"Reckon so," chirruped Glover. "Look a here." He exhibited a pile of unpleasant-looking matter which proved to be a mass of strips of fresh hide. "Hoss skin," he explained. "Peeled off a mustang. Borrowed it from that Texan cuss. Thought likely we might want to splice our towline. 'Bout ten fathom, I reckon; 'n' there's the lariat, two fathom more. All we've got to de is to pack up, stick our backs under, 'n' travel." It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they commenced their preparations for making this extraordinary portage. Sunk as they were twenty-five hundred feet in the bowels of the earth, the sun had already set for them; but they were still favored with a sort of twilight radiance, and they could count upon it for a couple of hours longer. Carefully the guns, paddles, and stores were landed on the marvellous causeway; and then, with still greater caution, the boat was lifted to the same support and taken to pieces. The whole mass of material, some two hundred pounds in weight, was divided into three portions. Each shouldered his pack, and the strange journey commenced. "Sweeny, don't you fall off," said Glover. "We can't spare them sticks." "If I fall off, ye may shute me where I stand," returned Sweeny. "I know better'n to get drowned and starved to death in wan. I can take care av meself. I've sailed this a way many a time in th' ould counthry." The road was a smooth and easy one, barring a few cumbering bowlders. To the left and below was the river, roaring, hissing, and foaming through its _chevaux-de-frise_ of rocks. In front the cañon stretched on and on until its walls grew dim with shadow and distance. Above were overhanging precipices and a blue streak of sunlit sky. It was quite dusk with the wanderers before they reached a point where the San Juan once more flowed with an undisturbed current. "We can't launch by this light," said Thurstane. "We will sleep here."