“We had better leave this place,” Quail said as he gripped Hall’s arm. “It must be raining hard farther up the canyon.”
“Not yet,” Hall snapped. “Ralph, tell the Chief that we understand how he feels and that we will go, if he wishes. But warn him that if he does not accept the fair offer we wish to make him, other men may come and take this land from him, as they took other things from his ancestors. Try to make him understand that we are his friends.”
The Chief understood the last English word.
“Frens!” he screamed. “Frens! Frens! Frens!” In the rapidly gathering darkness the canyon walls echoed with his shouts. “Paleface, Navajo, never frens to Hopi!”
Chief Ponytooth, last of the Pony Clan, burst into wild whoops of sarcastic laughter. At the same moment, thunder rolled deafeningly above their heads, lightning danced about the canyon walls like angry spirits, and the rain began coming down in bucketfuls.
“Out!” yelled Chief Quail. In his excitement he forgot his careful grammar. “Water come. We die!”
He spoke too late. A roaring sound had begun far up the canyon. Before they could move, it grew deafening. At the same time a five-foot wall of yellow water swept down upon them like an express train.
After that, things happened too fast to be described. As he ran madly toward the canyon wall with the idea of climbing out of reach of the flash flood, Sandy slipped on a bank of wet clay and fell headlong. Ralph grabbed him by the collar and barely managed to drag him to safety.
Hall let out a wild yell as the dry sandbank on which he had been standing a moment before absorbed water like a sponge, turned to quicksand, and began to suck at his legs. Just before the wall of water struck, Donovan snatched up a long branch and held it out. Hall grasped it and, in turn, was pulled to comparative safety.
By this time the little trout stream had turned into a raging torrent. A great pine tree in its bed, roots torn loose by the tremendous sudden push of the water wall, came crashing down. A branch caught Ponytooth across the thighs and dragged him from sight beneath the flood.