THE GREAT CANON
It was not yet dark when Two Arrows and One-eye halted at the mouth of
the pass. One-eye looked forward and whined, but his master looked back
and thought the matter over. He had travelled well and over some pretty
rough ground, but the trail had been wide and well marked. It was almost
like a road, so far as room went, but Two Arrows knew nothing of wheels,
neither did that trail. He was considering the curious fact that not a
man of his band knew that such a path existed or where it led to. It was
something to set his ambition on fire only to have discovered and
followed anything so new and remarkable. It was a deed for an old brave
rather than for a boy of fifteen. He needed rest, but when he again
turned and looked into the pass he at once arose and walked on.
"Dark soon. Maybe can't walk then. Do some more before that," said Two
Arrows.
He was in a spot worth looking at. Some old-time convulsion of nature
had cleft the mountain barrier at that place so that giant walls of rock
arose on either side of him for hundreds of feet, almost
perpendicularly. For some distance ahead the cleft was nearly straight,
and its gravelly bottom was from ten to thirty yards wide. There were
not many rocky fragments or bowlders, but it was evident that at some
seasons of the year torrents of water came pouring through that gorge to
keep it clean.
"When snow melts," muttered Two Arrows, "pretty bad place."
No doubt, or after any great storm or "cloud-burst" among the peaks
beyond; but all was dry as a bone now. It was sure to become dark early
in such a chasm as that, and there was no telling how much need there
might be for seeing the way. On went the young explorer until he came to
a point where the chasm suddenly widened. It was a gloomy sort of hollow
and littered with fragments of trees, drift-wood of old torrents.
"Camp," said Two Arrows to One-eye. "Make fire."
If a dog could use flint and steel, no doubt One-eye would have obeyed;
as it was, Two Arrows had to attend to that business for himself, and it
was not long before a great blazing fire of mountain pine was throwing
flashes of magnificent light upon the mighty precipices in all
directions. The gray granite stood out like shadows, and the white
quartz glittered marvellously, but the Nez Perce boy had no time to
admire them. He had his supper to cook and eat, and he had found some
water in a hollow of the rocks; no sunshine hot enough to dry it up had
ever found its way down there. Then drift-wood was gathered to keep some
sort of a blaze burning all night. There was no danger from human
enemies in that utter solitude, but there were wild beasts among the
mountains; night would be their prowling-time, and not one among them
would venture too near a fire.
Two Arrows was well entitled to a sound sleep, and he had one; when he
awoke, in the earliest gray of the next morning, the world was in fair
daylight everywhere outside of that deep crack in the mountains. He ate
heartily and at once pushed on, determined to have some fresh game
before night if possible. Such thoughts as he sent back to the Nez Perce
camp did not include the idea that it was already breaking up to follow
him; still less did he have any imagination of thirsty white people
toiling across a waterless plain along that buffalo trail.
He was in no danger of losing the way, for his path was walled in for
him. Towards midday it ceased to go up, up, up, and the chasm widened
into a great rocky canon of wonderful ruggedness and beauty. Two Arrows
had been among the mountains before, in other ranges, and this seemed to
him very much like what he might have expected. Now, however, the trail
turned to the right and picked its way along the steep side of the
varying slopes. Here it was wider and there it was narrower, until it
came to a reach of natural roadway that even a bison must have hunted
for before he found it. Away up it went in zigzags, seeming to take
skilful advantage of every natural help it came to, and then it shot
along the mountain-side for a thousand feet, traversing a mere ledge,
where one formation of rock projected out below another and made a shelf
for it to go upon. If a man had fallen from that shelf he would have
gone down a tremendous depth upon jagged rocks at the bottom of the
canon.
Two Arrows wasted no time in useless observations or admiration. Where
herd after herd of wild cattle had tramped before him he could surely
follow, and at the end of that ledge the road began to descend. The
descent was gradual, and uncommonly free from breakages. It led, before
a great while, once more to the bottom of the gorge. Several times Two
Arrows saw "big-horn" or Rocky Mountain sheep among the rocks above him,
far out of the reach of his arrows. He felt a longing for antelope
venison, but there was no use in trying to catch one of those fellows.
Hotter than anything else he felt the fever and fire of his ambition,
stirring him to push on and do more than he had ever heard of as done by
any other boy of his age among all the bands of his nation. It made him
walk fast and firmly in the bracing mountain air, and he drew his breath
somewhat quickly at times, when he thought of the wonderful things
which might be before him. He had no watch, but just as the sun stood
nearly over his head, or, rather, over the middle of the great gorge, he
could see that this was beginning to grow broader and not so steep. It
was promising to lead out into something, and One-eye dashed on ahead as
if to ascertain what it might be. Two Arrows stood still for a moment
and watched him, and then he started as if something had pricked him.
The dog was crouching and creeping as if he had his remaining eye upon
game of some sort or on danger. His master also crouched and crept,
slipping forward rapidly from rock to rock. In three minutes more he lay
beside One-eye, and they both had something worth while to look at. Not
more than three hundred yards beyond them, on the crest of a rocky ledge
that came out from the mountain-side like an abutment, stood a big-horn
antelope. He had seen One-eye and was looking at him. He may have been
studying whether or not it could be needful for an antelope away up
where he was to spring away any farther from a dog and an Indian boy. He
had better have been looking behind him and above him, for his real
danger was not in the quiver of Two Arrows; it was crouching upon a
higher fragment of the very ledge which held him, and it was preparing
for immediate action. It was a cougar, or American panther, of full
size, on the watch for antelopes, and now had crept almost within
springing distance. Two Arrows laid his hand upon the head of One-eye to
keep him silent, and watched breathlessly to see the end of that
hunting. Nearer and nearer crept the cougar, and still the big-horn was
absorbed in his study of matters down below. He stepped forward to the
very edge, and below him the rock came down with a perpendicular face of
a hundred feet. There was no danger that he would grow dizzy, but even
the cougar would have done wisely to have ascertained beforehand the
precise nature of the trap set for him. As it was, he gathered his lithe
and graceful form for his leap, every muscle quivering with eagerness,
and he put all his strength into one great, splendid bound. It was as
sure as a rifle-shot, and it landed him upon the shoulders of the
big-horn. He had seized his prize, but he had done too much: he had
fallen with a weight and force which sent him and his antelope
irresistibly over the rocky edge, and down, down, down they came
together with a great thud upon the granite below.
"Whoop!" The voice of Two Arrows ringing through the gorge was joined by
the fierce bark of One-eye as they sprang forward. An older warrior
might have waited to know the effect of that fall before he interfered
between a cougar and his game, but Two Arrows did not think of
hesitation. It was just as well. What between the blow of the cougar and
the force of the fall, the big-horn was dead. He had somewhat broken the
effect of the terrible shock upon his enemy by falling under him, but
even the tough body of the great "cat o' mountain" had not been made for
such plunges, and he lay on the rock stunned and temporarily disabled.
Whether it would, after all, have killed him, he was never to know, for,
just as he was staggering to his feet, a Nez Perce Indian boy charged
upon him with a long lance, while a large and ambitious dog rushed in
and seized him by the throat. He was taken at an advantage.
Thrust, thrust, thrust, in fiercely rapid succession, came the keen
blade of the lance, and One-eye bore down and throttled a brute that
could have killed four such dogs in anything like a fair fight.
It was tremendous hunting for a boy of fifteen. A cougar to bring down
his antelope for him, and a precipice to help him kill his cougar, and
only just enough work for his lance and dog to entitle him to the honor
of closing, single-handed, with one of the most dangerous of wild
animals. He had done that very thing, nevertheless, and was entitled to
all the credit of it. If he had waited to consider the matter, he might
have had a much harder fight for it. What was more, his energy and
enterprise and endurance had resulted in bringing him to the right place
at the right time, instead of somewhere else.