THE BOAT IN THE RAPIDS
“Well, boys, we’re here at last,” remarked Jerry, after a while, when
they had traversed some length of the canyon in the airship. “We’re
here after a lot of hard work, and the next question is, what are we
going to do; now that we are on the ground?”
“Go to Snake Island at once,” suggested Ned.
“Eat,” advised Bob, who had started to get a meal, but who had come
back to the cabin, to wait while some of the things cooked.
“Chunky’s infallible recipe whenever anything goes wrong,” commented
Jerry. “Still it wouldn’t be a bad idea. We can talk it over while
we’re eating, and decide what’s best to be done.”
“What’s the matter with going at once to the island?” asked Ned. “I
thought that was what we came here for.”
“It is, but I think it will be a good plan to see if we can learn
anything about it before we go too far down the river. It may be that
there is no such place as Snake Island. Or, it may be that, even in
our airship, it is impossible to get to it. We want to find out all
about it before we go too far.”
“Well, what’s your idea?” asked Ned.
“I think we ought to----”
“Dinner’s ready,” interrupted Bob, and they went out to the table,
the professor carrying with him a book, carefully marking the place
where he had been reading by putting his finger between the pages. The
airship was moving at slow speed, and had been set to steer herself
automatically. So the boys had nothing to interrupt their talk of the
best plan to follow.
Eventually they decided to travel on until they reached Grand View, the
point where Berry Trail led down into the canyon to the banks of the
rushing river. They would make their inquiries there, regarding the
possible existence of Snake Island.
It was night when they reached Grand View, and, in order that they
might be among other tourists, who had come to visit the canyon, the
boys and the professor put up at a hotel almost on the verge of the
great chasm, storing the airship in a big open shed, sometimes used for
autos.
“Snake Island!” exclaimed the clerk, when Jerry asked him about it.
“Never heard of the place. Don’t believe there’s an island in the
whole stretch of the river. But there are some guides around here. You
might ask them.”
Which Jerry and his chums did, but with little satisfaction, for it
developed that few of the guides had been farther than the regularly
traveled routes taken by tourists, and this had not brought them to the
more inaccessible parts of the mighty river.
“Snake Island?” repeated one grizzled guide, when Jerry had put the
question to him. “If anybody knows whether or not there is such a
place, it’s old Hance Stamford. Hance give up guidin’ long ago, but in
his prime there wasn’t a better one at it. He’s gone in places no one
else dared, and if there’s a Snake Island he’ll know about it.”
The boys sought out Hance the next day. He lived in a little cabin, not
far from the hotel, being cared for by his son, who was employed as
a waiter. Hance was indeed old, being past eighty. Yet his dull eyes
opened quickly when Jerry put to him the question that meant so much to
the motor boys.
“Snake Island!” exclaimed old Hance. “It’s been many years since I
heard that name. Many, many years.”
“But is there any such place?” asked Jerry.
“Is there? Bless you, I don’t know, son. I’ll tell you as much as I
can, however. It must have been forty years ago, and there weren’t
many tourists in them days. Mostly Indians. I was making my way along
the canyon with an Indian, for in them days I had a notion I’d like
to discover things. Well, as you know, the canyon is narrow and steep
in places, and when it rains you want to make tracks, for the river
sometimes rises thirty feet in a short time. If you’re caught where you
can’t climb up, well--it’s good-bye for yours.
“A thunderstorm came up while the Indian and I were in a narrow part
of the canyon, where the river rushed along between black walls like
a mill stream down the flume. We knew we’d have to make tracks out
of there, and we did. But the rain came faster than we’d calculated
on, and we had to climb. Then came a fog that nearly did for us. We
managed to get some distance down the stream, and then climbed up the
steep sides of the chasm until we came to a niche in the wall. There we
stayed until the river went down, and we were there a day and a night,
with nothing to eat.”
“But about the Snake Island?” asked Jerry.
“The island. Oh yes. Well, when we were hiding there in the hole in
the wall, there came a rift in the fog. I happened to be looking down
stream, and I saw something big and black rearing up, right from
the river it seemed. I poked the Indian in the ribs--he was half
asleep, you know--Indians’ll sleep anywhere if they think they’ve got
to--anyhow I poked him, and he grunted and woke up. I pointed to the
tall, black, wiggling thing, and the Indian said: ‘Snake Island.’
“‘Snake!’ I yelled. ‘Who ever see a snake as big as that?’ Then he
grunted some more, and went on to say that there was a sort of stone
island in the middle of the river. It had been pretty well worn away
except a big hill and a tall thing, like a tower, that stuck up in the
middle, like a church steeple. It was this tall tower of black rock
that seemed like a snake. Of course the fog made it indistinct, and
the motion of the mist made it appear as if it was wiggling about. So
that’s all I know about Snake Island. I never went there, and I never
heard of anyone getting on it.”
“There was a party of college men----” began Uriah Snodgrass.
“Oh, yes, I heard about _them_. But they never got there, and one of
their number was lost. I tell you Snake Island is in a bad part of the
river.”
“But just where is it?” asked Jerry.
“As near as I can tell, between here and Bright Angel Trail,” replied
the old guide, as he nodded in slumber again. “I wouldn’t go there, if
I were you.”
“Well, we’re going,” said Jerry softly, as he bade the old man good-bye.
Saying nothing to anyone in the hotel about their plans, the boys made
an early start the next morning, and were soon gliding down over the
great chasm in their airship.
Below them rushed and foamed the great river--below in its chasm
trough, with walls of vari-hued marble, of sandstone that rivaled the
rainbow in tints, while in other places, near the water itself, were
black rocks, of flinty hardness.
“And to think that it’s seven thousand feet from the top of that gulf
to the water,” spoke Bob in awed tones. “I wouldn’t want to fall.”
As they went on they could see fogs and mists arising, while, as the
sun rose higher and higher, it made a scene of indescribable beauty,
the tints on the walls of the canyon changing every moment.
It was about noon, and Jerry had calculated that they had made about
half the distance from Grand View, when Ned, who was looking at the
rushing, foaming river below them, as it dashed along over a gorge
filled with rapids, cried out:
“Jerry, do you see anything down there?”
The tall lad looked through the plate glass window in the bottom of the
airship. Then he snatched up the binoculars and focused them.
“It’s a boat!” he cried. “A boat in those awful rapids! They’ve lost
control of her, and she’ll be dashed to pieces!”
“Anyone in it?” asked Bob.
Once more Jerry looked carefully.
“Three persons!” he exclaimed. “Well, it’s all up with them. That boat
can never make the passage.”
And, as he spoke, the frail craft was lost to view as a curtain of mist
rolled down and hid the rushing river from sight.