The boat moved on more slowly, to enable him to do this; but no signs of such a disembarkation were to be seen.
Soon before the canoe loomed the darkness of another narrow reach of the cañon.
“Shall we go into it?” the scout shouted.
“Yes,” said Pawnee Bill. “They haven’t landed here; so they must have gone on.”
The canoe shot, with dizzying swiftness, toward the dark opening, the current again running beneath the keel with race-horse speed, requiring, for the safe management of the canoe, all of Buffalo Bill’s marvelous skill with the paddle.
It was seen, when they were fairly in the dark opening, that here the cañon roofed itself overhead; so that the river ran through a black tunnel, making thus practically an underground river.
Neither of the three men had ever been on this part of the river before; but Clayton recalled what some of his former associates, the outlaws, had told him of an “underground river,” called the Bitter Water, that cut through a cañon in these mountains. He knew now that he was afloat on that underground stream.
What the result would be he could not foretell. But he recked not of the danger. If Lena Forest had been taken through it, he would not hesitate to follow; no, not even if it led him to death.
“Hold hard!” Buffalo Bill shouted, for the canoe was jumping and bucking like a wild horse. “Hold hard!”
Pawnee Bill could not use his eyes to much advantage in a search of the black walls; and as for the young man, he had all he wanted to do to cling to his place as the canoe flew on.