ble seismic
disturbance; and from this gap poured the dark, turgid, mystic flood.

I was in a cold sweat when we touched shore, and I jumped long before
the boat was properly moored.

Emmett was wet to the waist where the water had surged over him. As he
sat rearranging some tackle I remarked to him that of course he must be
a splendid swimmer, or he would not take such risks.

"No, I can't swim a stroke," he replied; "and it wouldn't be any use if
I could. Once in there a man's a goner."

"You've had bad accidents here?" I questioned.

"No, not bad. We only drowned two men last year. You see, we had to tow
the boat up the river, and row across, as then we hadn't the wire. Just
above, on this side, the boat hit a stone, and the current washed over
her, taking off the team and two men."

"Didn't you attempt to rescue them?" I asked, after waiting a moment.

"No use. They never came up."

"Isn't the river high now?" I continued, shuddering as I glanced out at
the whirling logs and drifts.

"High, and coming up. If I don't get the other teams over to-day I'll
wait until she goes down. At this season she rises and lowers every day
or so, until June then comes the big flood, and we don't cross for
months."

I sat for three hours watching Emmett bring over the rest of his party,
which he did without accident, but at the expense of great effort. And
all the time in my ears dinned the roar, the boom, the rumble of this
singularly rapacious and purposeful river--a river of silt, a red river
of dark, sinister meaning, a river with terrible work to perform, a
river which never gave up its dead.

CHAPTER 2.

THE RANGE

After a much-needed rest at Emmett's, we bade good-by to him and his
hospitable family, and under the guidance of his man once more took to
the wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterly course now, following
the lead of the craggy red wall that stretched on and on for hundreds
of miles into Utah. The desert, smoky and hot, fell away to the left,
and in the foreground a dark, irregular line marked the Grand Canyon
cutting through the plateau.

The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, and meeting an
obstacle in the red wall, turned north and raced past us. Jones's hat
blew off, stood on its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling, thirty
miles an hour, more or less; so fast, at least, that we were a long
time catching up to it with a team of horses. Possibly we never would
have caught it h