Most likely a storm made little difference in the life of those diminutive, nimble-footed people whose ancient toe-holds still pit the face of the cliffs. In the winter their corn-fields on the mesa-top needed no care; the season held off the nomad raiders who came harrying in summer. While the storm raged and ice-glaze made the cliff-paths impassable, the dwellers in Balcony House may have settled down to their quietest and happiest days. The granaries were deep with corn and beans; the spring at the back of the rock-shelter flowed (as it still flows) with pure, cool water. Their dogs lived with them, and their turkeys were penned at the back of the houses. A fire of a few sticks sufficed in the thick-walled houses and the underground club-rooms of the men. For clothing there were deer-skins and blankets of turkey feathers. The great over-hang of arched rock was a shelter from snow and wind.

An interval for talk and laughter, for weaving, for fashioning of arrow-heads, for discussion about next year’s corn-planting, for long rituals of religion—when the storm had passed by and the ice-glaze was shattered beneath the unveiled sun, then was time enough to climb the cliffs, and go visiting to the other villages.

But modern man cannot withdraw. He expects much more of his civilization; he has spread it far and wide until it sprawls; he has given hostages. Therefore, he must sally forth about his flocks and herds; he must look to his roads and ditches, his levees and culverts, his wires and rails. To protect his machines he must invent other machines and with them labor against the storm. The honor of the battle is now not so much to skill and courage as to flawless steel and cool bearings.

At the end, our cities will stand like those others. In the year when Edward of England made war on Llewellyn the Welshman and Ser Marco Polo was new in the court of Kublai Khan, the rains failed; year after year, drought lay upon the mesa-land. As some think, the people began to raise a great temple to placate the gods of storm; that temple still stands unfinished. Before the twenty-four years of drought had passed, the people were gone; dry winds swirled ashes in empty courtyards.

Whether the civilization of a land withdraws before the storm or fights against it, the end will be the same. Man is of the air, and the air must rule him. Drought or flood, cold winds and ice, heat, blown dust, shift of the storm track—in the end they overcome even the imperturbable machines.

2

During a lull in the storm the old coyote went hunting again. He saw the airplane-beacon flashing into the darkness; he crossed the railroad; he leaped into the highway just after a push-plow had gone by.