“There isn’t a thing the matter with my eyes,” Dick insisted. “You look at that rapid; it isn’t shooting half as high as it did. I tell you the river’s rising!”
A very little additional observation proved the fact definitely and beyond doubt; the river was rising. Hurrying up to the gash in the cliff where the men were working, the boys assailed Bannagher, asking him where Mr. Goldrick had gone.
“’Twas over the hill he wint,” said the big Irishman. “What is ut yez’d be wanting—with the eyes av yez buggin’ out as if yez’d seen th’ Banshee?”
“The river’s rising like fun!” Dick exclaimed, excitedly.
“Av coorse ut is—with th’ mountain snow meltin’ under th’ June sun. What wud yez ixpect? Haven’t yez seen ut joompin’ up an’ down ivery day we’ve been here?”
The two cubs glanced at each other sheepishly. One of the first things they had remarked in the canyon was the daily fluctuation in the stream level caused by the more or less rapid melting of the snow on the high peaks.
“’Tis forgetting yer lesson yez were,” laughed Bannagher. Then: “We’d be nading more dannymite. Would yez two be taking the key av th’ powther house, and a couple av the min, and th’ push-car, and be sinding a box av ut up to us?”
They undertook the errand willingly. The line-running was done, and the trip with the push-car enabled them to take the transit back to camp without having to carry it. In a few minutes they were on their way, all four riding the small platform car as it slid down the grade on the brake.
The car had made only a couple of turns in the crooking canyon, however, before the strange behavior of the Tourmaline again drew their attention. With every hundred yards the change in the river became more apparent. Great boulders that had stood waist-high in the bed of the stream were slowly submerging, and the rapids were disappearing one by one, leaving only oily swirls to mark the places where they had been.
“I can’t believe it’s only the snow melting!” Dick shouted, raising his voice to make himself heard above the shrilling of the little car’s wheels. “We’ve never seen it come up like this before!”