There followed a series of steep pitches, which they descended like the first, unlooping the rope from spike-head after spike-head. The only real difficulty of this part of the descent was the tedious task of carrying the vertical measurement down the slopes at places where even Blake could not find footing to climb out horizontally on either wall of the gorge to obtain a clear drop.
Always, as they descended, the engineer scanned the rocks both above and below, calculating where the gorge bottom could be reascended without a line. Whenever he considered the incline too smooth or too steep for safe footing, he drove in spikes near enough together to be successively lassoed from below with a length of line.
Had not the nature and condition of the rock provided frequent faults and crevices that permitted the driving of spikes, the descent must soon have become 297 impracticable. But the engineer invariably found some chink in which to hammer a spike with his powerful blows. As, time after time, he overcame difficulties so great that his companion could perceive no possible solution, Ashton began to feel himself struggling against a feeling of reluctant admiration.
All his hate could not blind him to the extraordinary mental and physical efficiency displayed by the engineer. Never once did the steely muscles permit a slip or false step, never once did the cool brain miscalculate the next most advantageous movement.
They were now so deep that Blake had to shout his infrequent directions, to be heard above the booming reverberations of the cañon. Half way down they came to a forty-foot cliff. Blake made his preparations, and swung over the edge. Here was an opportunity. Ashton instantly bent over the knot of the rope.
Close before his eyes he saw the clearly outlined shadow of his head. He hesitated and straightened on his knees to stare up at the top of the gorge. He could no longer discern the three down-peering faces, but he knew that they were still there. And the sunrays still pierced down to him between the walls of the gorge. The shadows were farther down, in the lower depths. He must follow and wait.
When he slid to the foot of the cliff, Blake silently cut off the rope. There was still nearly a hundred 298 and fifty feet left for them to use below. But they went down more than a thousand feet before they again had need of it. As Blake had foretold, the lower half of the descent was far less precipitous than the upper. In places the vertical measurements were carried down by rod readings, the level being set without its tripod on the points of rock where the previous readings had been taken. At other places Blake marked out horizontal points ahead on the gorge wall, and climbed to them with the chain.
All the time the reverberations of the cañon were becoming louder. Dark shadows began to gather along one wall of the gorge. The sun was no longer directly in line with the ravine, and they were now far down in the lower depths. Ashton’s knees were beginning to tremble with weakness. They had brought no water, for they were descending to the river. The torment of thirst was added to the torment of his hate. He began to look with fierce eagerness for the opportunity to do his work––to accomplish the deed for which he had descended into this inferno. Then he could go up again, out of the roaring, reverberating hell about him, away from the burning hell within him.
The shadows were creeping out at him from the side of the gorge. The sunshine was going––it was flickering away up the opposite precipices. Now it had gone. All the gorge was somber with shadows. And below were the blue-black depths of the cañon bottom. 299 Dread crept in upon his smoldering hate to sweep across its white-hot coals with chill gusts of fear.
But now they were come to another sheer cliff––the last in the descent. From its foot the gorge bottom inclined easily down the final three hundred feet to its mouth, where the river of the deep roared past along the cañon bed, its foam flashing silvery white through the gloom.