Arizona -- Fiction; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Fiction; Western stories
The way beside the falls was nothing more than a narrow ledge
completely covered with giant bowlders. Beyond the falls, the river
hurled itself for a quarter of a mile against broken rocks that made
the passage of a boat impossible. It was a long portage. After the
bowlder-strewn ledge was passed, however, it was not necessary to make
trail, for although the shore was strewn with broken rock and
driftwood, the way was fairly open.
After the contents of the boats had been made up into rough packs, both
crews attacked the trail-making. It was mid-morning before pick-ax,
shovel and crowbar had opened up a way which Jonas claimed was fit only
for kangaroos or elephants. Rough as it was, when Milton declared it
fit for their purposes, the rest without protest heaved the packs to
their shoulders.
It was hot at midday in the Canyon. The thermometer registered 98
degrees in the shade. Enoch, following Milton, dropped his third pack
at the end of the quarter mile portage and sat down beside it.
"Old man!" he groaned, "you've got to give me a ten minutes' rest."
Milton grinned and nodded sympathetically. "Take all the time you
want, Judge!"
"I'm ashamed," said Enoch, "but don't forget you fellows have had ten
months of this, as against my two days."
"I don't forget for a minute, Judge. And just let me tell you that if
ever I were on trial for a serious offense of any kind I'd be perfectly
satisfied to be tried before a real he-man, like you." And Milton
disappeared over the trail, leaving Enoch with a warm glow in his
heart, such as he had scarcely felt since his first public speech won
the praise of the newspapers.
For a quarter of an hour he sat with his back against a half buried
mesquite log smoking, and now eying the magnificent sheer crimson wall
which lay across the river, now wondering where Diana was and now
contemplating curiously the sense of his own unimportance which the
Canyon was thrusting into his consciousness more persistently every
hour. Jonas joined him for the last part of his rest, but when Milton
announced that they had finished the packing and must now portage the
boats, Jonas was on the alert.
"That name isn't dry yet!" he exclaimed. "I got to watch the prow of
my boat myself," and he started hurriedly back over the trail, Enoch
following him more slowly.
Sometimes lifting, sometimes skidding on drift logs, sometimes dragging
by main strength, the six men finally landed the Ida and the Na-che in
quiet waters. Jonas and Agnew prepared a simple dinner and immediately
after they embarked. For two hours the river flowed swiftly and
quietly between sheer walls of stratified granite, white and pale
yellow, shot with rose. Now and again a cedar, dwarfed and distorted,
found toe hold between the strata and etched its deep green against the
white and yellow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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