CHAPTER XII
THE BADGER
A short distance down Dick's gully was a great slab of stone standing onedge, which, leaning over until its upper end touched the opposite wall,formed a natural arch about as high as a church door. Through thisvaulted passage Dick led the way. In about twenty steps we came outagain upon the brink of the chasm, and then it was that my partner, withsome natural exultation, pointed out to me the remarkable discovery hehad made.
In the face of the cliff was a sort of ledge, varying in width from tenfeet to about double as much, which, with a pretty steep, though prettyregular pitch, continued downward until it disappeared around the bendin the gorge. Unless the ledge should narrow very considerably we shouldhave no trouble in getting down, for there was room in plenty not onlyfor ourselves but for our animals also--even for old Fritz, pack andall.
"Why, Dick!" I cried. "We can easily get down here! I wonder if thiswasn't the original road taken by the pack-trains."
"It was," replied Dick; "at least, I feel pretty sure it was--and it wasused for a long time, too."
"Why do you think so?" I asked. "You speak as though you felt prettycertain, Dick, but for my part I don't see why."
"Don't you? Why, it's very plain. Look here! Do you see, close to theouter edge of the shelf, a sort of trough worn in the rock? Do you knowwhat that is? If I'm not very much mistaken, it is the trail of thepack-burros. There must have been a good many of them, and they musthave gone up and down for a good many years to wear such a trail;though, of course, it has been enlarged since by the rain-water runningdown it."
"Well, Dick," said I, "I still don't see why you should conclude thatthis is the trail of a pack-train. It seems to me much more likely to bedue to water only. In the first place, though there is room enough andto spare on the ledge, your supposed trail is on the very outer edge,where a false step would send the burro head-first into the canon; andin the next place, it keeps to the very edge, no matter whether theledge is wide or narrow."
"That's exactly the point," explained Dick. "It is just that very thingwhich makes me feel so sure that this is the trail of a pack-train.You've never seen pack-burros at work in the mountains, have you? Well,I have lots of times: they are frequently used to carry ore down fromthe mines. If you had seen them, you could not have helped noticing thehabit they have of walking on the outside of a ledge like this, wherethere is a precipice on one side and a cliff on the other. A burro maybe a 'donkey,' but he understands his own business. He knows that if hetouches his pack against the rock he will be knocked over the precipice,and he has learned his lesson so well that it makes no difference howwide the ledge may be--he will keep as far away from the rock as he can.As to a false step, that doesn't enter into his calculations: a burrodoesn't make a false step--there is no surer-footed beast in existence,I should think, excepting, possibly, the mountain-sheep."
"I never thought of all that," said I. "Then I expect you are right,Dick, and this is an old trail after all. What is your idea? To followit down, I suppose."
"Yes, certainly. Our animals won't make any bones about going down awide path like this. They are all used to the mountains. So let us getthem at once and start down."
Dick was right. Our horses, each led by the bridle, followed us withouthesitation, while old Fritz, half a burro himself, took at once to thetrail which one of his ancestors, perhaps, had helped to make.
Without trouble or mishap, we descended the steeply-pitching ledge downto the margin of the creek, crossed over to the other side, andcontinued on our way up stream over the slope of decomposed rock fallenfrom the towering cliff which rose at least a thousand feet aboveus--the cliff being now on our right hand and the stream on our left.
This sloping bank was scantily covered with trees, and among them wethreaded our way, still following the trail, which, however, down herehad lost any resemblance to a made road, and had become a mere thread,more like a disused cow-path than anything else.
Presently, we found that the canon began to widen, and soon afterwardthe cliff along whose base we had been skirting, suddenly fell away tothe right in a great sweeping curve, forming an immense naturalamphitheatre, enclosing a good-sized stretch of grass-land, withwillows and cottonwoods fringing the nearer bank of the stream.
As we sat on our horses surveying the scene, we found ourselvesconfronting at last the imposing north face of the mountain. Up towardits summit we could see the great semi-circular cliff which we supposedto be the upper half of an old crater, while the country below it, bare,rocky and much broken up, was exceedingly rough and precipitous.
Starting, apparently, from the neighborhood of this crater, there camedown the mountain a second very narrow and very deep gorge, whosewaters, when there were any, emptied into the stream we had beenfollowing; the two canons being separated by a high, narrow rib ofrock--a mere wedge. Curiously enough, however, this second canon did notcarry a stream, though we could see the shimmer of two or three pools asthey caught the reflection of the sky down there in the bottom of itsgloomy depths.
"Well, Dick," said I, "I don't see any sign yet of a pathway up to thetop of this 'island' of yours. This basin is merely an enlargement ofthe canon; the walls are just as high and just as straight-up-and-downas ever."
"Yes, I see that plainly enough," replied Dick. "Yet there must be away up somewhere. Those pack-trains didn't come down here for nothing.We shall find a break in the wall presently--up in that gorge, there, itmust be, too. So let us go on. Hark! What's that?"
We sat still and listened. The whole atmosphere seemed to vibrate with alow hum, the cause of which we could not understand. It kept on for fiveminutes, perhaps, and then died out again.
"What was it, Dick?" said I. "Wind?"
"I suppose it must have been," replied my companion; "though there isn'ta breath stirring down here. If the sky had not been so perfectly clearall morning I should have said it was a flood coming. It must have beenwind, though, I suppose."
Satisfied that this was the cause, we thought no more of it, but, takingup the trail once more, we followed it down to the mouth of the secondcanon, and there at the edge of the watercourse all trace of it ceased.
"That seems to settle it," remarked Dick. "You see, Frank, the walls ofthis canon are so steep and its bed is so filled with great bouldersthat even a burro could get no further. The copper must have beencarried down to this point on men's backs, and if so, it was not carriedany great distance probably. The mine must be somewhere pretty near now;we shan't have to search much further, I think, for a way up thisright-hand cliff. Let us unsaddle here, where the horses can get plentyof grass, and go on up on foot."
The ascent of the chasm was no easy task, we found, but, weaving our waybetween the boulders which strewed its bed, up we went, until presentlywe came to a place where some time or another a great slice of the wall,about an eighth of a mile in length, falling down, had blocked itcompletely, forming an immense dam nearly a hundred feet high. It musthave been many years since it fell, for its surface was well grown upwith trees, though none of them were of any great size. It seemedprobable, too, that the base of the dam must be composed of largefragments of rock, for, though there was no stream in the bed of thegorge, it was very plain that water did sometimes run down it. If so,however, it was equally plain that it must squeeze its way through thecrevices between the foundation rocks, for there was no sign at all thatit had ever run over the top.
Scrambling up this mass of earth and rocks, we went on, keeping a sharplookout for some sign of a pathway up the cliff on our right, but stillseeing nothing of the sort, when presently we reached the upper face ofthe dam, and there for a moment we stopped.
Beneath us lay a stretch of the ravine, forming a basin about twohundred yards long, in the bottom of which were three or four pools ofclear water. At the upper end of this basin was a perpendicular cliff,barring all further advance in that direction, over which, in someseasons of the year, the water evidently poured--sometimes incon
siderable volume apparently, judging from the manner in which thesides of the basin had been undermined. The sides themselves continuedto be just as unscalable as ever; in spite of Dick's assurance that weshould find a way up, it was apparent at a glance that there was neithercrack nor crevice by which one could ascend.
"Well!" cried my partner, in a tone of desperation. "This does beat me!I felt certain that the trail would lead us to some pathway up thecliff; but, as it does not, what does it come down here for at all?"
"There is only one reason that I can think of," I replied, "and that isthat they must have come down here for water--there is probably none tobe found up on top of the 'island.'"
"That must be it, Frank. Yes, I expect you've struck it. And in thatcase the pathway we have been hunting for must be down stream from thesite of the old bridge after all."
"Yes. So we may as well go back to-morrow morning, I suppose, and startdownward. It is rather late to go back now--and besides, there is nowater up there: we had better camp here for to-night, at any rate."
"That's true. Well, as we have some hours of daylight yet--if you cancall this daylight down here in this narrow crack--let us climb down theface of the dam and examine the basin before we give up and go back, soas to make quite sure that there is no way up the side."
Accordingly, having clambered down, we walked up the middle of thebasin, our eyes carefully scanning the wall on our right, when, havingtraversed about three-quarters of its length, we suddenly heard againthat humming noise which we had taken for a wind-storm among the pines.With one accord we both stopped dead and listened. The noise wasdecidedly louder than it had been before, and moreover it appeared tobe increasing in volume every second.
"Frank!" exclaimed my companion. "I don't like the sound of it! It seemsto me suspiciously like water! Let us get out of here! This is no placeto be caught by a flood!"
We turned to run, but before we had gone five steps we heard a roarbehind us, and casting a glance backward, we saw to our horror animmense wall of water, ten feet high, leap from the ledge at the end ofthe basin and fall to the bottom with a prodigious splash.
In one second the whole floor of the basin was awash. In another secondour feet were knocked from under us, when, without the power of helpingourselves, we were tumbled about and swept hither and thither at thecaprice of the rapidly deepening flood.
Happily for myself, for I was no swimmer, I was carried right down tothe dam, where, by desperate exertions, I was able to scramble up out ofreach of the water. Dick, however, less fortunate than I, was carriedoff to one side, and when I caught sight of him again he was being sweptrapidly along under the right-hand wall--looking up stream--in whosesmooth surface there was no chance of finding a hold. As I watched him,my heart in my mouth, he was carried back close to the fall, where theviolence of the water, now several feet deep, tossed him about like astraw.
Half paralyzed with fear lest my companion should be drowned before myeyes, I stood there on the rocks, powerless to go to his aid, hopingonly that he might be swept down near enough to enable me to catch holdof him, when, of a sudden, there occurred an event so astounding thatfor a moment I could hardly tell whether I ought to believe my own eyesor not.
Out from the wall on the left, up near the fall, there shot a great darkbody, which, with a noiseless splash, disappeared under the water. Thenext moment a man's head bobbed up, a big, shaggy, bearded head, theowner of which with vigorous strokes swam toward Dick and seized him bythe collar. Then, swimming with the power of a steam-tug, he bore downupon the dam, clutched a projecting rock, drew himself up, and with astrength I had never before seen in a human being, he lifted Dick out ofthe water with one hand--his left--and set him up on the bank.
Running to the spot, I seized hold of my partner, who, almost playedout, staggered and swayed about, and helped him further up out of reachof the water. Then, turning round, I was advancing to thank his rescuer,when, for the first time, I saw that the man was almost a dwarf--inheight, at least--though his astonishing strength was indicated in hismagnificent chest and arms.
"The Badger!" I cried, involuntarily.
At the sound of that name the man turned short round, and without a wordleaped into the water again. Sweeping back under the right-hand wall, hepresently turned across the pool and struck out for the opposite side.Ten seconds later he had disappeared, having seemingly swum through thevery face of the cliff itself!