CHAPTER XXIII
THE BOAT IN THE RAPIDS
“Well, boys, we’re here at last,” remarked Jerry, after a while, whenthey had traversed some length of the canyon in the airship. “We’rehere after a lot of hard work, and the next question is, what are wegoing to do; now that we are on the ground?”
“Go to Snake Island at once,” suggested Ned.
“Eat,” advised Bob, who had started to get a meal, but who had comeback to the cabin, to wait while some of the things cooked.
“Chunky’s infallible recipe whenever anything goes wrong,” commentedJerry. “Still it wouldn’t be a bad idea. We can talk it over whilewe’re eating, and decide what’s best to be done.”
“What’s the matter with going at once to the island?” asked Ned. “Ithought that was what we came here for.”
“It is, but I think it will be a good plan to see if we can learnanything about it before we go too far down the river. It may be thatthere is no such place as Snake Island. Or, it may be that, even inour airship, it is impossible to get to it. We want to find out allabout it before we go too far.”
“Well, what’s your idea?” asked Ned.
“I think we ought to----”
“Dinner’s ready,” interrupted Bob, and they went out to the table,the professor carrying with him a book, carefully marking the placewhere he had been reading by putting his finger between the pages. Theairship was moving at slow speed, and had been set to steer herselfautomatically. So the boys had nothing to interrupt their talk of thebest plan to follow.
Eventually they decided to travel on until they reached Grand View, thepoint where Berry Trail led down into the canyon to the banks of therushing river. They would make their inquiries there, regarding thepossible existence of Snake Island.
It was night when they reached Grand View, and, in order that theymight be among other tourists, who had come to visit the canyon, theboys and the professor put up at a hotel almost on the verge of thegreat chasm, storing the airship in a big open shed, sometimes used forautos.
“Snake Island!” exclaimed the clerk, when Jerry asked him about it.“Never heard of the place. Don’t believe there’s an island in thewhole stretch of the river. But there are some guides around here. Youmight ask them.”
Which Jerry and his chums did, but with little satisfaction, for itdeveloped that few of the guides had been farther than the regularlytraveled routes taken by tourists, and this had not brought them to themore inaccessible parts of the mighty river.
“Snake Island?” repeated one grizzled guide, when Jerry had put thequestion to him. “If anybody knows whether or not there is such aplace, it’s old Hance Stamford. Hance give up guidin’ long ago, but inhis prime there wasn’t a better one at it. He’s gone in places no oneelse dared, and if there’s a Snake Island he’ll know about it.”
The boys sought out Hance the next day. He lived in a little cabin, notfar from the hotel, being cared for by his son, who was employed asa waiter. Hance was indeed old, being past eighty. Yet his dull eyesopened quickly when Jerry put to him the question that meant so much tothe motor boys.
“Snake Island!” exclaimed old Hance. “It’s been many years since Iheard that name. Many, many years.”
“But is there any such place?” asked Jerry.
“Is there? Bless you, I don’t know, son. I’ll tell you as much as Ican, however. It must have been forty years ago, and there weren’tmany tourists in them days. Mostly Indians. I was making my way alongthe canyon with an Indian, for in them days I had a notion I’d liketo discover things. Well, as you know, the canyon is narrow and steepin places, and when it rains you want to make tracks, for the riversometimes rises thirty feet in a short time. If you’re caught where youcan’t climb up, well--it’s good-bye for yours.
“A thunderstorm came up while the Indian and I were in a narrow partof the canyon, where the river rushed along between black walls likea mill stream down the flume. We knew we’d have to make tracks outof there, and we did. But the rain came faster than we’d calculatedon, and we had to climb. Then came a fog that nearly did for us. Wemanaged to get some distance down the stream, and then climbed up thesteep sides of the chasm until we came to a niche in the wall. There westayed until the river went down, and we were there a day and a night,with nothing to eat.”
“But about the Snake Island?” asked Jerry.
“The island. Oh yes. Well, when we were hiding there in the hole inthe wall, there came a rift in the fog. I happened to be looking downstream, and I saw something big and black rearing up, right fromthe river it seemed. I poked the Indian in the ribs--he was halfasleep, you know--Indians’ll sleep anywhere if they think they’ve gotto--anyhow I poked him, and he grunted and woke up. I pointed to thetall, black, wiggling thing, and the Indian said: ‘Snake Island.’
“‘Snake!’ I yelled. ‘Who ever see a snake as big as that?’ Then hegrunted some more, and went on to say that there was a sort of stoneisland in the middle of the river. It had been pretty well worn awayexcept a big hill and a tall thing, like a tower, that stuck up in themiddle, like a church steeple. It was this tall tower of black rockthat seemed like a snake. Of course the fog made it indistinct, andthe motion of the mist made it appear as if it was wiggling about. Sothat’s all I know about Snake Island. I never went there, and I neverheard of anyone getting on it.”
“There was a party of college men----” began Uriah Snodgrass.
“Oh, yes, I heard about _them_. But they never got there, and one oftheir number was lost. I tell you Snake Island is in a bad part of theriver.”
“But just where is it?” asked Jerry.
“As near as I can tell, between here and Bright Angel Trail,” repliedthe old guide, as he nodded in slumber again. “I wouldn’t go there, ifI were you.”
“Well, we’re going,” said Jerry softly, as he bade the old man good-bye.
Saying nothing to anyone in the hotel about their plans, the boys madean early start the next morning, and were soon gliding down over thegreat chasm in their airship.
Below them rushed and foamed the great river--below in its chasmtrough, with walls of vari-hued marble, of sandstone that rivaled therainbow in tints, while in other places, near the water itself, wereblack rocks, of flinty hardness.
“And to think that it’s seven thousand feet from the top of that gulfto the water,” spoke Bob in awed tones. “I wouldn’t want to fall.”
As they went on they could see fogs and mists arising, while, as thesun rose higher and higher, it made a scene of indescribable beauty,the tints on the walls of the canyon changing every moment.
It was about noon, and Jerry had calculated that they had made abouthalf the distance from Grand View, when Ned, who was looking at therushing, foaming river below them, as it dashed along over a gorgefilled with rapids, cried out:
“Jerry, do you see anything down there?”
The tall lad looked through the plate glass window in the bottom of theairship. Then he snatched up the binoculars and focused them.
“It’s a boat!” he cried. “A boat in those awful rapids! They’ve lostcontrol of her, and she’ll be dashed to pieces!”
“Anyone in it?” asked Bob.
Once more Jerry looked carefully.
“Three persons!” he exclaimed. “Well, it’s all up with them. That boatcan never make the passage.”
And, as he spoke, the frail craft was lost to view as a curtain of mistrolled down and hid the rushing river from sight.