The eagle's wing: A story of the Colorado — John Shaqi
The eagle's wing: A story of the ColoradoBower, B. M.
General
The eagle's wing: A story of the Colorado
Bower, B. M.
Colorado River (Colo.-Mexico) -- Fiction; Gold mines and mining -- Fiction; Western stories
He had expected to come upon a camp of some sort. But the canyon opened
bleakly to the river, the hot sand of its floor sloping steeply to meet the
lapping waves of the turgid stream. At the water’s edge, on the first high
ground of the bank, were ruins of an old stamp mill, which might have been
built ten years ago or a hundred, so far as looks went.
He left the car and climbed upon the cement floor of the old mill. What at
first had seemed to be a greater extension of the plant he now discovered was
a walled roadway winding up to the crest of the hill. He swung about and gazed
to the northward, as the Bible code had commanded that he should travel. A
mile or so up the river were the walls of a deep canyon,--Black Canyon,
according to his map. Farther away, set back from the river a mile, perhaps
two miles, a sharp-pointed hill shouldered up above its fellows. This seemed
to be the highest mountain, so far as he could see, in that direction. If that
were the “great and high mountain” described in the code, their journey would
not be so long as Johnny Buffalo anticipated.
The nearer view was desolation simmering in the heat. A hundred yards away, on
the opposite bank of the wash, the forlorn ruins of a cabin or two gave
melancholy evidence that here men had once worked and laughed and
loved--perchance. He looked at the furnace yawning beside him, and at the
muddy water swirling in drunken haste just below. It might have been just here
that his grandfather had landed from the steamboat _Gila_ and had watched the
lovely young half-breed girl in the crowd come to welcome the boat and
passengers.
He started when Johnny Buffalo spoke at his elbow. How the Indian had reached
that spot unheard and unseen Rawley did not know. Johnny Buffalo was pointing
to the north.
“I think that high mountain is where we must go,” he said. “It is one day’s
travel. We can go to-day when the sun is behind the mountains, and we can walk
until the stars are here. Very early in the morning we can walk again, and
before it is too hot we can reach the trees where it will be cool.”
“We have a lot of grub and things in the car,” Rawley objected. “It seems to
me that it wouldn’t be a bad plan to carry the stuff up here and cache it
somewhere in this old mill. Then if your friend Queo should show up, there
won’t be so much for him to steal. And if we want to make a camp on the
mountain, we can come down here and carry the stuff up as we need it. There’s
a hundred dollars’ worth of outfit in that car, Johnny,” he added frugally.
“I’m all for keeping it for ourselves.”
Johnny Buffalo looked at the mountain, and he looked down at the car,--and
then grunted a reluctant acquiescence. Rawley laughed at him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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