“And never give up till we find her, dead or alive,” added Egbert, in a low, earnest voice.
“That’s the style. I’m with you there. I s’pose you feel a little hungry and tired?”
“I have hardly had time to think of such a thing as hunger, while I have become sensible of the weariness only after seating myself here—wondering all the time how it was you managed to have such a fire in so short a time.”
“No trouble ’bout that; you see I come down ahead of all the rest, and I wa’n’t in the basin two seconds afore I paddled out. I’ve been in these hills so often before that I know ’em purty well, but there was a little too much darkness for me to make out where I was. I pitched over a half-dozen precipices something less than a mile high, and finally lit here. It wa’n’t any trouble to start a fire, as this rain was a quick and not a soaking one. Falling right on the top of things, it floated off, and I found all the dried leaves I wanted; and after they was started the rest was easy enough.”
It came out further, that overwhelmingly sudden as was the flood that overtook them in the canon, it had not found Lightning Jo unprepared. His rifle was securely “corked” at the muzzle, so as to keep out the water, and his ammunition and a quantity of matches were all preserved in waterproof casings, so that, barring the saturation of his garments, he came out of the terrible bath as well as he went in.
True he had parted from his horse, but that cost him scarcely a thought. The mustang was so well trained that if he succeeded in escaping with his own life, he would manage to find his master with little difficulty; and, in case he had perished, there was no dearth of animals in the West, and there was little fear of Lightning Jo suffering long for such a part of his outfit as a horse.
As Egbert saw his companion heap more fuel on the fire, he could not avoid the thought that he was incurring great risk thereby, as both of them were rendered the best of targets for any skulking foe.
There were trees growing around, most of them of a stunted nature—but the light of the fire could be seen for quite a distance through the hills. The night-wind soughed with a dull, desolate wailing, through the branches, and the roar of the canon sounded distant and faint, growing less every hour, and proving that it was being emptied as rapidly as it was filled.
Finally Egbert Rodman could not forbear asking the question:
“Is there nothing to be feared in the shape of Indians, Jo?”