I flung myself impulsively on my companion, grasped his big brawny shoulders, and with my face close to his I whispered, “Pete, I believe the slide occurred at the gate.”
“Well, hit did sound that-a-way,” admitted Pete composedly.
“Pete,” I continued, “that butte has caved in on our trail!”
“Wull, tenderfut, we ain’t hurt, be we? Tha’s plenty of game here fur the tak’n of it and plenty of water, as fine as ever spouted from old Moses’ rock, right at hand. If the Mesa’s cut our trail we can live well here for a hundred years and not have to chew wolf mutton neither. I don’t reckon I can go to York with you just yet,” drawled my comrade in a most provokingly imperturbable manner, as he slowly freed himself from my grasp and made for the camp fire, which being to a great extent sheltered by an overhanging rock, was still smouldering in spite of the drenching rain. Raking the ashes until he found a red glowing coal, Pete deftly picked it up and by juggling it from one hand to the other, he conducted the live ember to his pipe-bowl, then he puffed away as calmly as if there was nothing in this world to trouble him.
“If the gate be shut,” he resumed, “it will keep out prospectors, tramps and Injuns.” With that he went to smoking his red-willow[1] bark again.
[1] The trappers and Indians made Kil-i-ki-nic, or Kinnikinick, by mixing tobacco with the inside bark of red willow, which is the common name for the red osier of the dogwood family. Editor.
But I could not view the situation so complacently, and when the rain had ceased as suddenly as it began, with some difficulty I caught my horse and made my way to the gate, to discover that my worst fears were realized; a large section of the cliff had split off the Mesa and slid down into the narrow gateway completely filling the space and leaving a wall of over one hundred feet of sheer precipice for us to climb before we could escape from our Eden-like prison.
Again a wave of superstitious dread swept over me as I viewed the tightly closed exit, a dread that perhaps after all there was more to Big Pete’s superstitions about the Wild Hunter than I dared to admit, else why should that cliff which had stood for thousands of years take this opportunity to split off and choke up the ancient trail?
The longer I questioned myself, the less was my ability to answer. I sat on a stone and for some time was lost in thought. When at length I looked up it was to see Big Pete with folded arms silently gazing at the barricaded exit and the muddy pool of water extending for some distance back of the gateway into the park.
“Well, tenderfut, you was dead right in your judication. The gate air shut sure ’nuff. Our horses ain’t likely to take the back trail and leave us, that’s sartin.”