiver of lances
disappeared from the table. In their places, suddenly, there were the
thermos and the binoculars.

Sidney stared stupidly at them.

George said quietly, "They've gone back."

"But they can't do this!" George protested.

"They have."

Sidney's hand shook as he picked up the sheaf of papers holding Huk's
story. Indicating it and the photographs, he said, "Well, they haven't
taken these away."

"Haven't they?" asked George. He picked up some of the pictures. "Look."

Sidney looked and saw that the pictures were now blank. His glance went
quickly to the typewritten sheets of paper in his hands. He cried out
and then shuffled them frantically.

They, too, were blank.

Sidney jumped up. "I don't care!" he exclaimed. "He told me and I've got
it here!" He pointed to his head. "I can remember it, anyway."

"Can you?" asked George.

"Why, certainly I can," Sidney asserted confidently. "The reason the
cliff dwellers lef