As the raft was being swept into the whirlpool, Ike and Wah Shin sent up
a shriek of alarm that rose high above the roar of the waters, and Maj
crouched down lower on the blankets and moaned piteously.
Ulna sat in his accustomed place. He did not make a movement, nor did
the expression of his face change as they were being whirled to what
seemed certain death.
As nothing could be done to avert the impending catastrophe, Sam uttered
a prayer, drew in his pole to save himself from being swept off and then
sat as calmly and stoically down as if he were a young brave.
There was a central vortex about which the waters swept with the speed
of a mill-stream, and for this point--as if forced on by an irresistible
power, the raft plunged.
It seemed like going down a hill on a sled. Once fairly under way there
was nothing to stop it.
With one quick glance from the center of the whirlpool to the pillars
piercing the sky, Sam closed his eyes expecting the next instant would
be the last.
But instead of rushing down to death, he was called back to an interest
in his surroundings by feeling a peculiarly soothing, swinging sensation
in the raft.
He opened his eyes and looked about him, and to his unutterable surprise
they were being swept about the mighty whirlpool, like a ball at the end
of a string in a strong man's hand.
Nearer and nearer to the center, until it seemed that the fraction of a
second must bring the fatal plunge, and then the raft would be suddenly
flung to the outer edge of the whirlpool again.
"Golly!" exclaimed Ike, as he looked about him and winked very fast,
"dis am curus."
"Too muchee, swing, swing!" cried Wah Shin, as the raft hung again on
the edge of the vortex, only to be hurled a second time to the outer
edge.
This swinging was at first a decidedly pleasant sensation, but soon it
made the passengers on the raft giddy and then quite sick.
It was only by keeping their eyes shut that they could command their
senses.
A half an hour of this whirling to the center and being thrown back to
the edge continued, though it seemed much longer to the tortured
occupants of the raft, and Sam spoke his thoughts rather than addressed
any of his companions when he said:
"Will this go on forever?"
"It do look to me powahful-like's if we was a-gwine to sikle round dis
yar place foheber an' eber, amen," said Ike.
Sam looked up again at the sky, and the crimson hue of the clouds told
him that the sun would soon sink in the upper world and that darkness
would soon come to add to their trials.
He felt that whether the raft was swallowed up or continued to swing in
that giddy dance till morning would make but little difference to
himself or his companions, for in either case death would come before
morning.
His brave heart grew heavy, as if the darkness of descending night were
falling on it.
He thought of his dead mother, thought of the imprisoned father, whom he
had set out so heroically to save, and the death that threatened was
only awful to him because he was to see his father nevermore.
While these thoughts were running through his mind he felt a different
movement in the raft. This was followed by a cheer from Ike and Wah Shin
and the loud barking of the dog.
Sam looked quickly up.
Joy! joy! In some inexplicable way the raft had been hurled so far
beyond the circle of the whirlpool's power as to be caught by the
current and carried into the Colorado, which here begins its journey
under that name, for the Gulf of California.
Even Ulna was roused from his usual stoicism by the change. Pointing to
the right, where in the twilight a low peninsula could be seen jutting
into the river, he called to Sam:
"Let us steer for that point. I think we can make a landing there."
"All right," replied Sam with his habitual cheerfulness.
Ulna now took up his own pole, and after much effort they succeeded in
getting the raft to the low point, and here, without difficulty, they
made a landing.
As there was neither tree nor rock to tie to they pulled the raft high
up on the strip of beach, and then looked around, but without success,
for the means to make a fire.
It was too dark to see ten feet away, so they sat on the rocks after
making the discovery that what they supposed to be a peninsula was
really an island.
But they made another discovery at the same time that was destined to
affect their progress very seriously, and that was that one-half the
provisions had in some way been pushed or slipped from the raft; but
they were lost, and hunger, or rather, starvation was only a few days
off.
They ate a little of their remaining provisions and then spread the
blankets on the low, damp ground.
Sam Willett had a military idea of the value of discipline. Having begun
with having guards at night, he determined to keep it up till the end.
The wisdom of this precaution was shown before another sun came to
banish the shadows.
About an hour before daylight Ulna, who was then watching, discovered
that the flood was rising around them, and hastily awoke his companions.
They sprang up to find the water roaring about them, and Sam, holding
the raft to keep it from floating off, ordered the others to bundle up
the blankets and get all the things on board.
As soon as this was done they pushed the raft into deeper water, got on
board and were at once swept away by the current.
Such trials would have crushed the spirits of any but the bravest, and
with a less resolute leader than Sam, despair would have made the others
indifferent to their surroundings.
While it was yet as dark as midnight in the canyon, they could look up
and see pink streaks in the far-off sky that told them the light of
another day was again flushing the upper world.
But the sun only looked into this gloomy abyss for one short hour in the
twenty-four, and then left it to the gathering shadows and impenetrable
night.
It was ten o'clock by Sam's watch when they found a ledge of rocks on
which they could make a landing.
This haven was discovered none too soon, for the severe straining the
raft had had in the whirlpool had loosened the cords that held the logs
and they threatened to come apart and let all into the water.
The remaining food was very much soaked, but their appetites were keen
enough to eat the whole of it just as it was.
Two more days would see all of their provisions gone, and, realizing
this fact, Sam proposed dividing what was left so as to last over three
days, but against this arrangement Ike and Wall Shin entered a protest.
"Now, Mistah Sam," said Ike, "I ain't got nigh so much sinse as you has,
but it'd been a heap sight bettah if you jest took my edvice."
"Your advice about what, Ike?" asked Sam.
"'Bout dat grub."
"What about it?"
"I proposed, night afore last, we should all go in and eat all we
could--now, didn't I?"
"I believe, Ike, you did say something like that."
"An' you said 'no;' so w'at's the consekence?"
"The consequence is, Ike, that you obeyed me then, and I expect you to
obey me still," said Sam firmly.
"Yes; an' I'll keep on obeyin' you till I die, but har's de pint," and
Ike spread out his hand and looked at the palm as if he were reading.
"If we'd hab eat a lot more ob dat grub, den dar wouldn't have been so
much lost. Wouldn't it be a heap sight better if we had dat stuff inside
ob us dan at de bottom ob dat ar whirlpole?"
"We did everything for the best, Ike, and therefore we should not blame
ourselves," said Sam.
"I no tinkee dat glub's in watel," said Wah Shin.
"Whar is it, den?" asked Ike.
"I tink Maj he lookee muchee fat. Him no so hungly like befole; mebbe
him eatee glub."
The object of this awful accusation sat near by eyeing the little stock
of provisions as if he could dispose of the lot without feeling any
great discomfort.
"No," said Ulna, who usually listened to these conversations without
taking part in them; "the dog did not eat that food."
"W'y you tinkee no?" asked Wah Shin.
"Because the bag in which the food was placed is gone, and the dog could
not have eaten that."
"Me no so shule bout lat," said Wah Shin. "W'en dog him heap hungly him
eat bag too."
Clearly Ike and Wah Shin had formed a conspiracy against the dog, and
this only confirmed Sam in his attachment to the poor brute, though more
than once he wished that he was in some other place.
Sam and Ulna at once set about repairing the raft, and while they were
engaged in this work Ike showed that he had unbounded faith in his young
master's knowledge by asking these questions:
"Mistah Sam, w'at you tink bout dis time?"
"Nothing, Ike," was the reply.
"Know 'bout whar we is?"
"I do not."
"Know whar we'z goin'?"
"No."
"Nor whin we'll git dar?"
"No."
"Eber heah ob sich a fix?"
"Never."
"If we gits out ob dis yeh won't neber want to try anudder sich scrape,
I reckon?"
"No."
"Ye've had enough?"
"Yes."
"So has I, but dar's no use a gibbin' up so, Mistah Brown!" and then
with a sudden change of manner that startled all hands, the dog
included, Ike sang out in a rich tenor voice.
"Oh fust was made de sun,
An' den was made de sky,
An' den dey made de earf
An' hung it up to dry,
An' den de made de star, outer yalla gals' eyes
Foh to gib a little light
W'en de sun don't rise."