“And right here is where we back up!”
It was one day later, and the _Rambler_ lay in what looked to be a great
lock, with gates out of sight! There were high walls on either side, and
just ahead the view was shut off by an abrupt bend in the rocky
formation. The Colorado river was pouring like a Niagara over a ledge
where the narrow canyon turned.
“This Black Canyon thing does seem to tell us to go back!” Don remarked,
with a sigh. “Looks like I’d have to leave you and take to the plateau
in order to get to the Grand Canyon, after all. “This seems to be a
locked door, all right! No boat can ever get above that tumble!”
“I’ve heard of boats going past Black Canyon,” Case insisted.
“They must have gone up in a balloon, then!” Alex suggested.
“There may be a passage around this series of falls,” Clay said.
“Well,” Alex sighed. “We’re out of sight of river pirates, anyway. We
can see the blue sky over our heads, and that is about all!”
“Fine place to camp, on that shelf of rock!” Case put in. “I’d like to
stay here a few days and investigate some of the caverns.”
“That’s a good idea,” Clay exclaimed. “And while we are looking in the
odd crevices the water has made we may find some way of getting the
_Rambler_ up the river. Anyway, I’m not going to give up the trip until
I have to! A man once went the whole length of the Grand Canyon in a
boat! He must have got many a ducking!”
“Yes, but he was coming down, while we want to go up! If we were up
above these falls, we might get down, by risking the boat and our own
lives, but I don’t see how we are ever to get up!”
“There’s always a way!” laughed Alex. “I’ll get some of that drift out
of the eddies and build a fire on that rock while you boys get supper.
If you want fish, catch ’em. Seems to be plenty here.”
“You’ll have a fine time making that wet wood burn!” cried Case.
Alex pointed to an opening in the wall of the canyon, back of the rock.
“I’ve been looking into that nest,” he said, “and I’ve discovered that
there’s dry wood and leaves in there. Some day when the Colorado was on
the rampage, logs and limbs drifted in there and never got out again.”
“Why wouldn’t that be a good place to camp?” asked Don. “Aren’t you boys
getting tired of sleeping in those narrow bunks every night?”
“You bet I am,” Alex answered, “and I’ll sleep in the cave if any one
else will. It seems nice and dry in there, and Captain Joe can keep
watch! Who’s in for it? Now, don’t all speak at once!”
“I am, for one!” Don explained. “I’ll just enjoy it.”
“The _Rambler_ is good enough for me,” Case asserted, and Clay expressed
the same opinion, so Alex and Don were the only ones to move their
blankets and pillows into the cavern that night when they were ready to
go to bed. Teddy went with them, but the dog crept back to the boat.
“Bears live in caves, anyway!” laughed Don. “I guess Teddy feels at home
here, the way he is tumbling about. Cute cub, that!”
There was a fire, fast dying down, just outside the mouth of the cave
where the two boys were, and they lay side by side in their blankets for
a long time watching the flickering blaze and talking of the strange
events which had brought them together. At length Don spoke of the
papers.
“Do you really hope to find the third paper in the shack your uncle
inhabited in the Grand Canyon?” asked Alex. “I ain’t so sure of it.”
“I am sure it is there,” Don answered, “but I can’t say whether we shall
find it or not. I’ve been thinking that we might find the spot marked by
an ‘X’ without it. I’m certain that the third paper tells only of
surroundings—perhaps points the way to some bend or cliff. By looking
over the locality very carefully, we may be able to find the sunburst
and the big X. Don’t you think so?”
“Why, of course,” Alex replied, sleepily.
“Oh, if you're going to sleep,” laughed Don, “you’ll get no more of my
wisdom! I'm sleepy myself, so here goes.”
But sleep did not come at once, for there was an interruption. Teddy
arose from the blanket he had chosen as his bed and moved toward the
entrance. The fire was low, now, and the boys could just see his figure
outlined against a mass of red coals. He was growling.
“Come here, you foolish cub!” Alex called to him. “Don’t you go to
starting anything here! We want to go to sleep. Understand, you cub!”
Teddy gave a low whine and moved back into the cave. Then the boys
closed their eyes. But Don was restless and sat up in a few moments.
Alex heard him, but kept his eyes closed. Then Don whispered in the
boy’s ear and pulled at his shoulder.
“Alex!” he whispered. “Look out to the door and tell me if I am seeing
double, will you? There’s Teddy outside again, but he is three times as
large as he was a little while ago. Do you think there’s something in
the atmosphere of this cave that induces growth in bears?”
“Aw, go to sleep!” was Alex’s response to the query.
“But that cub has grown to be about nine feet high!” Don went on. “He is
as big, now, as one of the grizzlies at the Lincoln Park Zoo! Just wake
up and see if you think we can get him on board the boat in the morning!
If he continues to grow, he’ll be too big to get on a man of war by
daylight! Come, wake up! This thing is getting on my nerves!”
Alex opened his eyes and looked, and the bear he saw was about as large
as four Teddies all rolled into one. The great bulk of the animal almost
closed the entrance! Alex sat up with a little cry of alarm.
“That isn’t Teddy,” he gasped. “That is a bear that wants to come to
bed! I’d give a year off my life to be out of here right now!”
“Will he bite?” asked Don, innocently. “Teddy doesn’t bite!”
“Will he bite?” repeated Alex, and retreated to the end of the cave, for
the big bear was entering, snuffing and growling, evidently angry
because there were intruders in his bedchamber! Soon he began nosing at
the blankets where the boys had lain.
The fire outside flared up and they saw Teddy advancing toward the
larger animal. The cub was walking sidewise, turning his head from right
to left, as playful puppies do when not quite certain of the character
of the reception their advances are to meet with.
The big fellow looked critically at the cub. The boys were sure they
could see an interrogation point in each eye! To them, at least, he
seemed to be asking:
“Now, whose baby are you, and what right have you to come into my
bachelor quarters, where babies are never allowed to come?”
Still sniffing the air, bruin rose on his rear feet as if to take the
intruder into a crushing embrace. This was too much for the little cub
who had been taught boxing lessons by three reckless boys.
He shot out of the obscurity of the interior of the cave, ambled up to
the person of the house, and gave him a cracking box on the ear! The big
bear went down under the impact of the blow, not having been prepared
for it, and Teddy stood there ready for another round! There was added
peril in every instant now, but, in spite of all, Alex snickered and Don
broke into a ringing laugh.
“Go it, Teddy!” Alex cried. “Give him another! Hand him one on the bread
basket!”
Just such words, just such advice, just such encouragement, had the cub
often heard while facing one of his instructors! He knew no more now
than to obey. Bruin received another wallop on the ear, but poor Teddy
went down for the count, and the larger animal sprang at him!
It seemed for an instant as if the last days of the cub had come, but
fortune favored him. Bruin hesitated for a moment whether to attack the
cub he had floored or to take a bite out of the boys who had invaded his
home. He chose the latter course and sprang for Don.
Now it began to look as if the boys would never get out of the cave
alive. The bear was between them and the entrance, so they could not run
away from him. Alex felt for his automatic, but remembered that he had
left it on board the _Rambler_.
Don managed to elude the claws of the bear as the rush came, but all the
time he was being crowded into a corner from which there would be no
escape. He, too, reached for his automatic, but did not find it.
He found something quite as useful, however, as the result showed, in
the form of an electric flashlight! As the bear advanced the boy opened
the sliding switch and turned the round eye of light full into his face.
Then he advanced, shouting wildly.
Bruin’s small eyes flinched under the strong flame. He threw up his
nose, sniffed at the intangible thing which cut such a path of fire in
his quarters, and began backing out. Don followed him, still shouting.
The bear stopped for an instant to give Teddy, now rising from the
floor, a box on the ear and backed out of the cave. At that moment Clay
and Case, who had heard the shouting, appeared on the deck of the motor
boat with weapons in their hands.
“Shoot him!” Alex cried out to them. “Shoot the big stiff! He’s injured
Teddy. Give him a couple of bullets!”
Both boys fired and the bear went down. Vital spots had been, in both
cases, reached by the bullets, and the big fellow moved only in
convulsive struggles after he dropped on the smooth rock in front of the
cavern.
“It seems a pity!” Case said, standing over the fallen giant with his
still smoking revolver in his hand. “The poor old chap had just as good
a right to life as any of us. I’m sorry I shot him!”
“I guess you didn’t see him slamming Teddy around, and backing Don up
into a corner!” Alex cried. “Only for the searchlight, there would have
been a dead boy instead of a dead bear—perhaps two dead boys!”
“How is Teddy?” Clay called out.
“He’s getting on his feet again!” Alex replied. Then he broke into a
laugh which echoed through the cave and out into the canyon and pointed
to the cub bear.
“Just look at him now!” he cried. “He’s game! He wants to box the big
fellow some more! Come here, Teddy!”
The cub dropped from his boxing position and approached the boy.
“Got knocked out, didn’t you?” Alex jeered. “Knocked plumb out!”
Teddy rubbed the sides of his face with his paws and snorted.
Alex and Don went back to the boat for the night. They had had quite
enough of the cavern. In the morning, the first thing, the hide was
stripped from the bear, rubbed faithfully with salt, and hung up to
cure.
After breakfast Clay and Don climbed to the lip of the canyon and walked
a long way to the north, the idea being to see if the river above the
falls was suitable for navigation. They returned at noon and reported
that if they could get over the falls they could run up for miles with
little difficulty. There were rapids, but none the _Rambler_ could not
make headway against, they declared.
“And we discovered another thing,” Don exclaimed. “This rock we are on
is an island! The river splits something about a mile above here.”
“Then where does the new channel come into the canyon again?” asked
Case. “Perhaps we can follow up this new channel and so get around the
falls. It is worth looking into, at any rate.”
“It must be down stream,” Clay suggested, “for we did not pass any
junction. Perhaps we’d better drop down and find it.”
They found it half a mile below. The new channel was carrying a swift
current, but the water was deep and there were no falls, so the boys got
up full power and started up. The motor boat had the fight of her life,
but she went up gallantly, sometimes hesitating, but always gaining in
the end, until they came out above the falls.
“A few more like that,” Clay declared, wiping the sweat from his face,
“and we’ll have to take the _Rambler_ to the repair shop. That was a
hard struggle for the old boat.”
From that time the voyage was not so strenuous, still, the going was
rather more difficult than that encountered on the Columbia river trip.
There were times when the boys were obliged to unload the boat and
almost carry her, times when ropes were used to assist her up swift
sweeps of water; but, then, there were wide valleys where Indians tilled
small patches of earth, and where there were green things in view
always. Whenever opportunity offered the boys procured water from
springs in the hills, for the waters of the Colorado are full of the
silt washed down from the mountains.
The Colorado river was born when the Rocky Mountains lifted their peaks
above the continent. From their lofty heights the collected moisture
flowed down on the plains below until a river was formed. From the base
of the mountains to the ocean level there is a fall of a mile, so the
river runs swiftly. The water cuts out the light soil and also heaps it
up. In the canyons the river runs 6,000 feet below the level of the
plateau, and people on the desert above might die with thirst because of
the impossibility of getting down to the water.
The Colorado is forever changing its course and currents. Here mud flats
are forming, there a bank is being washed away. Here a mighty rock
topples into the stream, there the water cuts around a tower, leaving a
pillar three hundred feet high, standing out alone! The river, ages ago,
entered the Gulf of California where Yuma is now; in a few centuries it
will fill up and make a level plain of the entire Gulf. It deposits silt
enough in one year to cover sixty-six square miles of territory with
sediment a foot deep! It is working hard to level the continent, ably
assisted by the Columbia, the Mississippi, the Frazer, the Snake and the
Gila!
The boys will never forget those days and nights on the Colorado. It was
a golden time, and at last the Grand Canyon opened before them!