CHAPTER XXI
THE RAFT IN THE CANYON
Next morning Stamford started off the instant breakfast was over, but he did not go further than the cook-house. He found it deserted, the outfit having departed the day before on what promised to be a three or four days' expedition. Stamford poked about the cook-house and bunk-house with a vague idea of coming on clues left carelessly exposed. In the midst of it the Professor walked in on him.
"Oh, I thought you were gone for the day," said the Professor, "and I hoped our friends of the funny names might be back."
"I'm going now," Stamford returned shortly, and walked away, though the Professor called to him.
From among the rocks on the river-bank he saw the buckboard pass around the corrals and make for the ford. He followed.
Somewhere that herd of cattle in the little valley had crossed the river, and he was determined to discover where. He had rather definite ideas about them that led him to expect no information from the ford.
In that he quickly proved himself right. He had seen, even from where he lay on the opposite cliff, that most of the cattle had been in the valley a long time; that was evident from their plumpness and undisturbed feeding. The more recent arrivals were betrayed by their rougher coats and leaner bodies, and by a wilder fling of the head when the Professor approached them. There had been no rain on the Red Deer in two months; their tracks, were there any, would show plainly enough in the mud approaches to the ford.
But there was nothing there save the hoof-marks of the Professor's team and a few dim old hollows that must have been there from the spring.
He considered the possibility of a ford further east, but one near enough to be of use to the valley he would have heard of.
Carefully examining the shore as he went, he turned back to the west. Now and then he stopped to scrutinise the face of the opposite cliff for marks of a slope on that side.
Not far from the end of the lowest corral he raised himself on a rounded rock to look about him. Across the river was unbroken wall. On this side was a stretch of tumbled erosions that cut off his view from the ground. As he let himself down again his foot slipped and he fell, feet first, between two rocks. He was surprised to hear the crunch of leather, and, looking where his feet had gone, he saw a saddle carefully hidden, and beneath it a bridle. More surprising, it was not a stock saddle but an English pattern of the softest, lightest kind, ridiculously small and compact—so small that a man's coat would almost hide it.
He thrust it back and went hastily on. His eyes flitted instinctively to the ranch-house, and just then the cook came from the kitchen and emptied a pot. Stamford ducked, though a score of heads would pass unnoticed in that jumble of rock at such a distance.
Keeping to the river-bed, he moved up-stream and presently the cliffs beside him rose to the level of their mates on the other side. But there was always room for him to advance. At places the walls narrowed, the current rushing between with indescribable fury, and widening below in eddying sullenness that was almost as terrifying. That it did not always chafe its barriers in vain was shown by the tumbled confusion everywhere.
In a few places deep crevices ran down from the prairie, and these Stamford examined carefully. But there was no sign of a ford. Equally alive was he to movement on the opposite cliff. By lunch-time his clothes were showing marks of his tireless clambering.
Below him—during the last half-hour he had been rising on the face of the cliff—a comfortable ledge invited, and he climbed down and unslung his lunch. As he ate he realised how easy had been his descent. Out before him extended a level floor of rock up-stream; behind, a steep incline ran upward, disappearing around a bulge in the rocky face. Stamford knew cattle would not follow such a steep ledge at such a height. Below, the water ran smooth, but tiny whirlpools covered its surface; the current beneath was swift and treacherous.
He ate absent-mindedly, puzzled by the clear ledge ahead, while elsewhere was such a chaos of fallen boulders. With the last mouthful he retraced his steps, searching for some branching path to the prairie above. He found it in a draw that left at right angles the one he had followed down—an easy, grass-floored ascent. Tangling and twisting, he reached the prairie.
In its depths were unmistakable evidences of cattle.
He returned to the lower level and followed it to its end. Gently it fell to the level of the river; abruptly it ended in a wide platform of rock that extended in under the cliff for fifty feet or more. On all sides but the way he had come was towering rock only a bird could pass.
Nonplussed, irritated by the dashing of his hopes, he poked about. The bare rock all round could conceal nothing, and ten yards ahead was the certain end. Yet at his feet were the marks of cattle. He moved nearer the end of the platform and leaned against a pinnacle that projected from the water. As he turned helplessly to the opposite side of the river, the solution lay before his eyes, the one thing he had never suspected.
A heavy raft lay tight against the pinnacle on which he leaned, protected from the rush of water above by another jutting rock.
He approached it with incredulity. Quiet as the stream looked superficially just there, he knew no motive power applicable at such a place would breast that current. And clearly it was too deep and swift to pole. In vain he examined the overhanging cliffs for wire.
At the very end of the ledge he caught sight of an end of cable wound round a rock. Through his field-glasses he traced its exit across the river. But still the method of passage was obscure, for the cable stretched beneath the torrent, as did the wire that connected it with the raft. Studying then the angle of the raft to the current, he realised that the same principle prevailed here as propelled the ferry across the South Saskatchewan at Medicine Hat.
It was surprisingly simple, yet he had nowhere else seen it in practice. A wire extended from either end of the raft to the cross-river cable, the shortening of the front one of which, together with the extension of the rear one, forced the current itself, urging against the angled side of the raft, to be the propelling power.
A burden lifted from Stamford's mind. Here was the crossing of the herds to the hidden valley.... Here, too, was the means by which the dogs—somehow unknown to Dakota and his comrades—were brought from the valley and turned loose on the prairie on that memorable night.
He caught himself whistling, until he realised that no part of his discovery assisted him to the solution of his own problem.
A feeling of discomfort had been increasing for some time, and he decided that he was under observation. Clambering nonchalantly to his feet, he retired to the cover of the pinnacle that concealed the raft from below, and seated himself behind it. After a time his curiosity overcame him. Turning on his knees he slowly advanced his head to look across the river.
As his eyes came over the edge of the bank he saw an end of wire protruding from a small pile of rock close to the water's edge. It extended out into the river and disappeared. He knew by its position that it was intended to be concealed even from those who commonly used the raft. The action of the current had worked the end from its covering of stones. He drew back without touching it.
At the end of an hour he decided to brave the eyes he knew were still on the watch.
Again he was late for dinner, but from a distance he saw the Professor and his sister drive rapidly up to the ranch-house. They, too, were late.
"Really," the Professor chided, trying to induce a frown to gather on his placid forehead, "your continued indignity in the matter of eats is a subject for solemn consideration."
"I am at a disadvantage," returned Stamford. "I have no team to hustle me and my discoveries home at night. With Gee-Gee and his fellow a good driver could, I am sure, cover from five miles up the other side of the river, and cross the ford, in the time it would take me to walk it on this side. With an exceptional driver I'd lose miserably."
"Some day," proposed the Professor genially, "we'll try it. I'm growing quite conceited over my mastery of the incorrigible Gee-Gee. I won't always be so busy as I am now."
"If that day delays, you'll never be able to get to town the mountain of button material collecting at the back door."
"Always," returned the Professor gravely, "I'm looking for something bigger. That discovery I hinted at last night—— You wait, you cold-blooded editor. We palæontologists may be denied some thrills, but at least when we make mistakes there's no libel action. If I could be assured that in the wonderful national museum for which I have the honour to collect there would stand through the ages a monument to the memory of one, Amos Bulkeley—— It doesn't mould readily to Latin, does it?"
Stamford sighed wearily.
The Professor stooped to look beneath the blind.
"Your husband!" he announced across the table.
Presently Cockney jerked Pink Eye to his haunches before the door.
"Anything left to eat?" he called. "I'm starving."
"When Mr. Stamford has his fourth helping there won't be," replied the Professor. "He's a past master at keeping others talking while he eats."
"Stamford, take Pink Eye to the corral," ordered Cockney. "The bottom corral, you know. He's too tired to be breezy."
"Here! Let me tackle him." The Professor was advancing in a circle on Pink Eye, as if with a vague idea of securing a strangle hold before the broncho could put up a defence. "If I could end the summer with the thought that I'd handled a real devil of a broncho, my pride would sustain me for a whole winter. Even Gee-Gee seems to have lost all ambition."
"Don't you bother," Cockney growled. "I'll take him myself."
Stamford came forward valiantly.
"Don't be afraid of him," cautioned Cockney, removing the saddle. "If he cuts up, let him go; he won't go far. Here's the key to the gate. I think you'll find it swing easily enough. We'll have real hinges and a new gate before another season. Be sure and lock up."
The Professor watched Stamford gingerly lead the jaded horse away.
"I haven't the heart to let him go alone," he decided, and set off running. "If we don't come back," he shouted over his shoulder, "you'll find me gathering up what's left of Mr. Stamford."
Stamford, turning at sound of the Professor's heavy feet, saw Cockney standing before the ranch-house, watching them in that speculative way of his.
Pink Eye was honoured with a corral all to himself, an unusually strong one of six-foot fences, with a network of wire stapled about it. The gate, a clumsy affair of cotton-wood logs, hinged to the post by heavy loops of iron, was fastened at its other side by a chain passing through a huge staple in the gate and padlocked around the fence post. This post was sunk in the ground close to the main post of the fence, apparently added to fill an over-wide breach left by a makeshift gate.
The Professor took the key and pulled the gate open for Pink Eye to scamper through.
"Humph!" he growled. "The key seems a bit superfluous, with that contraption to move before Pink Eye could get out."
He closed the padlock and started back for the ranch-house.
"You're sure you locked it?"
Stamford, remembering Cockney's last words, turned back. To his surprise the loop had not caught, though the Professor had turned the key in the lock. The latter, apologetic, returned and corrected the mistake.
"They'd have thought we were too frightened to do the job right," he remarked, with a sheepish grin. "Just the same, it's a tiresome rite to go through for one lone broncho that wouldn't go far if he got away."
"Oh," Cockney exclaimed, several minutes after they were back in the sitting-room, "the key!"
The Professor fumbled through his pocket and produced it.
"Pink Eye must look on his corral," he observed, "as the equine equivalent of a jail. Is he in the habit of spending his evenings at the corner saloon, or——"
"It's a habit I have of wishing to reserve my own things for myself," said Cockney shortly.
"There are worse foibles," was the Professor's sweet reply. He gave the embarrassed laugh that usually preceded a confession. "One of mine is ever so much less respectable. I'm simply scared to a panic at thought of fire—fire anywhere—here at the ranch-house—wherever I spend the night. I know how foolish it is, but my instincts are stronger than my intelligence. I must have been a wolf a few lives back. At home I always sleep downstairs on that account."
"Unless both Stamford and ourselves give up our downstairs rooms I don't see how we can satisfy you at the H-Lazy Z," said Cockney.
"Of course I'd have to be near him," put in Isabel hastily. "So it's quite impossible. Please don't think of indulging his foolishness any more."
"At any rate," said Stamford stubbornly, thinking of the limitations imposed on his uncertain night investigations by an upper room, "I'm not going to give up my room until my host orders it."
"Your host," said Cockney emphatically "is going to do no such thing."