A FEARFUL RIDE.
A dull, increasing roar, like the moaning of the Indian Sea, when the cyclone is being born, struck the ears of the whites, all of whom paused in their conversation and listened, wondering what it meant.
The horses showed signs of restlessness and fear, but they were held sternly in check, while the riders bent all their faculties into that of hearing; and by a common instinct, every eye was turned toward Lightning Jo, as if inquiring of him an explanation of the strange sound.
What the scout thought can only be conjectured; but there was a scared look upon his face that gave all the most gloomy forebodings, and they awaited his words and actions with an intensity of anxiety that can scarcely be described.
The roar, which now drowned every other sound, was like that made by the approaching train, and it had that awful element of terror which comes over one when he feels that a peril is bearing swiftly down upon him from which there is no escape.
“Onto your hosses, every one of you! Cut ’em loose from the wagons, and don’t wait a minute!”
The voice of Lightning Jo rung out like a trumpet and was obeyed on the instant, while by another imperious command of his, the women and children were taken upon the backs of the animals in front of the hunters.
Quickly as all this was done, it was not a moment too soon. In reply to the questioning looks of his friends, the scout pointed up the ravine in the direction whence they had come.
At first sight, there seemed to be a mass of discolored snow spinning down the canon; but the next moment all knew that it was the foam and spray of water, rushing down upon them with the impetuosity of a Niagara.
“Hold fast!” called out Jo; “but there’s no use trying to fight it!”
Even while the words were in his mouth, the appalling torrent came upon them!
There was a blinding dash of spray and mist, and then every horse, with its rider, was carried as quick as a flash off his feet, and shot down the canon like a meteor.
Egbert Rodman, the moment he realized the nature of the danger, reached forward and caught the hand of Lizzie Manning, intending to place her upon the horse, in front of him, as many of the other scouts had done; but ere he could accomplish the transfer, the shock was upon them, and in the stunning, bewildering crash, he was only sensible of going forward with tremendous velocity, down the canon, among his friends, who were all impelled onward by the same resistless force, that made them, for the time, like bits of driftwood heaped in the vortex of the great maelstrom.
“Lizzie! where are you?” he called out, in his agony, groping blindly about him in the tornado of mist, and driftwood, and water; “reach out your hand that I may save you!”
He heard something like an answering cry; but in the rush and whirl, he could not tell the direction nor the point whence it came; and had he known that only a half-dozen feet separated them, it was no more in his power to pass the chasm than it was for him to turn and make headway against the chute that was carrying every thing before it with an inconceivable velocity.
It would be impossible to describe the appalling scene in the canon. Those who lived to tell of it, in after years, shuddered at its recollection and declared that its terror was greater than any through which they had ever passed. The little group who sat waiting and conversing upon their horses had scarcely been caught up and shot forward, when the gloom of the approaching night deepened to that of the most intense, inky blackness, so that no man, speaking literally, could have seen his hand before his face.
It would have made no difference had it been high noon, so far as the question of helping themselves was concerned, although it might have lessened in some degree that shuddering, shivering dread that possessed all, under the expectation every moment of being dashed to fragments against the projecting rocks, or crushed by the debris that was carried tumultuously forward in the rush and whirl of the waters.
“Stick to your hosses, and take things easy!”
The voice of Lightning Jo seemed to come from a point a thousand yards away—whether above or below could not be told by the sound; but all knew that he was somewhere in the torrent, and there was something reassuring in the sound of his ringing voice in this general pandemonium of disaster and death. It encouraged more than one despairing and helpless, and they clung the more tightly and took some courage and hope.
“Jo, can you hear my voice?” called out Egbert Rodman, with the whole strength of his lungs.
“I reckon so,” came back the instant answer.
“Tell me, then, whether you have Lizzie with you, or whether you know where she is.”
“No; can’t tell; thought you and her were together. We’ll fetch up somewhere purty soon—daylight will come in the course of a week—and then we’ll hunt for each other. No use till then—so you keep your mouth shet, and look out that you don’t get your head cracked.”
These seemed heartless words to Egbert; but they were really dictated by prudence and common sense, and he acted upon the advice, so far as it concerned the questioning of the scout.
The mustang of our young friend was swimming as well as he could down the chute, striving only to keep himself afloat. His body was beneath the water, his nose and head only appearing above. Up to this time Egbert had maintained his place upon his back, himself sinking of course to the armpits; but when he heard the warning words of Lightning Jo, he understood how the projecting point of some jagged rock might pass over his animal’s head, and crush his own.
Accordingly he quietly slipped back over the animal’s haunches, and submerging himself to his ears, held on to the tail of the animal, in a position of greater safety—if such a thing as safety can be named in reference to the party caught by the torrent in the canon.
Egbert had scarcely adopted this precautionary measure, when he had reason to thank Lightning Jo for the timely warning.
Something grazed the top of his head, like the whiz of a cannon-ball, proving with what amazing velocity he was shooting down the canon.
“How can any one get out of this horrible place alive?” was the question he asked, as he realized the narrowness of his escape. “We must all be shattered to pieces before going much further. Ah!—”
Just then a wild cry rung out above the din and roar of the waters—the cry of a strong man in his last agony. Driven as if by a columbiad against some flinty projection, he had only time to make the shriek as the breath was driven from his body.
As this spinning downward through the chasm continued for several moments, Egbert endeavored to collect his senses and to think more clearly upon his terrible position.
He was morally certain that a number of the party had already lost their lives, and a twinge of anguish shot through his heart as he reflected upon the females and the tender children exposed to this perilous war of elements. And then, too, the wagon containing the remains of those who had fought so gallantly in Dead Man’s Gulch—what a ghastly fate had overtaken them! It seemed, indeed, as if nature had joined with man in heaping unimagined horrors upon the heads of the weak and defenseless, and that nothing remained but to await shudderingly the fate that could not be postponed much longer.
But amid the rack and turmoil and swirl of the canon, the thought of his beloved Lizzie Manning would present itself, and he could not help wondering, doubting, fearing and hoping all in the same breath.
Was she living and had she survived the ordeal uninjured up to this time? Or had her gentle nature succumbed at the first shock? She had proven herself a heroine in Dead Man’s Gulch, and was she equal to this? If still living, how much longer could she bear the strain upon her system?
But ere Egbert Rodman could conjecture any replies to these questions, he was called upon to make a still more desperate fight for his own life.
His mustang, encountering some obstruction, made such a sudden, furious plunge, that his tail was drawn from the loose grasp of Egbert, who, aiming to renew it, clutched vaguely in the darkness and was unable to reach his faithful animal. He could hear him floundering and neighing close at hand, but there was no use of attempting to reach him, and he called to the horse, in the hope that he would succeed in making his way to him; but he was disappointed in this also, for the noise of the struggles speedily ceased, and he concluded that the faithful animal was dead.
Rather curiously the young man had clung to his rifle ever since he was caught by the water tornado, and now that he was somewhat cooler and more collected, he resolved that nothing but “death should them part.” It was troublesome to swim with it grasped in one hand, but he was quite able to do it, where the current possessed such extraordinary velocity, and he moved forward with little effort on his part.
All this passed in a tenth part of the time taken by us in writing it, and Egbert Rodman had scarcely gained a connected idea of what was going on, when he made the discovery that the channel through which he had been dashed was widening and considerably decreasing. The deafening crash that had been in his ears from the moment he was carried off his feet, now sunk to a dull noise, proving that he had emerged from the canon, and was floating over what might be termed a lake—caused, undoubtedly, by the widening of the pass through which Lightning Jo had attempted to guide the little party, with its two wagons.
With this discovery of the comparative calmness of the water, came, for the first time, something like returning hope to Egbert Rodman, who, feeling confident that there must be a tenable foothold at no great distance, began swimming forward regularly, so as to avoid being carried around in a circle.
Of course such a basin as this must have an outlet as well as an inlet, and it was his purpose to prevent himself being carried away into another similar canon, from which it was hardly possible to make such an escape over again.
This required severe effort, but happily it was accomplished sooner than was expected. While swimming vigorously forward, his feet touched bottom, and although scarcely able to maintain his foothold, yet by using arms and legs and grasping some branches that brushed his face, he succeeded in drawing himself out upon land, and found himself free from the flood.
“Saved at last, and thank God for it!” was his fervent ejaculation. “But what of the rest?—what of the women and children? and Lizzie—where can she be?”
All was of inky darkness about him, and he hardly dared to move for fear of plunging himself into some inextricable pitfall. Only by feeling every foot of the way as he advanced, did he manage to get away from the immediate neighborhood of the din and rush of waters.
Sinking down upon his knees, he crept along for some distance in this manner, until, as near as he could judge, he was in a sort of valley or ravine, much broader than the one in which he and his friends had been overwhelmed by the flood, and which seemed to have escaped the rush of water that had been driven through that.
Finding that it remained comparatively level, he finally rose to his feet again and advanced with more speed, but at the same time, with the caution due such a critical situation.
The wind was still blowing with a desolate, wailing sound, but the rain had ceased entirely; and the night, pitchy dark and cold, could not have been more desolate and cheerless.
“Halloa!” suddenly exclaimed the astonished Egbert, “yonder is a light as sure as the world! Who can be camping out to-night? Be he friend or foe, I must find out.”
With this resolution he started toward the star-like beacon.