When Sam Willett and Ulna returned to the camp they found Ike, Wah Shin
and the dog lying on the rocks near the dying fire.
Although they had been sleeping for nearly five hours, it was with
difficulty that Ike could be aroused, and when he did sit up and rub his
eyes, he declared with laughable solemnity that he had only been asleep
a few minutes.
"If you look at the sun I think you will see you are mistaken," said
Sam, pointing to the west.
"Dat sun," said Ike, with the fine contempt of one who had lost all
faith in the luminary that rules the day; "I don't got no use foh it.
'Tain't like the sun we uster know way back at Detroit. Wy, sometimes he
gets up and hurries across the sky like a race-horse, an' sometimes he
don't get up foh weeks an' weeks. He's foolin' us, dat's all I got to
say." And Ike rose and yawned till he showed every tooth in his
capacious mouth.
"I gottee heap muchee sleep, me no sleep mole foh twenty-one day," said
Wah Shin, who seemed determined not to agree with Ike in this matter.
"If ebber I should get out of this yar scrape, an' I should hab lots of
money an' plenty ob time," said Ike with comical earnestness, "I'll go
off to some place whar it ain't dark most all de time, an' I'll sleep in
de sun foh weeks an' weeks an' weeks at a stretch, an' don't you forgit
it."
As it was now about three o'clock in the afternoon Sam, after consulting
with Ulna, and recalling their experience of the night before, decided
not to launch their raft till the following morning.
Wishing more than ever that he was a bird, Ike went off with Wah Shin to
gather fuel, and Sam and Ulna, both much exhausted, lay down to get a
little much needed sleep.
When they closed their eyes the western sun was flooding the canyon with
a river of golden glory, when they woke up "night had let her sable
curtain down and pinned it with a star."
A great fire was blazing near by, and Ike and Wah Shin were preparing
supper, while Maj sat licking his chops and eagerly watching the
operations.
Sam had already divided the provisions, so that with care, "an' not
eatin' nigh's much as they felt like," to use Ike's words, they could
manage to live without much suffering for another week.
After supper Ike startled the company by saying:
"See heah, Mistah Sam, I'ze got an offer to make."
"What is it, Ike?"
Before proceeding Ike turned and pointed to the parcels containing their
little stock of food.
"Ain't I de owner ob one-quarter ob dat grub?"
"You shall have your share, Ike; but why do you ask?" said Sam, who half
guessed what was coming.
"I've eat my share for to-night."
"Yes, Ike."
"An' I still feel as holler as a drum," and Ike rolled his eyes and
tightened his belt.
"You have had as much as the rest," said Sam.
"Oh, I ain't a complainin'; no one won't say, Mistah Sam, dat you don't
tote fair, but heah's de pint I wants to git at----"
"Go on, Ike."
"You let me have all my share now."
"What would you do with it?"
"Do wif it!" echoed Ike. "Wy, I'd sit right down an' gib it all a inside
passage. I'd a heap sight rudder hab one good, squar meal dan a hundred
scrimpsy ones. Dar ain't no pleasure in stoppin' jest when yeh wants to
keep right on eatin'."
"Nevertheless we must all do it, Ike. We are not eating for pleasure,
but to keep alive till we get out of this place."
"Wa'al, if we ebber does git out, an' I can sit down before grub an' eat
all I wants, dat grub will suffer--if I has any strent left," and Ike
sat down and watched Maj with a hungry look that boded no good to that
faithful creature.
Sam had often been surprised at Ulna's gentle manners and the excellent
English he spoke; he seemed so little like the wild Indians he had read
about that he was anxious to know something of his life, but from
feelings of delicacy he had never asked him about his past up to this
time. By way of passing the time before setting the guard, he asked Ulna
where he had learned English so well.
"In the Mission School at Taos," said Ulna. "My father, who was a
brother of our chief, Uray, was killed in the Sierra Madre Mountains, by
the Hill, or Arizona, Apaches, when I was a little child."
"And your mother?" suggested Sam.
"She could read and write, and she could speak Spanish and English as
well as the language of her own people; all this she had learned in the
school at Taos, to which place the good missionaries took her when she
was a child; that was long before the white man crowded into this land."
"Is your mother living?"
"Yes, and my sister; she is a year older than I, and she is very good.
Two years ago my mother, who still lived at Taos, married a white man--a
Mexican. I did not like him and I ran away and joined the tribe. But I
did not like the ways of our people, though I felt that their free life
on the hills and along the great rivers was the only one to live. Yes, I
have much of the white man's knowledge, and I am glad of it. Still, my
heart has ever hungered for the free life of the Ute. No matter what
befalls me, I do not complain; the Great Spirit rules and directs all,"
and as Ulna ceased speaking, he uncovered his head and raised his
handsome, expressive face to the stars.
"I thank you for telling me this," said Sam, taking the young Indian's
hand and pressing it warmly, while he added: "It does not make me love
you any the less or more, Ulna, but somehow I think that the more good
people know of each other the warmer friends they become."
"Dem's my sentiments," said Ike, who looked as if he had been sleeping,
though he must have been wide awake. "Foh instants, when I didn't know
Mistah Sam, I didn't like him at all; but now dat I does know him
better'n any one in de world, w'y as a consekence I likes him a heap
sight more'n I does any one in de world."
Sam had been inclined to feel angry with Ike when he spoke in the way he
did about dividing the food, but this little expression of genuine
sentiment on the black boy's part quite touched his heart, and he showed
his feeling by saying:
"Ah, Ike, you may have a hungry stomach, but it cannot be truthfully
said that you haven't got a kindly heart."
"Bimeby, mebbe, I tell you sometings all 'bout me, Wah Shin," said the
Chinaman, who felt that he must add something to the expressions of
good-fellowship.
After a little further talk, in which they discussed the situation and
vainly tried to guess where they were, Sam gave the order in which the
guards should be called and handed his watch to Ike, whose turn came
first, and lay down on the blankets, which were quite dry and
comfortable by this time.
To prove that Ike was not in the least selfish, though his display of
healthy-boy appetite might lead us to a different belief, it is but just
to him to say that when his two hours guard were up, he did not call
Sam, whose turn it was next, and who appeared to be sleeping very
soundly, but he stood the whole four hours on watch and then awoke Wah
Shin, and, after whispering to him what he had done added:
"Mistah Sam's got the keer of all on his shoulders, an' he needs all de
sleep he kin git. W'y, I ken sleep any time; he can't, so I sez, let's
let him sleep his fill w'ile he's at it."
They were up again before daylight, and the allowance of food for
breakfast made ready, a portion being set apart for Maj, for though the
dog was not at all a useful member of the little band, indeed, his
consumption of rations for one made him undesirable, yet Sam could not
find it in his heart to put the faithful creature out of the way.
There was no need to discuss the course they should next take; there was
only one avenue that held out the promise of escape, and that was the
swift stream rushing by their resting place to an unknown landing.
By this time all hands had become quite expert in loading and unloading
the raft, so that it did not take them long to get under way this
morning, each one in his accustomed place and Maj crouching down on the
blankets in the center.
The rope was untied, and, with the pole in his hand, Sam stood up
behind, and again they were sweeping down on the red waters of this
wonderful river.
As they drifted between the precipitous banks that seemed to grow higher
and higher with the passing of each bend, Sam recalled all he had ever
heard or read about the mighty Colorado of the West and its wonderful
canyon. He remembered that it was four hundred miles of continuous canyon
wall from the point where the Green and Grand Rivers united to the
Mormon settlement at Virgin River, where the canyon walls give place to a
wide valley.
He shuddered but kept his thoughts to himself, for he wisely reasoned
that no good could result from frightening his companions by a true
picture of the dangers that lay before them.
For himself he believed that there must be some opening by which they
could leave the canyon before traversing its length, and this hope was
not darkened with the thought that such an avenue of escape, if used,
might not better their condition.
They drifted on till the middle of the afternoon, passing many side
canyons which it was impossible to enter, when they suddenly found their
raft swept by a whirling current, that boiled about them like the waves
of a storm-tossed sea.
They looked up, to find that the towering gray walls had broken into
mighty pillars that rose for thousands of feet into the sky.
It was the junction of the Green and Grand Rivers, and the piled up,
roaring and irresistible flood was caused by the coming together of the
two currents.
The scene that presented itself at this point was indescribably sublime,
and even the dangers of the situation were forgotten for the moment in
the awful grandeur of their surroundings.
Although Sam still stood bravely up, his pole was useless to control the
movements of the raft, which was borne with the speed of a swallow's
flight into the whirlpool, about which the waters circled and danced, as
if celebrating their meeting in these wild depths.