"I don't mean we should want to climb up now, uncle; but it seemed a sort of satisfaction to know that there are places where one could climb in case we got the boats smashed up."
"If we had to make our way up, lad, it would be much better to go by one of the lateral canons like the one we came down by. I can see at least half a dozen of them going up there. We should certainly find water, and we might find game, but up on the plateau we should find neither one nor the other."
On the left-hand bank of the river the cliffs fell still farther back in wide terraces, that rose one behind the other up to a perpendicular cliff half a mile back from the river. There was a shade of green here and there, and the chief pointed far up the hill and exclaimed "Deer!"
"That is good," Harry said. "There are sure to be more of these places, and I should think we are not likely to starve anyhow. We can't spare time to stop now; we want to have a long day's paddle to see what it is going to be like, and we have got meat enough for the present. If we happen to see a deer within rifle-shot, so that we can get at him without much loss of time, we will stop, for after all fresh meat is better eating than dry."
"I should think it would be, uncle," Tom said. "From the look of the stuff I should think it would be quite as tough as shoe leather and as tasteless."
"It needs a set of sharp teeth, Tom, but if you are hard set I have no doubt you will be able to get through it, and at any rate it constitutes the chief food of the Indians between the Missouri and the Rockies."
For the next three hours they paddled along on the quiet surface of the river. The other canoe had drawn up, since it was evident that here at least there was no reason why they should keep apart.
"I didn't expect we should find it as quiet as this, Harry," Jerry Curtis said. "It is a regular water-party, and I should not mind how long I was at it if it were all like this."
"We shall have rough water enough presently, Jerry, and I expect we shall look back on this as the pleasantest part of the trip. It seems to me that the hills close in more towards the end of this sweep. It has made a regular horseshoe."
"I reckon it depends upon the nature of the rock," Ben put in.