第53章

The river seemed absolutely the same as during the day.He peered through the dark opaqueness of gloom.It moved there, the river he knew, shadowy, mysterious, murmuring.Bostil went down to the edge of the water, and, sitting there, he listened.Yes--the voices of the stream were the same.But after a long time he imagined there was among them an infinitely low voice, as if from a great distance.He imagined this; he doubted; he made sure; and then all seemed fancy again.His mind held only one idea and was riveted round it.He strained his hearing, so long, so intently, that at last he knew he had heard what he was longing for.Then in the gloom he took to the trail, and returned home as he had left, stealthily, like an Indian.

But Bostil did not sleep nor rest.

Next morning early he rode down to the river.Somers and Shugrue had finished the boat and were waiting.Other men were there, curious and eager.Joel Creech, barefooted and ragged, with hollow eyes and strange actions, paced the sands.

The boat was lying bottom up.Bostil examined the new planking and the seams.

Then he straightened his form.

"Turn her over," he ordered."Shove her in.An' let her soak up to-day."The men seemed glad and relieved.Joel Creech heard and he came near to Bostil.

"You'll--you'll fetch Dad's hosses over?" he queried.

"Sure.To-morrow," replied Bostil, cheerily.

Joel smiled, and that smile showed what might have been possible for him under kinder conditions of life."Now, Bostil, I'm sorry fer what I said," blurted Joel.

"Shut up.Go tell your old man."

Joel ran down to his skiff and, leaping in, began to row vigorously across.

Bostil watched while the workmen turned the boat over and slid it off the sand-bar and tied it securely to the mooring.Bostil observed that not a man there saw anything unusual about the river.But, for that matter, there was nothing to see.The river was the same.

That night when all was quiet in and around the village Bostil emerged from his house and took to his stealthy stalk down toward the river.

The moment he got out into the night oppression left him.How interminable the hours had been! Suspense, doubt, anxiety, fear no longer burdened him.The night was dark, with only a few stars, and the air was cool.A soft wind blew across his heated face.A neighbor's dog, baying dismally, startled Bostil.He halted to listen, then stole on under the cottonwoods, through the sage, down the trail, into the jet-black canyon.Yet he found his way as if it had been light.In the darkness of his room he had been a slave to his indecision; now in the darkness of the looming cliffs he was free, resolved, immutable.

The distance seemed short.He passed out of the narrow canyon, skirted the gorge over the river, and hurried down into the shadowy amphitheater under the looming walls.

The boat lay at the mooring, one end resting lightly the sand-bar.With strong, nervous clutch Bostil felt the knots of the cables.Then he peered into the opaque gloom of that strange and huge V-shaped split between the great canyon walls.Bostil's mind had begun to relax from the single idea.Was he alone? Except for the low murmur of the river there was dead silence--a silence like no other--a silence which seemed held under imprisoning walls.

Yet Bostil peered long into the shadows.Then he looked up.The ragged ramparts far above frowned bold and black at a few cold stars, and the blue of its sky was without the usual velvety brightness.How far it was up to that corrugated rim! All of a sudden Bostil hated this vast ebony pit.

He strode down to the water and, sitting upon the stone he had occupied so often, he listened.He turned his ear up-stream, then down-stream, and to the side, and again up-stream and listened.

The river seemed the same.

It was slow, heavy, listless, eddying, lingering, moving--the same apparently as for days past.It splashed very softly and murmured low and gurgled faintly.It gave forth fitful little swishes and musical tinkles and lapping sounds.It was flowing water, yet the proof was there of tardiness.Now it was almost still, and then again it moved on.It was a river of mystery telling a lie with its low music.As Bostil listened all those soft, watery sounds merged into what seemed a moaning, and that moaning held a roar so low as to be only distinguishable to the ear trained by years.

No--the river was not the same.For the voice of its soft moaning showed to Bostil its meaning.It called from the far north--the north of great ice-clad peaks beginning to glisten under the nearing sun; of vast snow-filled canyons dripping and melting; of the crystal brooks suddenly colored and roiled and filled bank-full along the mountain meadows; of many brooks plunging down and down, rolling the rocks, to pour their volume into the growing turbid streams on the slopes.It was the voice of all that widely separated water spilled suddenly with magical power into the desert river to make it a mighty, thundering torrent, red and defiled, terrible in its increasing onslaught into the canyon, deep, ponderous, but swift --the Colorado in flood.

And as Bostil heard that voice he trembled.What was the thing he meant to do?

A thousand thoughts assailed him in answer and none were clear.A chill passed over him.Suddenly he felt that the cold stole up from his feet.They were both in the water.He pulled them out and, bending down, watched the dim, dark line of water.It moved up and up, inch by inch, swiftly.The river was on the rise!

Bostil leaped up.He seemed possessed of devils.A rippling hot gash of blood fired his every vein and tremor after tremor shook him.

"By G---d! I had it right--she's risin'!" he exclaimed, hoarsely.