"Keep right on cooking, for if we cannot cross the flood on the raft, we'll be swept into the great cañon of the Colorado, and there we shall need all the food we can take along."
The others set to work with a will, but even Ulna, who was born out in that land, only faintly comprehended the import of what Sam said about the great cañon.
Indeed, Sam himself had only a vague notion of what was meant by the now famous geographical name.
He knew the history and geography of his own country very well, as every well-trained youth should, and he was, therefore, aware that the great Colorado of the West was formed by the junction of two important rivers, the Green and the Grand; he was further aware that the water roaring outside entered the latter river about twenty-five miles below the camp.
Had these been ordinary rivers there would be good reason to dread venturing out on their currents at flood time, even in a good boat; but the Green and the Grand for many score miles above their junction flowed through immense rocky defiles or cañons, and they united in one mighty cañon, through which flowed for fully four hundred miles the waters of the Colorado on their way to the Gulf of California.
Sam had talked a great deal about this wonderful chasm with Hank Tims, and that most reliable authority had assured him that only two parties had ever attempted to go through the great cañon and returned to tell of their perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes.
Hank claimed to have stood on a cliff that rose straight up from the edge of the Colorado at one point, and looked down a sheer perpendicular depth of over seven thousand feet, the very thought of which is enough to make an ordinary head giddy.
But Sam helped to make a craft that would enable them to cross the two hundred feet that separated them from the opposite bank, and this accomplished in safety, they could make their way on foot to Hurley's Gulch, where he knew his father was eagerly awaiting his coming.
He secured all the gold dust about his own person, and then made up bundles of blankets, provisions and ammunition that might be of use if they did not succeed in making a crossing.
This done, he went out and found that Ike and Ulna had succeeded in staying and landing a great deal of drift-wood, just the thing for a raft, and a number of stout poles that might be used in guiding it.