She held out her arms to him again. "Tell me, my son," she whispered.
He dropped to the floor beside her; and laid his head against her knee. There, in front of the fire, while the sun went down, and the early winter twilight gathered, he told her the story.
"When Garth rode away leaving me and Rina in the poplar bluff," he said—reaching that part in due course—"I didn't know much what was happening. But say, that Rina, she's an out-o'-sight nurse! She brought me around in great shape; and the second day afterward I was as peart as you please. That same day the fellows from the Crossing turned up; Jim Plaskett, the policeman, and three others. It was Jim made them come, soon as he heard the story. Jim's a peacherino! One of these lean, quiet chaps you can depend on; decent, too, clean-mouthed—Oh! Jim's looked up to, I can tell you!
"They wanted me to rest a while yet, till they came back. But they had plenty of spare horses, and Rina and I wouldn't stand for being left behind. We rode like sixty all next day, and camped only fifteen miles from Death River. We found the bones of Garth's horse on the way—picked clean; and the note he left every place he camped. You ought to have heard Jim Plaskett crack up Garth's pluck—and Jim knows!
"We reached the canyon about half-past six in the morning. I'd heard of that place from the Indians. Say, it was a fearsome spot! a kind of crooked, gaping split in the prairie like the pictures in Dante's Inferno. The walls were as bare and hard and cold as black ice; and way down in the bottom there was a horrible jelly-like water swirling around without making any noise. Seems if you couldn't breathe good when you got into the place! Minded me of the receiving vault in the cemetery.
"There was a risky little path going down, and we kept right on. Across the river, there was a break in the wall where a creek came down a steep, wild-looking ravine. At the bottom of it we could see a tepee and a tent; but no people. Some said they saw a body in the ravine, but you couldn't rightly make out."
Charley paused and shuddered. "Say, it was horrible!" he whispered. "Glad I don't have dreams! When we got down near the water suddenly we saw old Mary Co-que-wasa come climbing over a heap of stones that was piled on the flat; and she was bent almost double, half lifting, half dragging a man by a rope under his arms. It was Nick Grylls. He looked dead.
"We shouted at her; and she looked up just once. I saw her face plain. It wasn't surprised or glad or anything—just stupid like a breed. She never stopped walking. She stepped right off the flat rock into the deep water with the man on her back; and they went out of sight; and some bubbles came up."
He stopped, staring into the fire. His mother caught him to her breast. "Oh, my son! what sights were these!" she murmured.
"Mary was a deep one!" Charley said slowly. "You couldn't tell about her! I never heard her open her mouth!