The Enchanted Canyon

by Honoré Willsie Morrow

  Harden shrugged his shoulders and Forrester scowled a little sheepishly. Agnew, a serene, kindly fellow, began one of his endless Irish stories, and the incident appeared to be closed. The work assigned for the day was accomplished in shorter order than Milton had anticipated. By two o'clock all hands were back in camp and Milton decided to embark and move on as far as possible before nightfall. But scarcely had they finished loading the boats and tied on the tarpaulins when a heavy rain began to fall, accompanied by lightning and tremendous peals of thunder that echoed through the Canyon deafeningly.

  Milton, in his anxiety to get on with his task, would have continued in spite of the rain, but the others protested so vigorously that he gave in and the whole party crawled under a sheltering ledge beside the brook. For an hour the storm raged. A few flakes of snow mingled with the descending rain drops. Then with a superb flash of lightning and crash of thunder the storm passed as suddenly as it had come, though for hours after they heard it reverberate among the distant peaks.

  At last they embarked and proceeded along a smooth, swift-flowing river for a short time. Then, however, the familiar roar of falls was heard, the current increased rapidly in velocity and Milton made a landing for observation.

  They were at the head of the wildest falls that Enoch had yet seen. The Canyon walls were smooth and perpendicular. There was no possibility of a portage. The river was full of rocks against which dashed waves ten to twelve feet high.

  "We'll have to run it!" shouted Milton above the din of the waters. "Powell did it and so can we. Give the Ida five minutes' start, Hard. Then profit by the mistakes you see us make. All ready, Judge and Forr!"

  Under Milton's directions, they rowed back upstream far enough to gain complete control of the boat before entering the falls. Then they shot forward. Instantly the oars became useless. They were carried upward on the crest of a wave that seemed about to drop them down an unbelievable depth to a jagged rock. But at this point, another wave seized them and hurled them sidewise, half rolled them over, then uptilted them until the Ida's nose was deep in the water.

  They bailed like mad but to little avail for the waves broke over the sides constantly. They could see little for the air was full of blinding spray. Suddenly, after what had seemed an eternity but was really five minutes of time, there was a rending crash and the Ida slid into quieter water, turning completely over as she did so.

  Enoch, as the sucking current seized him, was convinced that his hour had come, and a quick relief was his first sensation. Then Diana's wistful eyes flashed before him and he began to fight the Colorado. As his head emerged from the water, he saw the Na-che land on all fours from the top of a wave upon the overturned Ida, then whirl away. He began to swim with all his strength. The mud forever suspended in the Colorado weighed down his clothing. But little by little he drew near the Ida, to which he could see two dark bodies clinging. The Na-che, struggling to cross a whirlpool toward him, made slow progress. He had, indeed, dizzily grasped the Ida, before the other boat came up.

  "We can hang on, Hard!" gasped Milton. "Give us a tow to that sand spit yonder."

  They reached the sand spit and staggered to land, while Harden and his crew turned the Ida over and beached her. She had a six-inch gap in her side.

  "Well," panted Enoch, "I'm glad we managed to keep dry during the rainstorm!"

  "My Lord, Judge!" exclaimed Milton, "your own mother wouldn't own you now! I don't see how one human being could carry so much mud on his face!"

  "I'll bet it's not as bad as yours at that," returned Enoch. "Jonas, as long as it's not the Na-che that's hurt--"

  "Coming, boss, coming!" cried Jonas. "Here's your moccasins and here's your suit. Sure you aren't hurt any?"

  "Jonas," replied Enoch in a low voice that the others might not hear, "Jonas, I'm having the greatest time of my life!"

  "So am I, Mr. Secretary! Honest, I'm so paralyzed afraid that I enjoy it!" And Jonas hurried away to inspect the Ida.

  It was so biting cold, now that the afternoon was late, that all the wrecked crew changed clothing before attempting to make camp or unload the Ida.

  "How many miles have we made by this venture, Milton?" called Enoch, as he pulled on his moccasins.

  "One and a half!"

  Enoch grinned, then he began to laugh. The others looked at him, then joined him, and Homeric laughter echoed for a long minute above the snarl of the water. Fortunately the hole in the Ida did not open into one of the compartments, so there was no damage done to the baggage. It was too dark by the time this had been ascertained to attempt repairs that night, so Milton agreed to call it a day, and after supper was over every one but Enoch and Milton went to bed. These two sat long in silence before the fire, smoking and enjoying the sense of companionship that was developing between them. Finally Enoch spoke in a low voice:

  "You're going to have trouble between Forrester and Harden."

  "It certainly looks like it, I've tried every sort of appeal to each of them, but trouble keeps on smoldering." Milton shook his head. "That's one of the trivial things that can wreck an expedition like this; just incompatibility among the men. What would you do about it, Judge?"

  "I'd put it to them that they could either keep the peace or draw lots to see which of them should leave the expedition at the Ferry. In fact, I don't believe I'd temporize even that much. I'd certainly set one of them ashore. My experience with men leads me to believe that with a certain type of men, there is no appeal. As you say, they're both nice chaps but they have a childish streak in them. The majority of men have. A leader must not be too patient."

  "You're right," agreed Milton. "Judge, couldn't you complete the trip with us?"

  "How long will you be out?" asked Enoch.

  "Another six months!"

  Enoch laughed, then said slowly: "There's nothing I'd like to do better, but I must go home, from the Ferry."

  Milton gazed at Enoch for a time without speaking. Then he said, a little wistfully, "I suppose that while this is the most important experience so far in my life, to you it is the merest episode, that you'll forget the moment you get into the Pullman for the East."

  "Why should you think that?" asked Enoch.

  "I can't quite tell you why. But there's something about you that makes me believe that in your own section of the country, you're a power. Perhaps it's merely your facial expression. I don't know--you look like some one whom I can't recall. Perhaps that some one has the power and I confuse the two of you, but--I beg your pardon, Judge!" as Enoch's eyebrows went up.

  "You have nothing to beg it for, Milton. But you're wrong when you think this trip is merely an episode to me. All my life I have longed for just such an experience in the Canyon. It's like enchantment to really find myself here."

  Milton smiled. "Well, we all have our Carcasonnes."

  "What's yours?" demanded Enoch.

  The younger man hesitated. "It's so absurd--but--well, I've always wanted to be Chief of the Geological Survey."

  "Why?"

  "Why did you dream of a wild trip down the Colorado as the realization of your greatest desire?" asked Milton.

  "I couldn't put it into words," answered Enoch. "But I suppose it's the pioneer in me or something elemental that never quite dies in any of us, of Anglo-Saxon blood."

  Milton nodded. "The Chief of the Geological Survey's job is to administer nature in the raw. I'd like to have a chance at it."

  "I believe you'd get away with it, too, Milton," Enoch replied thoughtfully.

  Milton laughed. "Too bad you aren't Secretary of the Interior! Well, I'm all in! Let's go to bed."

  "You go ahead. I'll sit here with my pipe a bit longer."

  But, after all, Enoch did not write in his diary that night. Before Milton had established himself in his blankets, Harden rose and went to a canteen for a drink of water. On his return he stumbled over Forrester's feet. Instantly Forrester sat erect.

  "What're you doing, you clumsy dub foot?" he shoute
d.

  "Oh, dry up, Forr; I didn't mean to hurt you, you great boob!"

  "We'll settle this right now!" Forrester was on his feet and his fist had landed on Harden's cheek before Enoch could cross the camp. And before he or Milton could separate the combatants, Harden had returned the blow with interest, and with a muttered:

  "Take that, you sore-headed dog, you!"

  Forrester tried to twist away from Enoch, but could not do so. Harden freed himself from Milton's grasp, but did not attempt to go on with the fight.

  "One or the other of you," said Milton briefly, "leaves the expedition at the Ferry. I'll tell you later which it will be. I'm ashamed of both of you."

  "I'd like to know what's made a tin god of you, Jim Milton!" shouted Forrester. "You don't own us, body and soul. I've been in the Survey longer than you! I joined this expedition before you did. And I'll leave it when I get ready!"

  "You'll leave it at the Ferry, Forrester!" Milton's voice was quiet, but his nostrils dilated.

  "And I'm telling you, I'll leave it when I please, which will be at Needles! If any one goes, it'll be that skunk of a Harden."

  Harden laughed, turned on his heel and deliberately rolled himself in his blankets. Forrester stood for a moment, muttering to himself, then he took his blankets off to an obscure corner of the sand. And Enoch forgot his diary and went to bed, to ponder until shortly sleep overtook him, on the perversity of the male animal.

  In the morning Jonas constituted himself ship's carpenter and mended the Ida very creditably. Forrester was surly and avoided every one. Harden was cheerful, as usual, but did not speak to his adversary. The sun was just entering the Canyon when the two boats were launched and once more faced the hazards of the river.

  During the morning the going was easy. The river was swift and led through a long series of broken buttes, between which one caught wild views of a tortured country; twisted strata, strange distorted cedar and cactus, uncanny shapes of rock pinnacles, in colors somber and strange. They stopped at noon in the shadow of a weathered overhanging rock, with the profile of a witch. The atmosphere of dissension had by this time permeated the crew and this meal, usually so jovial, was eaten with no general conversation and all were glad to take to the boats as soon as the dishes were washed.

  The character of the river now changed again. It grew broader and once more smooth canyon walls closed it in. As the river broadened, however, it became more shallow and rocks began to appear above the surface at more and more frequent intervals. At last the Na-che went aground amid-stream on a sharp rock. The Ida turned back to her assistance but Enoch and Milton had to go overboard, along with the crew of the Na-che, in order to drag and lift her into clear water. Then for nearly two hours, all thought of rowing must be given up. Both crews remained in the water, pushing the boats over the rough bottom.

  It was heartbreaking work. For a few moments the boats would float, plunging the men beyond their depths. They would swim and flounder perhaps a boat's length, clinging to the gunwale, before the boat would once more run aground. Again they would drag their clumsy burden a hundred yards over sand that sucked hungrily at their sodden boots. This passed, came many yards of smooth rock a few inches below the surface of the water, which was so muddy that it was impossible to see the pot holes into which some one of the crew plunged constantly.

  Jonas suffered agonies during this period; not for himself, though he took his full share of falls. His agony was for the Na-che, whose freshly painted bottom was abraded, scraped, gorged and otherwise defaced almost beyond Jonas's power of endurance.

  "Look out! Don't drag her! Lift her! Lift her!" he would shout. "Oh, my Lord, see that sharp rock you drag her onto, Mr. Hard! Ain't you got any heart?"

  Once, when all three of the Na-che's crew had taken a bad plunge, and Jonas had come up with an audible crack of his black head against the gunwale, he began to scold while the others were still fighting for breath.

  "You shouldn't ship her full of water like that! All that good paint I put on her insides is gone! Hey, Mr. Agnew, don't drip that blood off your hand on her!"

  "Shut up, Jonas," coughed Agnew good-naturedly.

  "Let him alone, Ag!" exclaimed Harden, between a strangling cough and a sneeze. "What do you want to divulge your cold-heartedness for? Go to it, Jonas! You're some lover, all right!"

  The shallows ended in a rapid which they shot without more than the usual difficulties. They then had an hour of quiet rowing through gorges that grew more narrow and more dusky as they proceeded. About four o'clock snow began to fall. It was a light enough powder, at first, but shortly it thickened until it was impossible to guide the boats. They edged in shore where a ledge overhanging a heap of broken rock offered a meager shelter. Here they planned to spend the night. The shore was too precipitous to beach the boats. Much to Jonas' sorrow, they could only anchor them before the ledge. There was plenty of driftwood, and a brisk fire dispelled some of the discomfort of the snow, while a change to dry clothing did the rest.

  To Enoch it was a strange evening. The foolish quarrel between Harden and Forrester was sufficient to upset the equanimity of the whole group which before had seemed so harmonious. The situation was keenly irritating to Enoch. He wanted nothing to intrude on the wild beauty of the trip, save his own inward struggle. The snow continued to fall long after the others had gone to sleep. Enoch, with his diary on his knees, wrote slowly, pausing long between sentences to watch the snow and to listen to the solemn rush of waters so close to his feet.

  "I've been sitting before the fire, Diana, thinking of our various conversations. How few they have been, after all! And I've concluded that in your heart you must look on me as presumptuous and stupid. You never have given me the slightest indication that you cared for me. You have been, even in the short time we have known each other, a gallant and tender friend. A wonderful friend! And you are as unconscious of my passion for you, of the rending agony of my giving you up as the Canyon is of the travail of Milton and his little group. And I'm glad that this is so. If I can go on through life feeling that you are serene and happy it will help me to keep my secret. Strange that with every natural inclination within me to be otherwise, I should be the custodian of ugly secrets; secrets that are only the uglier because they are my own. It seems a sacrilegious thing to add my beautiful love for you to the sinister collection. But it must be so.

  "I am so glad that I am going to see you so soon after I emerge from the Canyon. There will be much to tell you. I thought I knew men. But I am learning them anew. And I thought I had a fair conception of the wonders of the Colorado. Diana, it is beyond human imagination to conceive or human tongue to describe."

  Enoch had looked forward with eager pleasure to seeing the Canyon snowbound. But he was doomed to disappointment. During the night the snow turned to rain. The rain, in turn, ceased before dawn and the camp woke to winding mists that whirled with the wind up and out of the Canyon top. The going, during the morning, offered no great difficulties. But toward noon, as the boats rounded a curve, a reef presented itself with the water of the river boiling threateningly on either side. As the Canyon walls offered no landing it was necessary to make one here and Forrester volunteered to jump with a rope to a flat rock which projected from the near end of the reef.

  "Leap just before we are opposite the rock, Forr," directed Milton. "When that rough water catches us, we're going to rip through at top speed."

  Forrester nodded and, after shipping his oars, he clambered up onto the forward compartment.

  "Now," shouted Milton.

  Forrester leaped, jumped a little short, and splashed into the boiling river. The Ida, in spite of Enoch madly backing water, shot forward, dragging Forrester, who had not let go the rope, with her. Milton relinquished the steering oar, dropped on his stomach on the compartment deck, his arms over the stern, and began to haul with might and main on the rope. Now and again Forrester, red and fighting for breath, showed a distorted face above the waves. The
Na-che shot by at uncontrollable speed, her crew shouting directions as she passed. Milton at last, just as the Ida entered a roaring fall, brought Forrester to the gunwale, but having achieved this, the end of the rope dropped from his fingers and he lay inert, his eyes closed. Forrester clung to the edge of the boat and roared to Enoch:

  "Milt's fainted!"

  But Enoch, fighting to guide the Ida, dared not stop rowing. The falls were short, with a vicious whirlpool at the foot. One glance showed the Na-che broken and inverted, dancing in this. Enoch bent to his right oar and by a miracle of luck this, with a wave from a pot hole, threw them clear of the sucking whirlpool, but dashed them so violently against the rocky shore that the Ida's stern was stove in and Milton rolled off into the water. Enoch dropped his oars, seized the stern rope, jumped for the rocks and sprawled upon one. He made a quick turn of the rope, then leaped back for Milton, whose head showed a boat's length downstream.

  Forrester staggered ashore, then with a life preserver on the end of a rope, he started along the river's edge. Half a dozen strokes brought Enoch to Milton. He lifted the unconscious man's mouth out of water and caught the life preserver that Forrester threw him. It seemed for a moment as if poor Forrester had reached the limit of his strength, but Enoch, after a violent effort, brought Milton into a quiet eddy and here Forrester was able to give help and Milton was dragged up on the rocks.

  At this moment, Jonas, his eyes rolling, clothes torn and dripping, clambered round a rocky projection, just beyond where they were placing Milton.

  "Got 'em ashore!" he panted, "but they can't walk yet."

  "Anybody hurt?" asked Enoch.

  "Nobody but the Na-che. I gotta take the Ida out after her."

  "She's beyond help, Jonas," said Enoch. "Go up to the Ida and bring me the medicine chest."

  He was unbuttoning Milton's shirt as he spoke, and feeling for his heart.

  "He's alive!" exclaimed Forrester, who was holding Milton's wrist.

  "Yes, thank God! But I don't like that!" pointing to Milton's left leg.