The three adventurers were entering the gorge of an impassable rapid.
Here had once been the barrier of a cataract; the waters had ground
through it, tumbled it down, and gnawed it to tatters; the scattered
bowlders which showed through the foam were the remnants of the Cyclopean
feast.
There appeared to be no escape from death. Any one of those stones would
rend the canvas boat from end to end, or double it into a wet rug; and if
a swimmer should perchance reach the bank, he would drown there, looking
up at precipices; or, if he should find a footing, it would only be to
starve.
"There is our chance," said Thurstane, pointing to a bowlder as large as a
house which stood under the northern wall of the cañon, about a quarter of
a mile above the first yeast of the rapid.
He and Glover each took a paddle. They had but one object: it was to get
under the lee of the bowlder, and so stop their descent; after that they
would see what more could be done. Danger and safety were alike swift
here; it was a hurry as of battle or tempest Almost before they began to
hope for success, they were circling in the narrow eddy, very nearly a
whirlpool, which wheeled just below the isolated rock. Even here the
utmost caution was necessary, for while the Buchanan was as light as a
bubble, it was also as fragile.
Sounding the muddy water with their paddles, they slowly glided into the
angle between the bowlder and the precipice, and jammed the fragment of
the towline in a crevice. For the first time in six hours, and in a run of
thirty miles, they were at rest. Wiping the sweat of labor and anxiety
from their brows, they looked about them, at first in silence, querying
what next?
"I wish I was on an iceberg," said Glover in his despair.
"An' I wish I was in Oirland," added Sweeny. "But if the divil himself was
to want to desart here, he couldn't."
Thurstane believed that he had seen Clara for the last time, even should
she escape her own perils. Through his field-glass he surveyed the whole
gloomy scene with microscopic attention, searching for an exit out of this
monstrous man-trap, and searching in vain. It was as impossible to descend
the rapid as it was to scale the walls of the cañon. He had just heard
Sweeny say, "I wish I was bein' murthered by thim naygurs," and had smiled
at the utterance of desperation with a grim sympathy, when a faint hope
dawned upon him.
Not more than a yard above the water was a ledge or shelf in the face of
the precipice. The layer of sandstone immediately over this shelf was
evidently softer than the general mass; and in other days (centuries ago),
when it had formed one level with the bed of the river, it had been deeply
eroded. This erosion had been carried along the cañon on an even line of
altitude as far as the softer layer extended. Thurstane could trace it
with his glass for what seemed to him a mile, and there was of course a
possibility that it reached below the foot of the rapid. The groove was
everywhere about twenty feet high, while its breadth varied from a yard or
so to nearly a rod.
Here, then, was a road by which they might perhaps turn the obstacle. The
only difficulty was that while the bed of the river descended rapidly, the
shelf kept on at the same elevation, so that eventually the travellers
would come to a jumping-off place. How high would it be? Could they get
down it so as to regain the stream and resume their navigation? Well, they
must try it; there was no other road. With one eloquent wave of his hand
Thurstane pointed out this slender chance of escape to his comrades.
"Hurray!" shouted Glover, after a long stare, in which the emotions
succeeded each other like colors in a dolphin.
"Can we make the jump at the other end?" asked the lieutenant.
"Reckon so," chirruped Glover. "Look a here."
He exhibited a pile of unpleasant-looking matter which proved to be a mass
of strips of fresh hide.
"Hoss skin," he explained. "Peeled off a mustang. Borrowed it from that
Texan cuss. Thought likely we might want to splice our towline. 'Bout ten
fathom, I reckon; 'n' there's the lariat, two fathom more. All we've got
to de is to pack up, stick our backs under, 'n' travel."
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they commenced their
preparations for making this extraordinary portage. Sunk as they were
twenty-five hundred feet in the bowels of the earth, the sun had already
set for them; but they were still favored with a sort of twilight
radiance, and they could count upon it for a couple of hours longer.
Carefully the guns, paddles, and stores were landed on the marvellous
causeway; and then, with still greater caution, the boat was lifted to the
same support and taken to pieces. The whole mass of material, some two
hundred pounds in weight, was divided into three portions. Each shouldered
his pack, and the strange journey commenced.
"Sweeny, don't you fall off," said Glover. "We can't spare them sticks."
"If I fall off, ye may shute me where I stand," returned Sweeny. "I know
better'n to get drowned and starved to death in wan. I can take care av
meself. I've sailed this a way many a time in th' ould counthry."
The road was a smooth and easy one, barring a few cumbering bowlders. To
the left and below was the river, roaring, hissing, and foaming through
its _chevaux-de-frise_ of rocks. In front the cañon stretched on and on
until its walls grew dim with shadow and distance. Above were overhanging
precipices and a blue streak of sunlit sky.
It was quite dusk with the wanderers before they reached a point where the
San Juan once more flowed with an undisturbed current.
"We can't launch by this light," said Thurstane. "We will sleep here."
"It'll be a longish night," commented Glover. "But don't see's we can
shorten it by growlin'. When fellahs travel in the bowels 'f th' earth,
they've got to follow the customs 'f th' country. Puts me in mind of Jonah
in the whale's belly. Putty short tacks, Capm. Nine hours a day won't git
us along; any too fast. But can't help it. Night travellin' ain't suited
to our boat. Suthin' like a bladder football: one pin-prick 'd cowallapse
it. Wal, so we'll settle. Lucky we wanted our blankets to set on. 'Pears
to me this rock's a leetle harder'n a common deck plank. Unroll the boat,
Capm? Wal, guess we'd better. Needs dryin'a speck. Too much soakin' an't
good for canvas. Better dry it out, 'n' fold it up, 'n' sleep on't. This
passageway that we're in, sh'd say at might git up a smart draught. What
d'ye say to this spot for campin'? Twenty foot breadth of beam here. Kind
of a stateroom, or bridal chamber. No need of fallin' out. Ever walk in
yer sleep, Sweeny? Better cut it right square off to-night. Five fathom
down to the river, sh'd say. Splash ye awfully, Sweeny."
Thus did Captain Glover prattle in his cheerful way while the party made
its preparations for the night.
They were like ants lodged in some transverse crack of a lofty wall. They
were in a deep cut of the shelf, with fifteen hundred or two thousand feet
of sandstone above, and the porphyry-colored river thirty feet below. The
narrow strip of sky far above their heads was darkening rapidly with the
approach of night, and with an accumulation of clouds. All of a sudden
there was a descent of muddy water, charged with particles of red earth
and powdered sandstone, pouring by them down the overhanging precipice.
"Liftinant!" exclaimed Sweeny, "thim naygurs up there is washin' their
dirty hides an' pourin' the suds down on us."
"It's the rain, Sweeny. There's a shower on the plateau above."
"The rain, is it? Thin all nate people in that counthry must stand in
great nade of ombrellys."
The scene was more marvellous than ever. Not a drop of rain fell in the
river; the immense façade opposite them was as dry as a skull; yet here
was this muddy cataract. It fell for half an hour, scarcely so much as
spattering them in their recess, but plunging over them into the torrent
beneath. By the time it ceased they had eaten their supper of hard bread
and harder beef, and lighted their pipes to allay their thirst. There was
a laying of plans to regain the river to-morrow, a grave calculation as to
how long their provisions would last, and in general much talk about their
chances.
"Not a shine of a lookout for gittin' back to the Casa?" queried Captain
Glover. "Knowed it," he added, when the lieutenant sadly shook his head.
"Fool for talkin' 'bout it. How 'bout reachin' the trail to the Moqui
country?"
"I have been thinking of it all day," said Thurstane. "We must give it up.
Every one of the branch cañons on the other bank trends wrong. We couldn't
cross them; we should have to follow them; it's an impassable hell of a
country. We might by bare chance reach the Moqui pueblos; but the
probability is that we should die in the desert of thirst. We shall have
to run the river. Perhaps we shall have to run the Colorado too. If so, we
had better keep on to Diamond creek, and from there push by land to Cactus
Pass. Cactus Pass is on the trail, and we may meet emigrants there. I
don't know what better to suggest."
"Dessay it's a tiptop idee," assented Glover cheeringly. "Anyhow, if we
take on down the river, it seems like follyin' the guidings of
Providence."
In spite of their strange situation and doubtful prospects, the three
adventurers slept early and soundly. When they awoke it was daybreak, and
after chewing the hardest, dryest, and rawest of breakfasts, they began
their preparations to reach the river. To effect this, it was necessary to
find a cleft in the ledge where they could fasten a cord securely, and
below it a footing at the water's edge where they could put their boat
together and launch it. It would not do to go far down the cañon, for the
bed of the stream descended while the shelf retained its level, and the
distance between them was already sufficiently alarming. After an anxious
search they discovered a bowlder lying in the river beneath the shelf,
with a flat surface perfectly suited to their purpose. There, too, was a
cleft, but a miserably small one.
"We can't jam a cord in that," said Glover; "nor the handle of a paddle
nuther."
"It'll howld me bagonet," suggested Sweeny.
"It can be made to hold it," decided Thurstane. "We must drill away till
it does hold it."
An hour's labor enabled them to insert the bayonet to the handle and wedge
it with spikes split off from the precious wood of the paddles. When it
seemed firm enough to support a strong lateral pressure, Glover knotted on
to it, in his deft sailor fashion, a strip of the horse hide, and added
others to that until he had a cord of some forty feet. After testing every
inch and every knot, he said: "Who starts first?"
"I will try it," answered Thurstane.
"Lightest first, I reckon," observed Glover.
Sweeny looked at the precipice, skipped about the shelf uneasily, made a
struggle with his fears, and asked, "Will ye let me down aisy?"
"Jest 's easy 's rollin' off a log."
"That's aisy enough. It's the lightin' that's har-rd. If it comes to
rowlin' down, I'll let ye have the first rowl. I've no moind to git ahead
of me betthers."
"Try it, my lad," said Thurstane. "The real danger comes with the last
man. He will have to trust to the bayonet alone."
"An' what'll I do whirl I get down there?"
"Take the traps off the cord as we send them down, and pile them on the
rock."
"I'm off," said Sweeny, after one more look into the chasm. While the
others held the cord to keep the strain from coming on the bayonet, he
gripped it with both hands, edged stern foremost over the precipice, and
slipped rapidly to the bowlder, whence he sent up a hoot of exultation.
The cord was drawn back; the boat was made up in two bundles, which were
lowered in succession; then the provisions, paddles, arms, etc. Now came
the question whether Thurstane or Glover should remain last on the ledge.
"Lightest last," said the lean skipper. "Stands to reason."
"It's my duty to take the hot end of the poker," replied the officer.
"Loser goes first," said Glover, producing a copper. "Heads or tails?"
"Heads," guessed Thurstane.
"It's a tail. Catch hold, Capm. Slow 'n' easy till you get over."
The cord holding firm, Thurstane reached the bowlder, and was presently
joined by Glover.
"Liftinant, I want me bagonet," cried Sweeny. "Will I go up afther it?"
"How the dickens 'd you git down again?" asked Glover. "Guess you'll have
to leave your bayonet where it sticks. But, Capm, we want that line. Can't
you shute it away, clost by th' edge?"
The third shot was a lucky one, and brought down the precious cord. Then
came the work of putting the boat into shape, launching it, getting in the
stores, and lastly the voyagers.
"Tight's a drum yit," observed Glover, surveying the coracle admiringly.
"Fust time I ever sailed _on_ canvas. Great notion. Don't draw more'n
three inches. Might sail acrost country with it. Capm, it's the only boat
ever invented that could git down this blasted river."
Glover and Sweeny, two of the most talkative creatures on earth, chattered
much to each other. Thurstane sometimes listened to them, sometimes lost
himself in reveries about Clara, sometimes surveyed the scenery of the
cañon.
The abyss was always the same, yet with colossal variety: here and there
yawnings of veined precipices, followed by cavernous closings of the awful
sides; breakings in of subsidiary cañons, some narrow clefts, and others
gaping shattered mouths; the walls now presenting long lines of rampart,
and now a succession of peaks. But still, although they had now traversed
the chasm for seventy or eighty miles, they found no close and no
declension to its solemn grandeur.
At last came another menace, a murmur deeper and hoarser than that of the
rapid, steadily swelling as they advanced until it was a continuous
thunder. This time there could be no doubt that they were entering upon a
scene of yet undecided battle between the eternal assault of the river and
the immemorial resistance of the mountains.
The quickening speed of the waters, and the ceaseless bellow of their
charging trumpets as they tore into some yet unseen abyss, announced one
of those struggles of nature in which man must be a spectator or a victim.