The Enchanted Canyon

by Honoré Willsie Morrow

  "It's broken!" cried Forrester. "Poor old Milt!"

  Poor old Milt, indeed! When he finally opened his eyes, he was lying on his blankets on a flat rock, and Jonas and Harden, still dripping, were finishing the fastenings of a rude splint around his left leg. Enoch was kindling a fire. Forrester and Agnew were unloading the Ida. He tried to sit up.

  "What the deuce happened?" he demanded.

  "That's what we want to know!" exclaimed Harden cheerfully.

  "You had a dizzy attack after you pulled Forr in," said Enoch, "and rolled off the boat. Just how you broke your leg, we don't know."

  "Broke my leg!" Dismay and disbelief struggled in Milton's face. "Broke my leg! Why, but I can't break my leg!"

  "That's good news," said Agnew unsmilingly, "and it would be important if it were only true."

  "But I can't!" insisted Milton. "What becomes of the work?"

  "The work stops till you get well." Harden stood up to survey his and Jonas's surgical job with considerable satisfaction. "We'll hurry on down to the Ferry and get you to a doctor."

  Milton sank back with a groan, then hoisted himself to his elbow to say:

  "You fellows change your clothes quick, now."

  The men looked at each other, half guilty.

  "What is it!" cried Milton. "What are you keeping from me."

  "The Na-che's gone!" Jonas spoke huskily.

  "How'd she go?" demanded Milton.

  "A sucking whirlpool up there took her, after we struck a rock at the bottom of the falls," answered Harden. "We struck at such speed that it stove in her bottom and threw us clear of the whirlpool. But she's gone and everything in her."

  "How about the Ida?" Milton's face was white and his lips were compressed.

  "She'll do, with some patching," replied Enoch.

  "Some leader, I am, eh?" Milton lay back on his blanket.

  "I think I've heard of a number of other leaders losing boats on this trip," said Enoch. "Now, you fellows can dry off piecemeal. This fire would dry anything. We've got to shift Milton's clothes somehow. Lucky for you your clothes were in the Ida, Milt. Mine were in the Na-che."

  "And two thirds of the grub in the Na-che, too!" exclaimed Agnew.

  Jonas had rooted out Milton's change of clothing and very tenderly, if awkwardly, Agnew and Harden helping, he was made dry and propped up where he could direct proceedings.

  "Forrester, I wish you'd bring the whole grub supply here," Milton said, when his nurses had finished.

  It was a pitifully small collection that was placed on the edge of the blanket.

  "I wonder how many times," said Milton, "I've told you chaps to load the grub half and half between the boats? Somebody blundered. I'm not going to ask who because I'm the chief blunderer myself, for neglecting to check you over, at every loading. With care, we've about two days' very scanty rations here, and only beans and coffee, at that. With the best of luck and no stops for Survey work we're five days from the Ferry."

  "Guess I'd better get busy with my fishing tackle!" exclaimed Forrester.

  "Ain't any fishing tackle," said Jonas succinctly. "She must 'a' washed out of the hole in the Ida. I was just looking for it myself."

  "Suppose you put us on half rations," suggested Enoch, "and one of us will try to get to the top, with the gun."

  Milton nodded. "Judge, are you any good with a gun?"

  "Yes, I've hunted a good deal," replied Enoch.

  "Very well, we'll make you the camp hunter. The rest understand the river work better than you. Forrester, you and Agnew and Jonas, patch up the Ida; and Harden, you stay with me and let's see what the maps say about the chances of our getting out before we reach the Ferry. When the rest have finished the patch, you and Agnew row downstream and see if you can pick up any wreckage from the Na-che."

  Jonas made some coffee and Enoch, after resting for a half hour, took the gun and started slowly along the river's edge.

  His course was necessarily downstream for, above the heap of stones where he had tied the Ida, the river washed against a wall on which a fly could scarcely have found foothold. There was a depression in the wall, where the camp was set. Enoch worked out of this depression and found a foothold on the bottom-most of the deep weathered, narrow strata that here formed a fifty-foot terrace. These terraced strata gave back for half a mile in uneven and brittle striations that were not unlike rude steps. Above them rose a sheer orange wall, straight to the sky. Far below a great shale bank sloped from the river's edge up to a gigantic black butte, whose terraced front seemed to Enoch to offer some hope of his reaching the top.

  He slung the gun across his back and began gingerly to clamber along the stratified terrace. He found the rock extremely brittle and he was a long hour reaching the green shale. He was panting and weary and his hands were bleeding when he finally flung himself down to rest at the foot of the black butte.

  A near view of this massive structure was not encouraging; terraces, turrets, fortifications, castles and above Enoch's head a deep cavern, out of which the wind rushed with a mighty blast of sound that drowned the sullen roar of the falls. Beyond a glance in at the black void, Enoch did not attempt to investigate the cave. He crept past the opening on a narrow shelf of rock, into a crevice up which he climbed to the top of the terrace above the cavern. Here a stratum of dull purple projected horizontally from the black face of the butte. With his face inward, his breast hard pressed against the rock, hands and feet feeling carefully for each shift forward, Enoch passed on this slowly around the sharp western edge of the butte.

  Here he nearly lost his balance, for there was a rush of wings close to the back of his head. He started, then looked up carefully. Far above him an eagle's nest clung to the lonely rock. The purple stratum continued its way to a depression wide enough to give Enoch sitting room. Here he rested for a short moment. The back of the depression offered an easy assent for two or three hundred feet, to the top of another terrace along whose broad top Enoch walked comfortably for a quarter of a mile to the point where the butte projected from the main canyon wall. The slope here was not too steep to climb and Enoch made fair speed to the top.

  The view here was superb but Enoch gave small heed to this. To his deep disappointment, there was no sign of life, either animal or vegetable, as far as his eye could reach. He stood, gun in hand, the wind tossing his ruddy hair, his great shoulders drooping with weariness, his keen eyes sweeping the landscape until he became conscious that the sun was low in the west. With a start, he realized that dusk must already be peering into the bottom of the Canyon.

  Then he bethought himself of the eagle's nest. It was a terrible climb, before he lay on a ledge peering ever into the guano-stained structure of sticks from which the eagle soared again at his approach. As he looked, he laughed. The forequarters of a mountain goat lay in the nest. Hanging perilously by one hand, Enoch grasped the long, bloody hair and then, rolling back on to the ledge, he stuffed his loot into his game bag and started campward.

  The way back was swifter but more nerve wracking than the upward climb had been. By the time he reached the green shale, Enoch was trembling from muscle and nerve strain. It was purple dusk now, by the river, with the castellated tops of butte and mountain molten gold in the evening sun. When he reached the brittle strata, the water reflected firelight from the still unseen camp blaze. Enoch, clinging perilously to the breaking rock, half faint with hunger, his fingers numb with the cold, laughed again, to himself, and said aloud:

  "'. . . . . . . . . . . . . And yet Dauntless the slug horn to my lips I set And blew, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.'"

  CHAPTER XII

  THE END OF THE CRUISE

  "Christ could forgive the unforgivable, but the Colorado in the Canyon is like the voice of God, inevitable, inexorable."--_Enoch's Diary_.

  Jonas stood on a projecting rock peering anxiously down the river. Enoch, staggering wearily into the firelight, called to him cheerfully:

  "Ship ahoy, Jon
as!"

  "My Gawd, boss!" exclaimed Jonas, running up to take the gunny sack and the gun. "Don't you never go off like that alone again. How come you stayed so late?"

  "Now the Na-che's gone I suppose I'll have a few attentions again!" said Enoch. "How are you, Milton?"

  He turned toward the stalwart figure that lay on the shadowy rock beyond the fire.

  "Better than I deserve, Judge," replied Milton.

  "What luck, Judge?" cried Harden, who had been watching a game of poker between Agnew and Forrester.

  "My Lawdy Lawd!" shouted Jonas, emptying the gunny sack on the rock which served as table.

  There was a chorus of surprise.

  "What happened, Judge! Did you eat the rest raw?"

  "A goat, by Jove! Where on earth did it come from?"

  "What difference does that make? Get it into the pot, Jonas, for the love of heaven!"

  "As a family provider, Judge, you are to be highly recommended."

  Enoch squatted against Milton's rock and complacently lighted his pipe, then told his story.

  "There are goats still here, then! I wish we'd see some," said Milton, when Enoch had finished.

  "But what would they live on?" asked Enoch.

  "That's easy," replied Milton. "There are hidden canyons and gulches in this Colorado country that are veritable little paradises, with all the verdure any one could ask for."

  "Wish we could locate one," sighed Forrester.

  "That wouldn't help me much," grunted Milton.

  "What luck with the Ida?" Enoch turned to Agnew who, next to Jonas, took the greatest interest in ship repair and building.

  "The forward compartment was pretty well smashed, but another hour's work in the morning will make the old girl as good as ever."

  "She'll never be the boat the Na-che was," groaned Jonas mournfully from his fire. "What are we all going to do now, with just one boat?"

  For a moment no one spoke, then Enoch said drily, "Well, Jonas, seeing that you and I don't really belong to the expedition anyhow and that we invited ourselves, I think it's up to us to walk."

  There was a chorus of protests at this. But Enoch silenced the others by saying with great earnestness:

  "Milton, you know I'm right, don't you?"

  Milton, who had been saying nothing, now raised himself on his elbow.

  "Two of you fellows will have to walk it; which two we'd better decide by lot. We're up against a rotten situation. It would be bad, even if I weren't hurt. But with a cripple on your hands, well--it's awful for you chaps! Simply awful!"

  "With good luck, and no Survey work, how many days are we from the Ferry?" asked Enoch.

  "Between four and five, is what Milton and I calculated this afternoon," replied Harden.

  "What's the nearest help by way of land?"

  "There's a ranch, about eighty miles south of here. I guess the traveling would be about as bad as anybody would hope for. The fellows that go out have got to be used to desert work, like me." Harden scratched a match and by its unsteady light scrutinized the detail map spread open on his knee.

  "Isn't Miss Allen working nearer than eighty miles from here?" asked Agnew.

  "She's in the Hopi country, whatever distance that may be," replied Enoch. "I should suppose it would be rather risky trying to catch some one who is moving about, as she is."

  "I guess maybe she's on her way to the Ferry now." Jonas straightened up from his stew pot. "Leastways, Na-che kind of promised to kind of see if maybe they couldn't reach there about the time we did."

  The other men laughed. "I guess we won't gamble too heavily on the women folks," exclaimed Forrester.

  "I guess Miss Allen's the kind you don't connect gambling with," retorted Agnew.

  Enoch cut in hastily. "Then two of us are to go out. What about those who stay?"

  "Well, you have to get my helpless carcass aboard the Ida and we'll make our way to the Ferry, as rapidly as we can. The food problem is serious, but we won't starve in four days. We won't attempt any more hunting expeditions but we may pot something as we go along. It's the fellows who go out who'll have the worst of it."

  Enoch had been eying Milton closely. "Look here, Milton, I believe you're running a good deal of temperature. Why don't you lie down and rest both mind and body until supper's ready? After you've eaten, we'll make the final decisions."

  "I don't want any food," replied Milton, dropping back on his blankets, nevertheless.

  "The beans is done but you only get a handful of them in the stew, to-night," said Jonas, firmly. "I'm cooking all the meat, 'cause it won't keep, but you only get half of that now."

  Agnew groaned. "Well, there doesn't seem much to look forward to. Let's finish that game of poker, Forr. Take a hand, Judge and Hard?"

  "No, thanks," replied Enoch. "I'll just rest my old bones right here."

  "I'll help you out, if Forr won't pick on me." Harden glanced at Milton, but the freckled face gave no sign that Harden's remark had been heeded.

  Enoch quietly took the injured man's pulse. It was rapid and weak. Enoch shook his head, laid the sturdy hand down and gave his attention to his pipe and the card game. It was not long before an altercation between Forrester and Harden began. Several times Agnew interfered but finally Forrester sprang to his feet with an oath.

  "No man on earth can call me that!" shouted Harden, "Take it back and apologize, you rotter!"

  "A rotter, am I?" sneered Forrester. "And what are you? You come of a family of rotters. I know your sister's history! I know--"

  Enoch laid a hand on Agnew's arm. "Don't interfere! Nothing but blood will wipe that out."

  But Milton roared suddenly, "Stop that fight! Stop it! Judge! Agnew! I'm still head of this expedition!"

  Reluctantly the two moved toward the swaying figures. It was not an easy matter to stop the battle. Forrester and Harden were clinched but Enoch and Agnew were larger than either of the combatants and at a word from Enoch, Jonas seized Forrester, with Agnew. After a scuffle, Harden stood silent and scowling beside Enoch, while Forrester panted between Agnew and Jonas.

  "I'm ashamed of you fellows," shouted Milton. "Ashamed! You know the chief's due in the morning." He stopped abruptly. "I'm ashamed of you. You know what I mean. The chief--God, fellows, I'm a sick man!" He fell back heavily on his blankets.

  Enoch and Harden hurried to his side. "Quit your fighting, Judge! Quit your fighting!" muttered Milton. "Here! I'll make you stop!" He tried to rise and Jonas rushed to hold the injured leg while Harden and Enoch pressed the broad shoulders back against the flinty bed. It was several moments before he ceased to struggle and dropped into a dull state of coma.

  "It doesn't seem as if a broken leg ought to do all that to a man as husky as Milt!" said Agnew, who had joined them with a proffer of water.

  "I'm afraid he was sickening with something before the accident," Enoch shook his head. "Those dizzy spells were all wrong, you know."

  "We'd better get this boy to a doctor as soon as we can," said Agnew. "Poor old Milton! I swear it's a shame! His whole heart was set on putting this trip through."

  "He'll do it yet," Enoch patted the sick man's arm.

  "Yes, but he'll be laid up for months and his whole idea was to put it through without a break. The Department never condones accidents, you know."

  "I guess I can give you all some supper now," said Jonas. "Better get it while he's laying quiet."

  "Where's Forrester?" asked Enoch as they gathered round the stew pot.

  "He mumbled something about going outside to cool down," replied Agnew. "Better let him alone for a while."

  "Too bad you couldn't have kept the peace, under the circumstances, Harden," said Enoch.

  "You heard what he said to me?" demanded Harden fiercely.

  "Yes, I did and I heard you deliberately tease him into a fury. Of course, after what he finally said there was nothing left to do but to smash him," said Enoch.

  "I don't see why," Agnew spoke in his calm
way. "I never could understand why a bloody nose wiped out an insult. A thing that's said is said. Shooting a man even doesn't unsay a dirty speech. It's not common sense. Why ruin your own life in the effort to punish a man for something that's better forgotten?"

  "So you would swallow an insult and smile?" sneered Harden.

  "Not at all! I wouldn't hear the alleged insult, in most cases. But if the thing was so raw that the man had to be punished, I'd really hurt him."

  "How?" asked Enoch.

  "I'd do him a favor."

  "Slush!" grunted Harden.

  Agnew shrugged his shoulders and the scanty meal was finished in silence. When Jonas had collected the pie tins and cups, Enoch said,

  "While you're outside with those, Jonas, you'd better persuade Forrester to come in to supper. Tell him no one will bother him. Boys, I think we ought to sit up with Milton for a while. I'll take the first watch, if you'll take the second, Harden."

  Harden nodded. "I'll get to bed at once. Call me when you want me."

  He rolled himself in his blanket, Agnew following his example. A moment or so later Jonas could be heard calling,

  "Mr. Forrester! Ohee! Mr. Forrester!" The Canyon echoed the call, but there was no answer, Enoch strolled down to the river's edge where Jonas was standing with his arms full of dishes. "What's up, Jonas?" he asked.

  "Boss, I think he's lit out!"

  "Lit out? Where, Jonas?"

  "Well, there's only one way, like you went this afternoon. But his canteen's gone. And he had his shoes drying by the fire. He must have sneaked 'em while we was working over Mr. Milton, because they're gone, and so's his coat that was lying by the Ida, with the rest of the clothes."

  Enoch lifted his great voice. "Forrester! Forrester!"

  A thousand echoes replied while Agnew joined them and in a moment, Harden. Jonas repeated his story.

  "No use yelling!" exclaimed Enoch. "Let's build a fire out here."

  "Do you suppose he's had an accident?" Enoch's voice was apprehensive.

  "No, I don't," replied Agnew, stoutly. "He's told me two or three times that if he had any real trouble with Hard, he'd get out. What a fool to start off, this way!"