There was a loud gobble from the hillside, the anxious _quilp-quilp_ of a hen, and the great birds leapt out and came sailing down through the air to land with a thump by the spring. For a moment they crouched frozen as they saw the wings of the trap, but no one had ever hunted them and they soon recovered from their alarm while still others soared down from the heights. An old hen with her little ones came trailing up from the chasm, and Hall watched them with bated breath; but as even these refused to go near his trap he rose up and made a rush. The hen dodged away, calling loudly to her brood, but in the stampede which followed he drove three of them into the wings and up the trench into the trap. That evening he ate meat, and when the morning came he set out to explore his domain. The chasm up which he had come cut its way through the crags to a level mountain-top far beyond; and that, according to Meshackatee, was preempted by Old Man Baker, who claimed the whole mountain for himself. Since the Indians had killed his son, no Apache dared venture up there; and Hall made up his mind to follow their example, for Baker had shot every Indian on sight. There was game enough and to spare on the first low bench; and farther up the canyon he discovered a hidden basin, where the deer and wild turkey swarmed. But what he sought for most was a hiding place among the cliffs, which would shelter him and his mate; and he clambered along the bear-track which led off around the point to the first of the dizzy cliff-dwellings. It proved to be no more than some walls of broken rock, piled up in a shelving hole; and house after house, as he inspected them closer, turned out to be nothing but skeletons. Most of them had no roofs, they were all hard to get to and entirely too far from water; and the trails that led up to them made it absolutely certain that he would be seen going to and fro. There was only one place which would answer his purpose and it was like an eagle's nest above him. Within a great, arching cave, high up in the cliff, there stood a huge dwelling, with doors and windows sealed and a rampart across its front. It was a medieval castle, transported from dreamland and set like a jewel in the cliff. At the extreme southern side there was a rift in the solid roof that gave promise of a possible descent; but the path which led up to it, if path there ever was, had vanished with the passing of the centuries. Perhaps it had caved off and was buried in the talus which extended along the base of the precipice; but there his castle stood, aloof and unapproachable, whichever way he came.