“It ain’t altogether good, Ben. It
goes down like this for about twelve miles, then it
widens out sudden. It gets into a crumbly rock
which has got worn away, and there is a place maybe
about fifty yards wide and half a mile long, with
sloping sides going up a long way, and then cliff
all round. The bottom is all stones; there are
a few tufts of coarse grass growing between them.
On the slopes there are some bushes, and on a ledge
high up we made out a bear. We had two or three
shots at him, and at last brought him down. There
may be more among the bushes; there was plenty of
cover for them.”
“There was no place where there was a chance
of getting up, Harry?”
“Nary a place. I don’t say as there
may not be, but we couldn’t see one.”
“But the bear must have got down.”
“No. He would come down here in the dry
season looking for water-holes, and finding the place
to his liking he must have concluded to settle there.
It is just the place a bear would choose, for he might
reckon pretty confident that there weren’t no
chance of his being disturbed. Well, we went
on beyond that, and two miles lower the canon opened
again, and five minutes took us down on to the bank
of the Colorado. There was no great room between
the river and the cliff, but there were some good-sized
trees there, and plenty of bush growing up some distance.
We caught sight of another bear, but as we did not
want him we left him alone.”
“Waal, let us have some b’ar-meat first
of all,” Jerry said. “We finished
our meat last night, and bread don’t make much
of a meal, I reckon. Anyhow we can all do with
another, and after we have done we will have a talk.
We know what to expect now, and can figure it up better
than we could before.”
THE COLORADO
“Well, boys,” Harry Wade began after they
had smoked for some time in silence, “we have
got to look at this matter squarely. So far we
have got out of a mighty tight place better than we
expected. Yesterday it seemed to us that there
weren’t much chance of our carrying our hair
away, but now we are out of that scrape. But we
are in another pretty nigh as bad, though there ain’t
much chance of the red-skins getting at us.”
“That air so, Harry. We are in a pretty
tight hole, you bet. They ain’t likely
to get our scalps for some time, but there ain’t
no denying that our chance of carrying them off is
dog-goned small.”
“You bet there ain’t, Jerry,” Sam
Hicks said. “Them pizon varmint will camp
outside here; for they know they have got us in a trap.
They mayn’t attack us at present, but we have
got to watch night and day. Any dark night they
may take it into their heads to come up, and there
won’t be nothing to prevent them, for the rustling
of the stream among the rocks would cover any little
noise they might make. The first we should know
of it would be the yell of the varmint at the foot
of this barrier, and afore we could get to the top
the two on guard would be tomahawked, and they would
be down on us like a pack of wolves. I would a’most
as soon put down my rifle and walk straight out now
and let them shoot me, if I knew they would do it
without any of their devilish tortures, as go on night
after night, expecting to be woke up with their war-yell
in my ears.
