The Doctor had not lost any time. Tents had been set up, and men were
busy raising sheds of rough stone which were to be roofed over with
poles. But at the same time, he had had men toiling away in opening up
a rift that promised to yield silver pretty bounteously, for the ancient
mine seemed hardly a likely place now, being dangerous, and the
principal parts that were easy of access apparently pretty well worked
out.
This was something of a disappointment, but a trifling one, for the
mountain teemed with silver, and then there was the canyon to explore.
This the Doctor proposed to examine on the day following Bart's return,
for the services of the chief would be required to find a way down
unless the descent was to be made by ropes.
The Beaver and his interpreter were brought to the Doctor's tent, and
the matter being explained, the Indian smiled, and expressed his
willingness to show them at once; so a few preparations having been
made, and some provisions packed in case that the journey should prove
long, Bart, the Doctor, Joses, and the interpreter started, leaving the
Beaver in front to lead the way.
He started off in a line parallel to the canyon, as it seemed to Bart,
and made for a patch of good-sized trees about half a mile from the
mountain, and upon reaching this they found that the great river chasm
had curved round, so that it was not above a hundred yards away, and
Bart began to think that perhaps it would not prove to be so precipitous
there.
The Beaver, seeing his eagerness, smiled and nodded, and thrusting the
bushes aside, he entered the patch of dense forest, which was apparently
about half a mile in length, running with a breadth of half that
distance along the edge of the canyon.
The interpreter followed, and after a few minutes they returned to say
that no progress could be made in that direction, so they re-entered the
forest some fifty yards lower, and where it looked less promising than
before.
The chief, however, seemed to be satisfied, and drawing his knife, he
hacked and chopped at the projecting vines and thorns so as to clear a
way for those who followed; till after winding in and out for some time,
he came at length to what seemed little more than a crack in the ground
about a yard wide, and pretty well choked up with various kinds of
growth.
At the first glance it seemed impossible for any one to descend into
this rift, but the interpreter showed them that it was possible by
leaping down, and directly after there was a loud, rattling noise, and
an extremely large rattlesnake glided out of the rift on to the level
ground. It was making its escape, when a sharp blow from the chief's
knife divided it nearly in two, and he finished his task by crushing its
head with the butt of his rifle.
"We must be on the look-out, Bart," said the Doctor, "if these reptiles
are in any quantity;" and as the Beaver leaped down he followed, then
came Bart, and Joses closed up the rear.
"I shall get all the sarpents," he grumbled. "You people will disturb
them all, and they'll do their stinging upon me."
Then the descent became so toilsome that conversation ceased, and
nothing was heard but the crackling of twigs, the breaking off of
branches, and the sharp, rustling noise that followed as the travellers
forced their way through the bushes.
This lasted for about fifty yards, and then the descent became very
rapid, and the trees larger and less crowded together. The rift
widened, too, at times, but only to contract again; and then its sides
so nearly approached that their path became terribly obscure, and
without so energetic a guide as they possessed it would have required a
stout-hearted man to proceed.
Every here and there they had to slide down the rock perhaps forty or
fifty feet; then there would be a careful picking of the way over some
rugged stones, and then another slide down for a while.
Once or twice it seemed as if they had come to a full stop, the rift
being closed up by fallen masses of earth and stones; but the Beaver
mounted these boldly, as if he knew of their existence, and lowered
himself gently down the other side, waiting to help the Doctor, for Bart
laughingly declined, preferring as he did to leap from stone to stone,
and swing himself over cracks that seemed almost impassable.
"This is nature's work, Bart," the Doctor said, as he paused to wipe his
streaming face. "No former inhabitants ever made this. It is an
earthquake-split, I should say."
"But it might be easily made into a good path, sir," replied Bart.
"It might be made, Bart, but not easily, and it would require a great
deal of engineering to do it. How dark it grows! You see nothing
hardly can grow down here except these mosses and little fungi."
"Is it much farther, sir?" cried Bart.
"What! are you tired, my lad?"
"No, sir; not I. Only it seems as if we must be near the bottom of the
canyon."
"No, not yet," said the Beaver in good English, and both the Doctor and
Bart smiled, while the chief seemed pleased at his advance in the
English tongue being noticed. "Long down--long down," he said in
continuation.
"The Beaver-with-Sharp-Teeth tells the English chief and the little boy
English chief that it is far yet to the bottom of the way to the rushing
river of the mountain," said the interpreter, and the chief frowned at
him angrily, while Bart felt as if he should like to kick him for
calling him a "little boy English chief;" but the stoical Indian calmly
and indifferently allowed the angry looks he received to pass, and
followed the party down as they laboriously stepped from stone to stone.
"There's a pretty good flush o' water here in rainy times, master,"
shouted Joses. "See how all the earth has been washed out. Shouldn't
wonder if you found gold here."
"I ought to have thought of that, Joses," replied the Doctor, as he
proceeded to examine the crevices of the rock over which he was walking
as well as he could for the gloom and obscurity of the place, and at the
end of five minutes he uttered a cry of joy. "Here it is!" he
exclaimed, holding up two or three rounded nodules of metal. "No; I am
wrong," he said. "This light deceives me; it is silver."
To his surprise, the Beaver took them from his hand with a gesture of
contempt, and threw the pieces away, though they would have purchased
him a new blanket or an ample supply of ammunition at Lerisco or any
other southern town.
"Wait," he said, airing his English once more. "Plenty! plenty!" and he
pointed down towards the lower part of the narrow crevice or crack in
the rock along which they were passing.
"Go on, then," said the Doctor; and once more they continued their
descent, which grew more difficult moment by moment, and more dark, and
wild, and strange.
For now the rock towered up on either side to a tremendous height, and
the daylight only appeared as a narrow streak of sky, dappled with dark
spots where the trees hung over the rift. Then the sky was shut out
altogether, and they went on with their descent in the midst of a
curious gloom that reminded Bart of the hour just when the first streaks
of dawn are beginning to appear in the morning sky.
This went on for what seemed to be some time, the descent growing
steeper and more difficult; but at last there came a pleasant rushing
sound, which Bart knew must be that of the river. Then there was the
loud song of a bird, which floated up from far below, and then all at
once a pale light appeared on the side of the rocks, which were now so
near together that the sides in places nearly touched above their heads.
Five minutes' more arduous descent, and there was glistening wet moss on
the rock, and the light was stronger, while the next minute the pure,
clear light of day flashed up from an opening that seemed almost at
their feet--an opening that was almost carpeted with verdant green, upon
which, after dropping from a rock some ten feet high, they stood,
pausing beneath an arch of interweaving boughs that almost hid the
entrance to the rift, and there they stood, almost enraptured by the
beauty of the scene.
For the bottom of the canyon had been reached, and its mighty
verdure-decked, rocky walls rose up sheer above their heads, appearing
to narrow towards the top, though this was an optical delusion. All was
bright and glorious in the sunshine. The trees and shrubs were of a
vivid green, the grass was brilliant with flowers; and running in
serpentine waves through the middle of the lovely prairie that softly
sloped down to it on either side, and whose sedges and clumps of trees
dipped their tips in its sparkling waters, ran the river, dancing and
foaming here over its rocky bed, there swirling round and forming deep
pools, while in its clear waters as they approached Bart could see the
glancing scales of innumerable fish on its sun-illumined shallows.
Hot and weary with their descent, the first act of all present was to
dip their cups into the pure clear water, and then, as soon as their
feverish thirst was allayed, the Doctor proceeded to test the sand of
the river to see if it contained gold, while Bart, after wondering why a
man who had discovered a silver mine of immense wealth could not be
satisfied, went wandering off along the edge of the river, longing for
some means of capturing the fish, whose silver scales flashed in the
sunshine whenever they glided sidewise over some shallow ridge of yellow
sand that would not allow of their swimming in the ordinary way.
Sometimes he was able to leap from rock to rock that stood out of the
river bed, and formed a series of barriers, around which the swift
stream fretted and boiled, rushing between them in a series of cascades;
and wherever one of these masses of water-worn stone lay in the midst of
the rapid stream, Bart found that there was always a deep still
transparent pool behind; and he had only to approach softly, and bend
down or lie upon his chest, with his head beyond the edge, to see that
this pool was the home of some splendid fish, a very tyrant ready to
pounce upon everything that was swept into the still water.
"I wish we were not bothering about gold and silver," thought Bart, as
after feasting his eyes upon the fish he turned to gaze upon the
beauties of the drooping trees, and spire-shaped pines that grew as
regular in shape as if they had been cast in the same mould; while,
above all, the gloriously coloured walls of the canyon excited his
wonder, and made him long to scale them, climbing into the many
apparently inaccessible places, and hunting for fruit, and flower, and
bird.
Bart had rambled down the river, so rapt in the beauties around him that
he forgot all about the Doctor and his search for the precious metals.
All at once, as he was seated out upon a mass of stone by the river
side, it struck him that, though he had watched the fish a good deal, it
would be very pleasant to wade across a shallow to where a reef of rocks
stood out of the water, so placed that as soon as he reached them he
could leap from one to the other, and settle himself down almost in the
very middle of the river; and when there he determined to wait his
chance and see if he could not shoot two or three of the largest trout
for their meal that night.
The plan was no sooner thought of than Bart proceeded to put it in
execution.
He waded the shallow pretty easily, though he could not help wondering
at the manner in which his feet sank down into the soft sand, which
seemed to let them in right up to the knees at once, and then to close
so tightly round them that, to use his own words, he seemed to have been
thrusting his legs into leaden boots. However, he dragged them out,
reached the first rock of the barrier or reef, and stood for a few
minutes enjoying the beauty of the scene, while the stream rushed by on
either side with tremendous force.
The next stone was a good five feet away, with a deep glassy flood
rushing around. Bart leaped over it, landed safely, and found the next
rock quite six feet distant, and a good deal higher than the one he was
upon.
He paused for a moment or two to think what would be the consequences if
he did not reach this stone, and judged that it meant a good ducking and
a bit of a swim to one of the shallows below.
"But I should get my rifle and cartridges wet," he said aloud, "and that
would never do. Shall I? Shan't I?"
Bart's answer was to gather himself up and leap, with the result that he
just reached the edge of the rock, and throwing himself forward managed
to hold on, and then scramble up in safety.
Going back's easy enough, thought Bart, as he prepared to bound to the
next rock, a long mass, like the back of some monstrous alligator just
rising above the flood. Along this he walked seven or eight yards,
jumped from block to block of a dozen more rugged pieces, and then
bounded upon a roughly semi-circular piece that ended the ridge like a
bastion, beyond which the water ran deep and swift, with many an eddy
and mighty curl.
"This is grand!" cried Bart, whose eyes flashed with pleasure; and
settling himself down in a comfortable position, he laid his rifle
across his knees with the intention of watching the fish in a shallow
just above him, but only to forget all about them directly after, as he
sat enjoying the beauties of the scene, and wished that his sisterly
companion Maude were there to see how wonderfully grand their mother
Nature could be.
"If there were no Indians," thought Bart, "and a good large town close
by, what a lovely place this would be for a house. I could find a
splendid spot; and then one could hunt on the plains, and shoot and
fish, and the Doctor could find silver and gold, and--good gracious!
What's that?"