The eagle's wing: A story of the Colorado

by B. M. Bower

Rawley did not see. He was hot after the old man, who ran awkwardly, his pockets weighted so that they sagged the full stretch of the cloth, a sample bag over his shoulder knocking heavily against his back. He headed straight for the current that boiled, a miniature Colorado, in the channel.

He meant to jump it and gain the other side. He had lost all sense of proportion. He did not see that a horse could scarcely clear the racing flood. Rawley shouted a warning just as Old Jess reached the brink. The old vulture gave a scream, sprang out, and the current caught him and dragged him down.

Rawley ran for a few steps down the plunging stream, put one foot in the quicksand and hurled himself back just in time. The black, tumbled object that was Old Jess whirled on.

“The river never gives up its dead; he said it himself,” Rawley exclaimed in an awed tone to Peter, and turned. But Peter was not behind him, as he had supposed. Then he saw him lying among a litter of small, mossy rocks.

Up on the bank men were shouting, pointing upriver when Rawley heaved Peter up on his back and started picking his way toward shore. Rawley glanced up, saw the stretched arms, looked, and began running.

Up the river, close against shore, looking as if it were hugging the rocks for protection, a narrow, white line came leaping down upon him. The Colorado was not a river to submit tamely to the will of man. It had found a weak spot close inshore, and in the few hours that it had been fretting against its barrier, it had eaten a way through. Now a slim skirmisher came surging down through the tunnel the water had made.

Men scrambled down the bluff toward him; well-groomed men with patent leathers that slipped on the steep bank. They could not help, but neither could they stand up there with their hands in their pockets and watch.

Rawley did not see them. He did not see that gamboling white line, after the first glance. He did not see anything, save the next place where he must set his foot, the next mud bar which he must avoid. His shoulders were bent under the two-hundred-pound weight of a man he loved as he had never before loved any man, and he knew that safety might lie in a second,—in one long stride.

The rocks seemed to grow more slippery, more slimy as he went on. The mud banks seemed to slide in upon him. He had to turn back once, just in time to avoid a patch of ooze. He imagined that the shore receded, or that he stood still and moved his feet in one spot. But he fought that notion and forced himself to believe that he was making time against the small, devouring flood that was racing down at him. He kept telling himself that the water had twice as far to travel in order to engulf him as he must go to escape it.

He was right. The water had farther to travel, and he made time. Indeed, the spectators swore that he made a new record for speed. Running with two hundred pounds on his back was a feat for any man on smooth going, they told him. Over that course, it was not an achievement at all; it was a miracle.