THE BADGER
A short distance down Dick's gully was a great slab of stone standing on
edge, which, leaning over until its upper end touched the opposite wall,
formed a natural arch about as high as a church door. Through this
vaulted passage Dick led the way. In about twenty steps we came out
again upon the brink of the chasm, and then it was that my partner, with
some natural exultation, pointed out to me the remarkable discovery he
had made.
In the face of the cliff was a sort of ledge, varying in width from ten
feet to about double as much, which, with a pretty steep, though pretty
regular pitch, continued downward until it disappeared around the bend
in the gorge. Unless the ledge should narrow very considerably we should
have no trouble in getting down, for there was room in plenty not only
for ourselves but for our animals also--even for old Fritz, pack and
all.
"Why, Dick!" I cried. "We can easily get down here! I wonder if this
wasn't the original road taken by the pack-trains."
"It was," replied Dick; "at least, I feel pretty sure it was--and it was
used for a long time, too."
"Why do you think so?" I asked. "You speak as though you felt pretty
certain, Dick, but for my part I don't see why."
"Don't you? Why, it's very plain. Look here! Do you see, close to the
outer edge of the shelf, a sort of trough worn in the rock? Do you know
what that is? If I'm not very much mistaken, it is the trail of the
pack-burros. There must have been a good many of them, and they must
have gone up and down for a good many years to wear such a trail;
though, of course, it has been enlarged since by the rain-water running
down it."
"Well, Dick," said I, "I still don't see why you should conclude that
this is the trail of a pack-train. It seems to me much more likely to be
due to water only. In the first place, though there is room enough and
to spare on the ledge, your supposed trail is on the very outer edge,
where a false step would send the burro head-first into the cañon; and
in the next place, it keeps to the very edge, no matter whether the
ledge is wide or narrow."
"That's exactly the point," explained Dick. "It is just that very thing
which makes me feel so sure that this is the trail of a pack-train.
You've never seen pack-burros at work in the mountains, have you? Well,
I have lots of times: they are frequently used to carry ore down from
the mines. If you had seen them, you could not have helped noticing the
habit they have of walking on the outside of a ledge like this, where
there is a precipice on one side and a cliff on the other. A burro may
be a 'donkey,' but he understands his own business. He knows that if he
touches his pack against the rock he will be knocked over the precipice,
and he has learned his lesson so well that it makes no difference how
wide the ledge may be--he will keep as far away from the rock as he can.
As to a false step, that doesn't enter into his calculations: a burro
doesn't make a false step--there is no surer-footed beast in existence,
I should think, excepting, possibly, the mountain-sheep."
"I never thought of all that," said I. "Then I expect you are right,
Dick, and this is an old trail after all. What is your idea? To follow
it down, I suppose."
"Yes, certainly. Our animals won't make any bones about going down a
wide path like this. They are all used to the mountains. So let us get
them at once and start down."
Dick was right. Our horses, each led by the bridle, followed us without
hesitation, while old Fritz, half a burro himself, took at once to the
trail which one of his ancestors, perhaps, had helped to make.
Without trouble or mishap, we descended the steeply-pitching ledge down
to the margin of the creek, crossed over to the other side, and
continued on our way up stream over the slope of decomposed rock fallen
from the towering cliff which rose at least a thousand feet above
us--the cliff being now on our right hand and the stream on our left.
This sloping bank was scantily covered with trees, and among them we
threaded our way, still following the trail, which, however, down here
had lost any resemblance to a made road, and had become a mere thread,
more like a disused cow-path than anything else.
Presently, we found that the cañon began to widen, and soon afterward
the cliff along whose base we had been skirting, suddenly fell away to
the right in a great sweeping curve, forming an immense natural
amphitheatre, enclosing a good-sized stretch of grass-land, with
willows and cottonwoods fringing the nearer bank of the stream.
As we sat on our horses surveying the scene, we found ourselves
confronting at last the imposing north face of the mountain. Up toward
its summit we could see the great semi-circular cliff which we supposed
to be the upper half of an old crater, while the country below it, bare,
rocky and much broken up, was exceedingly rough and precipitous.
Starting, apparently, from the neighborhood of this crater, there came
down the mountain a second very narrow and very deep gorge, whose
waters, when there were any, emptied into the stream we had been
following; the two cañons being separated by a high, narrow rib of
rock--a mere wedge. Curiously enough, however, this second cañon did not
carry a stream, though we could see the shimmer of two or three pools as
they caught the reflection of the sky down there in the bottom of its
gloomy depths.
"Well, Dick," said I, "I don't see any sign yet of a pathway up to the
top of this 'island' of yours. This basin is merely an enlargement of
the cañon; the walls are just as high and just as straight-up-and-down
as ever."
"Yes, I see that plainly enough," replied Dick. "Yet there must be a
way up somewhere. Those pack-trains didn't come down here for nothing.
We shall find a break in the wall presently--up in that gorge, there, it
must be, too. So let us go on. Hark! What's that?"
We sat still and listened. The whole atmosphere seemed to vibrate with a
low hum, the cause of which we could not understand. It kept on for five
minutes, perhaps, and then died out again.
"What was it, Dick?" said I. "Wind?"
"I suppose it must have been," replied my companion; "though there isn't
a breath stirring down here. If the sky had not been so perfectly clear
all morning I should have said it was a flood coming. It must have been
wind, though, I suppose."
Satisfied that this was the cause, we thought no more of it, but, taking
up the trail once more, we followed it down to the mouth of the second
cañon, and there at the edge of the watercourse all trace of it ceased.
"That seems to settle it," remarked Dick. "You see, Frank, the walls of
this cañon are so steep and its bed is so filled with great boulders
that even a burro could get no further. The copper must have been
carried down to this point on men's backs, and if so, it was not carried
any great distance probably. The mine must be somewhere pretty near now;
we shan't have to search much further, I think, for a way up this
right-hand cliff. Let us unsaddle here, where the horses can get plenty
of grass, and go on up on foot."
The ascent of the chasm was no easy task, we found, but, weaving our way
between the boulders which strewed its bed, up we went, until presently
we came to a place where some time or another a great slice of the wall,
about an eighth of a mile in length, falling down, had blocked it
completely, forming an immense dam nearly a hundred feet high. It must
have been many years since it fell, for its surface was well grown up
with trees, though none of them were of any great size. It seemed
probable, too, that the base of the dam must be composed of large
fragments of rock, for, though there was no stream in the bed of the
gorge, it was very plain that water did sometimes run down it. If so,
however, it was equally plain that it must squeeze its way through the
crevices between the foundation rocks, for there was no sign at all that
it had ever run over the top.
Scrambling up this mass of earth and rocks, we went on, keeping a sharp
lookout for some sign of a pathway up the cliff on our right, but still
seeing nothing of the sort, when presently we reached the upper face of
the dam, and there for a moment we stopped.
Beneath us lay a stretch of the ravine, forming a basin about two
hundred yards long, in the bottom of which were three or four pools of
clear water. At the upper end of this basin was a perpendicular cliff,
barring all further advance in that direction, over which, in some
seasons of the year, the water evidently poured--sometimes in
considerable volume apparently, judging from the manner in which the
sides of the basin had been undermined. The sides themselves continued
to be just as unscalable as ever; in spite of Dick's assurance that we
should find a way up, it was apparent at a glance that there was neither
crack nor crevice by which one could ascend.
"Well!" cried my partner, in a tone of desperation. "This does beat me!
I felt certain that the trail would lead us to some pathway up the
cliff; but, as it does not, what does it come down here for at all?"
"There is only one reason that I can think of," I replied, "and that is
that they must have come down here for water--there is probably none to
be found up on top of the 'island.'"
"That must be it, Frank. Yes, I expect you've struck it. And in that
case the pathway we have been hunting for must be down stream from the
site of the old bridge after all."
"Yes. So we may as well go back to-morrow morning, I suppose, and start
downward. It is rather late to go back now--and besides, there is no
water up there: we had better camp here for to-night, at any rate."
"That's true. Well, as we have some hours of daylight yet--if you can
call this daylight down here in this narrow crack--let us climb down the
face of the dam and examine the basin before we give up and go back, so
as to make quite sure that there is no way up the side."
Accordingly, having clambered down, we walked up the middle of the
basin, our eyes carefully scanning the wall on our right, when, having
traversed about three-quarters of its length, we suddenly heard again
that humming noise which we had taken for a wind-storm among the pines.
With one accord we both stopped dead and listened. The noise was
decidedly louder than it had been before, and moreover it appeared to
be increasing in volume every second.
"Frank!" exclaimed my companion. "I don't like the sound of it! It seems
to me suspiciously like water! Let us get out of here! This is no place
to be caught by a flood!"
We turned to run, but before we had gone five steps we heard a roar
behind us, and casting a glance backward, we saw to our horror an
immense wall of water, ten feet high, leap from the ledge at the end of
the basin and fall to the bottom with a prodigious splash.
In one second the whole floor of the basin was awash. In another second
our feet were knocked from under us, when, without the power of helping
ourselves, we were tumbled about and swept hither and thither at the
caprice of the rapidly deepening flood.
Happily for myself, for I was no swimmer, I was carried right down to
the dam, where, by desperate exertions, I was able to scramble up out of
reach of the water. Dick, however, less fortunate than I, was carried
off to one side, and when I caught sight of him again he was being swept
rapidly along under the right-hand wall--looking up stream--in whose
smooth surface there was no chance of finding a hold. As I watched him,
my heart in my mouth, he was carried back close to the fall, where the
violence of the water, now several feet deep, tossed him about like a
straw.
Half paralyzed with fear lest my companion should be drowned before my
eyes, I stood there on the rocks, powerless to go to his aid, hoping
only that he might be swept down near enough to enable me to catch hold
of him, when, of a sudden, there occurred an event so astounding that
for a moment I could hardly tell whether I ought to believe my own eyes
or not.
Out from the wall on the left, up near the fall, there shot a great dark
body, which, with a noiseless splash, disappeared under the water. The
next moment a man's head bobbed up, a big, shaggy, bearded head, the
owner of which with vigorous strokes swam toward Dick and seized him by
the collar. Then, swimming with the power of a steam-tug, he bore down
upon the dam, clutched a projecting rock, drew himself up, and with a
strength I had never before seen in a human being, he lifted Dick out of
the water with one hand--his left--and set him up on the bank.
Running to the spot, I seized hold of my partner, who, almost played
out, staggered and swayed about, and helped him further up out of reach
of the water. Then, turning round, I was advancing to thank his rescuer,
when, for the first time, I saw that the man was almost a dwarf--in
height, at least--though his astonishing strength was indicated in his
magnificent chest and arms.
"The Badger!" I cried, involuntarily.
At the sound of that name the man turned short round, and without a word
leaped into the water again. Sweeping back under the right-hand wall, he
presently turned across the pool and struck out for the opposite side.
Ten seconds later he had disappeared, having seemingly swum through the
very face of the cliff itself!