by Zane Grey
XIX. THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO
The night passed, the gloom turned gray, the dawn stole cool and paleinto the canyon. When Nas Ta Bega drove the mustangs into camp thelofty ramparts of the walls were rimmed with gold and the dark arch ofNonnezoshe began to lose its steely gray.
The women had rested well and were in better condition to travel. Janewas cheerful and Fay radiant one moment and in a dream the next. She wasbeginning to live in that wonderful future. They talked more than usualat breakfast, and Lassiter made droll remarks. Shefford, with his greatand haunting trouble ended for ever, with now only danger to face ahead,was a different man, but thoughtful and quiet.
This morning the Indian leisurely made preparations for the start. Forall the concern he showed he might have known every foot of the canyonbelow Nonnezoshe. But, for Shefford, with the dawn had returned anxiety,a restless feeling of the need of hurry. What obstacles, what impassablegorges, might lie between this bridge and the river! The Indian'sinscrutable serenity and Fay's trust, her radiance, the exquisite glowupon her face, sustained Shefford and gave him patience to endure andconceal his dread.
At length the flight was resumed, with Nas Ta Bega leading on foot, andShefford walking in the rear. A quarter of a mile below camp the Indianled down a declivity into the bottom of the narrow gorge, where thestream ran. He did not gaze backward for a last glance at Nonnezoshe;nor did Jane or Lassiter. Fay, however, checked Nack-yal at the rim ofthe descent and turned to look behind. Shefford contrasted her tremuloussmile, her half-happy good-by to this place, with the white stillnessof her face when she had bade farewell to Surprise Valley. Then she rodeNack-yal down into the gorge.
Shefford knew that this would be his last look at the rainbow bridge. Ashe gazed the tip of the great arch lost its cold, dark stone color andbegan to shine. The sun had just arisen high enough over some low breakin the wall to reach the bridge. Shefford watched. Slowly, in wondroustransformation, the gold and blue and rose and pink and purple blendedtheir hues, softly, mistily, cloudily, until once again the arch was arainbow.
Ages before life had evolved upon the earth it had spread its grand archfrom wall to wall, black and mystic at night, transparent and rosy inthe sunrise, at sunset a flaming curve limned against the heavens. Whenthe race of man had passed it would, perhaps, stand there still. It wasnot for many eyes to see. Only by toil, sweat, endurance, blood, couldany man ever look at Nonnezoshe. So it would always be alone, grand,silent, beautiful, unintelligible.
Shefford bade Nonnezoshe a mute, reverent farewell. Then plunging downthe weathered slope of the gorge to the stream below, he hurried forwardto join the others. They had progressed much farther than he imaginedthey would have, and this was owing to the fact that the floor of thegorge afforded easy travel. It was gravel on rock bottom, tortuous, butopen, with infrequent and shallow downward steps. The stream did not nowrush and boil along and tumble over rock-encumbered ledges. In cornersthe water collected in round, green, eddying pools. There were patchesof grass and willows and mounds of moss. Shefford's surprise equaled hisrelief, for he believed that the violent descent of Nonnezoshe Boco hadbeen passed. Any turn now, he imagined, might bring the party out uponthe river. When he caught up with them he imparted this conviction,which was received with cheer. The hopes of all, except the Indian,seemed mounting; and if he ever hoped or despaired it was nevermanifest.
Shefford's anticipation, however, was not soon realized. The fugitivestraveled miles farther down Nonnezoshe Boco, and the only changes werethat the walls of the lower gorge heightened and merged into those aboveand that these upper ones towered ever loftier. Shefford had to throwhis head straight back to look up at the rims, and the narrow strip ofsky was now indeed a flowing stream of blue.
Difficult steps were met, too, yet nothing compared to those of theupper canyon. Shefford calculated that this day's travel had advancedseveral hours; and more than ever now he was anticipating the mouthof Nonnezoshe Boco. Still another hour went by. And then came strikingchanges. The canyon narrowed till the walls were scarcely twenty pacesapart; the color of stone grew dark red above and black down low; thelight of day became shadowed, and the floor was a level, gravelly,winding lane, with the stream meandering slowly and silently.
Suddenly the Indian halted. He turned his ear down the canyon lane. Hehad heard something. The others grouped round him, but did not hear asound except the soft flow of water and the heave of the mustangs. Thenthe Indian went on. Presently he halted again. And again he listened.This time he threw up his head and upon his dark face shone a lightwhich might have been pride.
"Tse ko-n-tsa-igi," he said.
The others could not understand, but they were impressed.
"Shore he means somethin' big," drawled Lassiter.
"Oh, what did he say?" queried Fay in eagerness.
"Nas Ta Bega, tell us," said Shefford. "We are full of hope."
"Grand Canyon," replied the Indian.
"How do you know?" asked Shefford.
"I hear the roar of the river."
But Shefford, listen as he might, could not hear it. They traveled on,winding down the wonderful lane. Every once in a while Shefford laggedbehind, let the others pass out of hearing, and then he listened. Atlast he was rewarded. Low and deep, dull and strange, with some qualityto incite dread, came a roar. Thereafter, at intervals, usually at turnsin the canyon, and when a faint stir of warm air fanned his cheeks, heheard the sound, growing clearer and louder.
He rounded an abrupt corner to have the roar suddenly fill his ears, tosee the lane extend straight to a ragged vent, and beyond that, at somedistance, a dark, ragged, bulging wall, like iron. As he hurried forwardhe was surprised to find that the noise did not increase. Here it kepta strange uniformity of tone and volume. The others of the party passedout of the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco in advance of Shefford, and whenhe reached it they were grouped upon a bank of sand. A dark-red canyonyawned before them, and through it slid the strangest river Shefford hadever seen. At first glance he imagined the strangeness consisted of thedark-red color of the water, but at the second he was not so sure. Allthe others, except Nas Ta Bega, eyed the river blankly, as if they didnot know what to think. The roar came from round a huge bulging walldownstream. Up the canyon, half a mile, at another turn, there was aleaping rapid of dirty red-white waves and the sound of this, probably,was drowned in the unseen but nearer rapid.
"This is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado," said Shefford. "We've comeout at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco.... And now to wait for Joe Lake!"
They made camp on a dry, level sand-bar under a shelving wall. Nas TaBega collected a pile of driftwood to be used for fire, and then he tookthe mustangs back up the side canyon to find grass for them. Lassiterappeared unusually quiet, and soon passed from weary rest on the sandto deep slumber. Fay and Jane succumbed to an exhaustion that manifesteditself the moment relaxation set in, and they, too, fell asleep.Shefford patrolled the long strip of sand under the wall, and watchedup the river for Joe Lake. The Indian returned and went along the river,climbed over the jutting, sharp slopes that reached into the water, andpassed out of sight up-stream toward the rapid.
Shefford had a sense that the river and the canyon were too magnificentto be compared with others. Still, all his emotions and sensations hadbeen so wrought upon, he seemed not to have any left by which he mightjudge of what constituted the difference. He would wait. He had a grimconviction that before he was safely out of this earth-riven crackhe would know. One thing, however, struck him, and it was that up thecanyon, high over the lower walls, hazy and blue, stood other walls,and beyond and above them, dim in purple distance, upreared still otherwalls. The haze and the blue and the purple meant great distance, and,likewise, the height seemed incomparable.
The red river attracted him most. Since this was the medium by which hemust escape with his party, it was natural that it absorbed him, tothe neglect of the gigantic cliffs. And the more he watched theriver, studied it, listened
to it, imagined its nature, its power, itsrestlessness, the more he dreaded it. As the hours of the afternoonwore away, and he strolled along and rested on the banks, his firstimpressions, and what he realized might be his truest ones, weregradually lost. He could not bring them back. The river was changing,deceitful. It worked upon his mind. The low, hollow roar filled his earsand seemed to mock him. Then he endeavored to stop thinking about it,to confine his attention to the gap up-stream where sooner or laterhe prayed that Joe Lake and his boat would appear. But, though hecontrolled his gaze, he could not his thought, and his strange,impondering dread of the river augmented.
The afternoon waned. Nas Ta Bega came back to camp and said anylikelihood of Joe's arrival was past for that day. Shefford could notget over an impression of strangeness--of the impossibility of thereality presented to his naked eyes. These lonely fugitives in thehuge-walled canyon waiting for a boatman to come down that river!Strange and wild--those were the words which, inadequately at best,suited this country and the situations it produced.
After supper he and Fay walked along the bars of smooth, red sand. Therewere a few moments when the distant peaks and domes and turrets wereglorified in changing sunset hues. But the beauty was fleeting. Faystill showed lassitude. She was quiet, yet cheerful, and the sweetnessof her smile, her absolute trust in him, stirred and strengthened anewhis spirit. Yet he suffered torture when he thought of trusting Fay'slife, her soul, and her beauty to this strange red river.
Night brought him relief. He could not see the river; only the low roarmade its presence known out there in the shadows. And, there being noneed to stay awake, he dropped at once into heavy slumber. He wasroused by hands dragging at him. Nas Ta Bega bent over him. It wasbroad daylight. The yellow wall high above was glistening. A firewas crackling and pleasant odors were wafted to him. Fay and Jane andLassiter sat around the tarpaulin at breakfast. After the meal suspenseand strain were manifested in all the fugitives, even the imperturbableIndian being more than usually watchful. His eyes scarcely ever leftthe black gap where the river slid round the turn above. Soon, as on thepreceding day, he disappeared up the ragged, iron-bound shore. There wasscarcely an attempt at conversation. A controlling thought bound thatgroup into silence--if Joe Lake was ever going to come he would cometo-day.
Shefford asked himself a hundred times if it were possible, and hisanswer seemed to be in the low, sullen, muffled roar of the river. Andas the morning wore on toward noon his dread deepened until all chanceappeared hopeless. Already he had begun to have vague and unformedand disquieting ideas of the only avenue of escape left--to return upNonnezoshe Boco--and that would be to enter a trap.
Suddenly a piercing cry pealed down the canyon. It was followed byechoes, weird and strange, that clapped from wall to wall in mockingconcatenation. Nas Ta Bega appeared high on the ragged slope. The cryhad been the Indian's. He swept an arm out, pointing up-stream, andstood like a statue on the iron rocks.
Shefford's keen gaze sighted a moving something in the bend of theriver. It was long, low, dark, and flat, with a lighter object uprightin the middle. A boat and a man!
"Joe! It's Joe!" yelled Shefford, madly. "There!... Look!"
Jane and Fay were on their knees in the sand, clasping each other, palefaces toward that bend in the river.
Shefford ran up the shore toward the Indian. He climbed the juttingslant of rock. The boat was now full in the turn--it moved faster--itwas nearing the smooth incline above the rapid. There! it glideddown--heaved darkly up--settled back--and disappeared in the frothy,muddy roughness of water. Shefford held his breath and watched. A dark,bobbing object showed, vanished, showed again to enlarge--to take theshape of a big flatboat--and then it rode the swift, choppy current outof the lower end of the rapid.
Nas Ta Bega began to make violent motions, and Shefford, taking his cue,frantically waved his red scarf. There was a five-mile-an-hour currentright before them, and Joe must needs see them so that he might sheerthe huge and clumsy craft into the shore before it drifted too far down.
Presently Joe did see them. He appeared to be half-naked; he raisedaloft both arms, and bellowed down the canyon. The echoes boomed fromwall to wall, every one stronger with the deep, hoarse triumph in theMormon's voice, till they passed on, growing weaker, to die away in theroar of the river below. Then Joe bent to a long oar that appeared tobe fastened to the stern of the boat, and the craft drifted out of theswifter current toward the shore. It reached a point opposite to whereShefford and the Indian waited, and, though Joe made prodigious efforts,it slid on. Still, it also drifted shoreward, and half-way down to themouth of Nonnezoshe Boco Joe threw the end of a rope to the Indian.
"Ho! Ho!" yelled the Mormon, again setting into motion the fiendishechoes. He was naked to the waist; he had lost flesh; he was haggard,worn, dirty, wet. While he pulled on a shirt Nas Ta Bega made the ropefast to a snag of a log of driftwood embedded in the sand, and the boatswung to shore. It was perhaps thirty feet long by half as many wide,crudely built of rough-hewn boards. The steering-gear was a long polewith a plank nailed to the end. The craft was empty save for anotherpole and plank, Joe's coat, and a broken-handled shovel. There werewater and sand on the flooring. Joe stepped ashore and he was grippedfirst by Shefford and then by the Indian. He was an unkempt and gauntgiant, yet how steadfast and reliable, how grimly strong to inspirehope!
"Reckon most of me's here," he said in reply to greetings. "I've hadwater aplenty. My God! I've had WATER!" He rolled out a grim laugh. "Butno grub for three days.... Forgot to fetch some!"
How practical he was! He told Fay she looked good for sore eyes, buthe needed a biscuit most of all. There was just a second of singularhesitation when he faced Lassiter, and then the big, strong hand of theyoung Mormon went out to meet the old gunman's. While they fed him andhe ate like a starved man Shefford told of the flight from the village,the rescuing of Jane and Lassiter from Surprise Valley, the descent fromthe plateau, the catastrophe to Shadd's gang--and, concluding, Shefford,without any explanation, told that Nas Ta Bega had killed the MormonWaggoner.
"Reckon I had that figured," replied Joe. "First off. I didn't thinkso.... So Shadd went over the cliff. That's good riddance. It beats me,though. Never knew that Piute's like with a horse. And he had some grandhorses in his outfit. Pity about them."
Later when Joe had a moment alone with Shefford he explained that duringhis ride to Kayenta he had realized Fay's innocence and who had beenresponsible for the tragedy. He took Withers, the trader, into hisconfidence, and they planned a story, which Withers was to carry toStonebridge, that would exculpate Fay and Shefford of anything moreserious than flight. If Shefford got Fay safely out of the country atonce that would end the matter for all concerned.
"Reckon I'm some ferry-boatman, too--a FAIRY boatman. Haw! Haw!" headded. "And we're going through.... Now I want you to help me rig thistarpaulin up over the bow of the boat. If we can fix it up strong it'llkeep the waves from curling over. They filled her four times for me."
They folded the tarpaulin three times, and with stout pieces of splitplank and horseshoe nails from Shefford's saddle-bags and pieces of ropethey rigged up a screen around bow and front corners.
Nas Ta Bega put the saddles in the boat. The mustangs were far upNonnezoshe Boco and would work their way back to green and luxuriantcanyons. The Indian said they would soon become wild and would neverbe found. Shefford regretted Nack-yal, but was glad the faithful littlemustang would be free in one of those beautiful canyons.
"Reckon we'd better be off," called Joe. "All aboard!" He placed Fayand Jane in a corner of the bow, where they would be spared sight of therapids. Shefford loosed the rope and sprang aboard. "Pard," said Joe,"it's one hell of a river! And now with the snow melting up in themountains it's twenty feet above normal and rising fast. But that's wellfor us. It covers the stones in the rapids. If it hadn't been in floodJoe would be an angel now!"
The boat cleared the sand, lazily wheeled in the eddying water, andsuddenly seemed
caught by some powerful gliding force. When it sweptout beyond the jutting wall Shefford saw a quarter of a mile of slidingwater that appeared to end abruptly. Beyond lengthened out the giganticgap between the black and frowning cliffs.
"Wow!" ejaculated Joe. "Drops out of sight there. But that oneain't much. I can tell by the roar. When you see my hair stand upstraight--then watch out!... Lassiter, you look after the women.Shefford, you stand ready to bail out with the shovel, for we'll sureship water. Nas Ta Bega, you help here with the oar."
The roar became a heavy, continuous rumble; the current quickened;little streaks and ridges seemed to race along the boat; strangegurglings rose from under the bow. Shefford stood on tiptoe to see thebreak in the river below. Swiftly it came into sight--a wonderful, long,smooth, red slant of water, a swelling mound, a huge back-curling wave,another and another, a sea of frothy, uplifting crests, leaping andtumbling and diminishing down to the narrowing apex of the rapid. It wasa frightful sight, yet it thrilled Shefford. Joe worked the steering-oarback and forth and headed the boat straight for the middle of theincline. The boat reached the round rim, gracefully dipped with a heavysop, and went shooting down. The wind blew wet in Shefford's face. Hestood erect, thrilling, fascinated, frightened. Then he seemed to feelhimself lifted; the curling wave leaped at the boat; there was a shockthat laid him flat; and when he rose to his knees all about him was roarand spray and leaping, muddy waves. Shock after shock jarred the boat.Splashes of water stung his face. And then the jar and the motion, theconfusion and roar, gradually lessened until presently Shefford rose tosee smooth water ahead and the long, trembling rapid behind.
"Get busy, bailer," yelled Joe. "Pretty soon you'll be glad you have tobail--so you can't see!"
There were several inches of water in the bottom of the boat andShefford learned for the first time the expediency of a shovel in theart of bailing.
"That tarpaulin worked powerful good," went on Joe. "And it saves thewomen. Now if it just don't bust on a big wave! That one back there waslittle."
When Shefford had scooped out all the water he went forward to see howFay and Jane and Lassiter had fared. The women were pale, but composed.They had covered their heads.
"But the dreadful roar!" exclaimed Fay.
Lassiter looked shaken for once.
"Shore I'd rather taken a chance meetin' them Mormons on the way out,"he said.
Shefford spoke with an encouraging assurance which he did not himselffeel. Almost at the moment he marked a silence that had fallen into thecanyon; then it broke to a low, dull, strange roar.
"Aha! Hear that?" The Mormon shook his shaggy head. "Reckon we're inCataract Canyon. We'll be standing on end from now on. Hang on to her,boys!"
Danger of this unusual kind had brought out a peculiar levity in thesomber Mormon--a kind of wild, gay excitement. His eyes rolled as hewatched the river ahead and he puffed out his cheek with his tongue.
The rugged, overhanging walls of the canyon grew sinister in Shefford'ssight. They were jaws. And the river--that made him shudder to look downinto it. The little whirling pits were eyes peering into his, and theyraced on with the boat, disappeared, and came again, always with thelittle, hollow gurgles.
The craft drifted swiftly and the roar increased. Another rapid seemedto move up into view. It came at a bend in the canyon. When the breezestruck Shefford's cheeks he did not this time experience exhilaration.The current accelerated its sliding motion and bore the flatboatstraight for the middle of the curve. Shefford saw the bend, a long,dark, narrow, gloomy canyon, and a stretch of contending waters,then, crouching low, he waited for the dip, the race, the shock.They came--the last stopping the boat--throwing it aloft--lettingit drop--and crests of angry waves curled over the side. Shefford,kneeling, felt the water slap around him, and in his ears was adeafening roar. There were endless moments of strife and hell and flyingdarkness of spray all about him, and under him the rocking boat. Whenthey lessened--ceased in violence--he stood ankle-deep in water, andthen madly he began to bail.
Another roar deadened his ears, but he did not look up from his toil.And when he had to get down to avoid the pitch he closed his eyes. Thatrapid passed and with more water to bail, he resumed his share in themanning of the crude craft. It was more than a share--a tremendousresponsibility to which he bent with all his might. He heard Joeyell--and again--and again. He heard the increasing roars one afteranother till they seemed one continuous bellow. He felt the shock, thepitch, the beating waves, and then the lessening power of sound andcurrent. That set him to his task. Always in these long intervals oftoil he seemed to see, without looking up, the growing proportionsof the canyon. And the river had become a living, terrible thing. Theintervals of his tireless effort when he scooped the water overboardwere fleeting, and the rides through rapid after rapid were endlessperiods of waiting terror. His spirit and his hope were overwhelmed bythe rush and roar and fury.
Then, as he worked, there came a change--a rest to deafened ears--astretch of river that seemed quiet after chaos--and here for the firsttime he bailed the boat clear of water.
Jane and Fay were huddled in a corner, with the flapping tarpaulin nowhalf fallen over them. They were wet and muddy. Lassiter crouched likea man dazed by a bad dream, and his white hair hung, stained andbedraggled, over his face. The Indian and the Mormon, grim, hard, worn,stood silent at the oar.
The afternoon was far advanced and the sun had already descended belowthe western ramparts. A cool breeze blew up the canyon, laden with asound that was the same, yet not the same, as those low, dull roarswhich Shefford dreaded more and more.
Joe Lake turned his ear to the breeze. A stronger puff brought a heavy,quivering rumble. This time he did not vent his gay and wild defiance tothe river. He bent lower--listened. Then as the rumble became a strange,deep, reverberating roll, as if the monstrous river were rolling hugestones down a subterranean canyon, Shefford saw with dilating eyes thatthe Mormon's hair was rising stiff upon his head.
"Hear that!" said Joe, turning an ashen face to Shefford. "We'lldrop off the earth now. Hang on to the girl, so if we go you can gotogether.... And, pard, if you've a God--pray!"
Nas Ta Bega faced the bend from whence that rumble came, and he was thesame dark, inscrutable, impassive Indian as of old. What was death tohim?
Shefford felt the strong, rushing love of life surge in him, and it wasnot for himself he thought, but for Fay and the happiness she merited.He went to her, patted the covered head, and tried with words choking inhis throat to give hope. And he leaned with hands gripping the gunwale,with eyes wide open, ready for the unknown.
The river made a quick turn and from round the bend rumbled a terribleuproar. The current racing that way was divided or uncertain, and itgave strange motion to the boat. Joe and Nas Ta Bega shoved desperatelyupon the oar, all to no purpose. The currents had their will. The bow ofthe boat took the place of the stern. Then swift at the head of a curvedincline it shot beyond the bulging wall.
And Shefford saw an awful place before them. The canyon had narrowed tohalf its width, and turned almost at right angles. The huge clamor ofappalling sound came from under the cliff where the swollen river had topass and where there was not space. The rapid rushed in gigantic swellsright upon the wall, boomed against it, climbed and spread and fellaway, to recede and gather new impetus, to leap madly on down thecanyon.
Shefford went to his knees, clasped Fay, and Jane, too. But facing thisappalling thing he had to look. Courage and despair came to him at thelast. This must be the end. With long, buoyant swing the boat saileddown, shot over the first waves, was caught and lifted upon the greatswell and impelled straight toward the cliff. Huge whirlpools racedalongside, and from them came a horrible, engulfing roar. Monstrousbulges rose on the other side. All the stupendous power of that mightyriver of downward-rushing silt swung the boat aloft, up and up, as theswell climbed the wall. Shefford, with transfixed eyes and harrowedsoul, watched the wet black wall. It loomed down upon him. The stern oft
he boat went high. Then when the crash that meant doom seemed imminentthe swell spread and fell back from the wall and the boat never struckat all. By some miraculous chance it had been favored by a strangeand momentary receding of the huge spent swell. Then it slid back, wascaught and whirled by the current into a red, frothy, up-flung rapidsbelow. Shefford bowed his head over Fay and saw no more, nor felt norheard. What seemed a long time after that the broken voice of the Mormonrecalled him to his labors.
The boat was half full of water. Nas Ta Bega scooped out great sheetsof it with his hands. Shefford sprang to aid him, found the shovel, andplunged into the task. Slowly but surely they emptied the boat. And thenShefford saw that twilight had fallen. Joe was working the craft towarda narrow bank of sand, to which, presently, they came, and the Indiansprang out to moor to a rock.
The fugitives went ashore and, weary and silent and drenched, theydropped in the warm sand.
But Shefford could not sleep. The river kept him awake. In the distanceit rumbled, low, deep, reverberating, and near at hand it was a thing ofmutable mood. It moaned, whined, mocked, and laughed. It had the soul ofa devil. It was a river that had cut its way to the bowels of the earth,and its nature was destructive. It harbored no life. Fighting its waythrough those dead walls, cutting and tearing and wearing, its heavyburden of silt was death, destruction, and decay. A silent river, amurmuring, strange, fierce, terrible, thundering river of the desert!Even in the dark it seemed to wear the hue of blood.
All night long Shefford heard it, and toward the dark hours before dawn,when a restless, broken sleep came to him, his dreams were dreams of ariver of sounds.
All the beautiful sounds he knew and loved he heard--the sigh of thewind in the pines, the mourn of the wolf, the cry of the laughing-gull,the murmur of running brooks, the song of a child, the whisper of awoman. And there were the boom of the surf, the roar of the north windin the forest, the roll of thunder. And there were the sounds not ofearth--a river of the universe rolling the planets, engulfing the stars,pouring the sea of blue into infinite space.
Night with its fitful dreams passed. Dawn lifted the ebony gloom outof the canyon and sunlight far up on the ramparts renewed Shefford'sspirit. He rose and awoke the others. Fay's wistful smile still held itsfaith. They ate of the gritty, water-soaked food. Then they embarked.The current carried them swiftly down and out of hearing of the lastrapid. The character of the river and the canyon changed. The currentlessened to a slow, smooth, silent, eddying flow. The walls grewstraight, sheer, gloomy, and vast. Shefford noted these features, buthe was listening so hard for the roar of the next rapid that he scarcelyappreciated them. All the fugitives were listening. Every bend in thecanyon--and now the turns were numerous--might hold a rapid. Sheffordstrained his ears. He imagined the low, dull, strange rumble. He had itin his ears, yet there was the growing sensation of silence.
"Shore this 's a dead place," muttered Lassiter.
"She's only slowed up for a bigger plunge," replied Joe. "Listen! Hearthat?"
But there was no true sound, Joe only imagined what he expected andhated and dreaded to hear.
Mile after mile they drifted through the silent gloom between thosevast and magnificent walls. After the speed, the turmoil, the whirling,shrieking, thundering, the never-ceasing sound and change and motionof the rapids above, this slow, quiet drifting, this utter, absolutesilence, these eddying stretches of still water below, worked strangelyupon Shefford's mind and he feared he was going mad.
There was no change to the silence, no help for the slow drift, nolessening of the strain. And the hours of the day passed as moments,the sun crossed the blue gap above, the golden lights hung on the upperwalls, the gloom returned, and still there was only the dead, vast,insupportable silence.
There came bends where the current quickened, ripples widened, longlanes of little waves roughened the surface, but they made no sound.
And then the fugitives turned through a V-shaped vent in the canyon.The ponderous walls sheered away from the river. There was space andsunshine, and far beyond this league-wide open rose vermilion-coloredcliffs. A mile below the river disappeared in a dark, boxlike passagefrom which came a rumble that made Shefford's flesh creep.
The Mormon flung high his arms and let out the stentorian yell that hadrolled down to the fugitives as they waited at the mouth of NonnezosheBoco. But now it had a wilder, more exultant note. Strange how heshifted his gaze to Fay Larkin!
"Girl! Get up and look!" he called. "The Ferry! The Ferry!"
Then he bent his brawny back over the steering-oar, and the clumsy craftslowly turned toward the left-hand shore, where a long, low bank ofgreen willows and cottonwoods gave welcome relief to the eyes. Upon theopposite side of the river Shefford saw a boat, similar to the one hewas in, moored to the bank.
"Shore, if I ain't losin' my eyes, I seen an Injun with a red blanket,"said Lassiter.
"Yes, Lassiter," cried Shefford. "Look, Fay! Look, Jane! See!Indians--hogans--mustangs--there above the green bank!"
The boat glided slowly shoreward. And the deep, hungry, terrible rumbleof the remorseless river became something no more to dread.
