Just after sundown we came abrupt to what looked like the end of the world, a gulf so deep that we couldn't see to the bottom. That mighty gash in the earth is six hundred miles in length, it's usually ten miles wide; it's more than a sheer mile deep, and full of mountain ranges all shaped like gigantic buildings. Dead weary as I was from riding more than two hundred miles in forty-eight hours, I forgot about being tired when I saw that place, the most tremendous thing in the whole earth, the Grand Cañon of the Colorado.
There was no rest for us, but seven miles of such a break-neck trail as I'd never imagined possible, for it overhung black death from start to finish, looping round the face of outrageous cliffs which seemed to have no bottom. Midnight was past before we got to camp beside the river, flung off the harness, turned the horses loose, and dropped in our tracks to sleep.
A gunshot roused me, and starting broad awake I heard the echoes crashing from wall to wall.
"It's only me," said Curly, "signalling."
Dark banks of fog were driving over our heads, and I shivered with the dawn cold. Then I looked up, and more than a mile in the air saw scarlet cliffs ablaze in the sunlight. The river rolled beside our camp, wide as the Thames in London, grey water so thick that splashes of it harden into mud. A gunshot answered from the further bank, then Curly gave the cougar war-howl. The yelp of a wolf came back.
"Both boats," said Curly, "are on this side of the river—something gawn wrong. Cook breakfast while I cross."
She took a little crazy boat and towed it upstream, scrambling over boulders a quarter-mile or so. From there she pulled the boat across the great grey sluice, fetching the other bank after a half-mile drift downstream. There was a strong backwater along that further bank, and she pulled easy, drifting past the camp up to a rocky headland. The man who had answered the signals was waiting there to throw his saddle into the boat, and follow, leading two horses so they could swim behind. By the time they crossed again I had our two horses to camp, and breakfast waiting.
It was not until after he fed, and he laid in provisions generous, that this robber—his name was Pieface—had a word to say. He took no more notice of me than if I was dead, and when he talked with Curly he sat close beside her whispering. I hearing nothing; but allow I thought a heap, for this man's face was bad, the very look of him was poison. My gun was plenty ready while I watched.
"Chalkeye," says Curly out aloud, but her eyes were set on this ladrone all the while. "This Pieface says that ten of our boys were sent down to wait for the ransom. They were camped at Clay Flat, you remember?"
"I ain't much forgetful," says I, for this meant that all the cowards had deserted! We had seen no men at Clay Flat.