ask what
could have caused the change.

"Melting of the snow on the high range," the engineer shouted in
explanation. "Takes time for it to run down the canyon all these miles.
River probably still falling. Will begin to rise about noon. Faster
we get along now, the easier it will be. Hustle!"

Ashton responded mechanically to the will of his commander. For the
time being his own will was almost paralyzed. The reaction from his
long-sustained rage had left him dazed and nerveless. He had sunk into
a state of fatalistic indifference. He moved quickly downstream from
turning-point to turning-point, driven by Blake's will, but with a
heedless recklessness that all Blake's warnings could not check.

Within the first hour he twice stumbled and went under while wading
deep reaches of the river, and once he fell from a ledge, bruising
himself severely and knocking a splinter from the rod. Half an hour
later he lost his footing in descending a swift and narrow place that
would have been impassable at high water. Had not Blake been below him
he would never have come out alive.

The engineer leaped in and dragged the drowning man to safety, after a
desperate struggle with the torrent. But in the wild swirl, both the
food-pack and the rod went adrift. The moment he had rescued his
companion, Blake rushed away downstream, leaping like a goat from rock
to rock. He at last overtook the rod, caught in the eddy of a pool. Of
the pack he could find no trace. He returned to Ashton and silently
handed him the rod.

There was no need for him to admonish. The loss of all the food and
the narrowness of his escape had sobered the younger man. He resumed
his work with a cautious swiftness of movement that avoided all
needless risks yet never hesitated to encounter and rush through the
dangers that could not be avoided. In this he copied Blake.

All the time they were advancing down the angry torrent, deeper and
deeper into its secret stronghold,--creeping, crawling, leaping,
wading, swimming--step by step, turn after turn, wresting from the
abyss that which the engineer was resolved to learn, even though he
should learn, only to perish.

The day advanced. Steadfastly they struggled on down the bed of the
river, twisting and crossing over with the winding course of the
chasm; now between beetling precipices that shut out all sight of the
blue-black sky; now in more open stretches where the Titanic walls
swung apart and the glorious hot