Ledger grinned and wheeled his horse aside, following a distinct path which approached the nearer bank of the stream. The spray swept over them for a moment, and then they came out above it, and upon the steep bank.
Right beside them was a narrow chasm in the rock—a yawning gulf the full width of the stream which was here all of twenty yards across. Into this opening in the earth the river plunged.
“Lost River, indeed!” cried Dorothy, looking back at the others, with shining eyes. “Did you ever see anything so wonderful, Aunt Winnie?”
A deep, thunderous murmur, like the bass notes of a great organ, came up from the depths. The perfectly clear water advanced to the lip of rock over which it flowed, falling into the chasm with scarcely a ripple. But the spray rising in so thick a cloud showed that the volume of water must strike some ledge not far below the surface of the plain, from which it caromed against the wall of the crevice.
“Say! this is some river,” said Nat, in awe.
“How beautiful!” repeated Dorothy.
The foreman told them that the stream was fed above by numberless mountain springs, and had never been known to go dry.
“Such a waste of good water!” exclaimed Tavia. “No wonder those people in the desert want it. Why, it ought to make the desert blossom like the rose! That’s poetry, I want you to notice. But goodness! I won’t do a thing to those sandwiches and the coffee—when Mr. Ledger gets it made.”