Chapter Seven
Slowly, without the earlier people returning, the new people began to leave. The trains did not come as often. The mountain soon saw men take up the shiny rails from the roads. Only small four-wheel vehicles drove on the roads after that, and not many of them.
The mountain thought things were very quiet! After men had drilled into its sides and exploded things inside, all the tunnels were left behind. The buildings too were left, and some started to fall in. Only the animals were still around, though once in a while a small group of men would drive along the roads. These were usually hunters, and they took home the animals on the four-wheel things they drove.
One day, when the mountain was looking across the valley, it noticed something very strange. Men were coming up from below, and every so often they stopped and looked through cylinders set up on three legs. They then wrote things down and moved on. The men did not kill any animals or cut down any trees. The mountain had never seen men do this!
A few months later, lots of men appeared in the valley. They had big machines which reminded the mountains of the trains on the high roads. These men, however, were building a road on the valley floor. They knocked down trees and pushed huge rocks aside. As the road went further up the valley, the men went with it, never staying in one place.
After this, most strange of all, men started to do the same thing right up the side of the mountain across the valley! They cut trees and pushed boulders and made roads all over the neighboring mountain. Are these men going to drill into the sides of my neighbor, too, the mountain wondered?