Far below Job was already on his march homeward. With a swinging gait, and a determined will that said he must do it, though all the love in his heart said no, Job started off through the trees and on down the cañon trail. His eyes were misty and a lump was in his throat, as he caught one last glimpse of Jane. On he hurried. He was off now, and the sooner he got home the better. By rapid walking and some hard climbing he would reach Indian Bill's old cabin, ten miles down the river, by night.
He had just resolved on this, leaped over a creek stealing down far behind El Capitan, got full in sight of the roaring rapids, when he heard a step behind him and looked up to see Indian Bill himself coming. The old trapper was a well-known character in the mountains. His great brown feet looking out beneath torn blue overalls, his dark-skinned chest wrapped in a blanket of many colors, his long straight hair falling from beneath a well-worn sombrero, formed a familiar sight all over those mountains. Those feet had tramped every mountain pass and rugged trail and had climbed every lofty peak for a hundred miles about the Yosemite.
His approach was a glad surprise to Job. He could wish no better companion over that lonely trail which led along the precipitous sides of the cañon, with straight walls towering above it and steep descents reaching below to the Merced's angry waters, which dash for twenty miles over gigantic boulders with a fury unrivaled by Niagara itself.
Soon Indian Bill was driving away Job's gloom as, in his queer dialect, he told one of his trapper stories while the two swung on at regular gait, close upon each other's heels. Over the steep grades, through the deep, shaded ravines, and along the bare cliffs on that narrow trail, they went. They had gone a mile down the stream, when Job noticed something moving, high on the opposite cliff. He called his companion's attention to it, and the keen-eyed Indian said it was a horseman mounted on a black steed. Job thought of Jane, but at once said to himself that it could not be she—she was back at Camp Comfort by this time. A little later, Bill said the horse was now riderless and standing by a tree, and that a bit of something white was moving on the face of the cliff.
Just then they heard a terrible roar, and both forgot all else in the queer sensation that seized them. All the world seemed to sway before Job's eyes. The mountains below, where the river bends, seemed a thing of life. His feet slipped on the narrow edge of a steep cliff he was crossing, the gravel beneath gave way, and Job found himself lying at the foot of a steep incline, while a whole fusillade of stones was flying past him. A moment, and it was over, and the Indian said:
"Ugh! Heap big earthquake! Great Spirit mad! Come."
But Job could not easily come. His foot was doubled up under him and sharp pains were darting through it. Indian Bill sprang to his assistance, fairly carried him up the steep side of the precipice, from whence, fortunately for him, he had fallen on soft earth, and put him on his feet on the trail. Oh, that long walk over the jutting points, down among the boulders, and up again on places of the trail that seemed suspended between earth and sky! Every step brought a groan to Job's lips. He grew feverish and thirsty. Bill parted a bunch of almost tropical ferns which grew against the rocks, and led Job in to a place where, through the stone roof of a dark cañon, the ice-cold water trickled down drop by drop. It was well toward dusk when Job dropped exhausted on the trail, and the hardy Indian slung him over his shoulder, bore him up a narrow cañon that entered the main gorge on the right, and laid him down on his own blankets in the little wick-i-up made of twisted limbs and twigs that he called home. Soon the crackling fire warmed the water, the sprained foot was bandaged, and Job was asleep.
It was a strange scene on which Job opened his eyes the next morning. He was lying on a bed of cedar boughs, wrapped in an old gray blanket, and with one of many colors under him. A roof of gray and green was over him, the forest's foliage woven into a tent. Through the parted branches he could see the brown-skinned Indian bending over a ruddy fire from whence the savory odor of frying trout stole in. Through an avenue of green down the narrow cañon, he could see the morning sun shining on the waters of the Merced which tumbled over the great rocks. He tried to rise, but a sharp pain shot through his foot. Far away he heard the call of a bird, and out by the fire the weird strains of a monotonous folk-song rose in the air. Job closed his eyes and sent up a morning prayer. In it he tried to pray for Jane, but somehow could not. She was safe, he knew; probably at the fire, too, in the beautiful valley from whence those rushing waters came.
The trout breakfast was over—Bill knew where to get the beauties, and, after he had got them, knew how to cook them—when Job learned from the old trapper that he was to be his guest for a week; that not before then would he be able to continue the journey home, and that Bill would do his best to care for him till the sprained foot was well again. At first he rebelled. He must get home, he said; Andrew Malden was expecting him. But the Indian only grunted and sat in silence, as Job tried to walk and fell back upon the blankets with the realization that Bill was right.