Zane Grey by The Heritage of the Desert Read Free Book Online Page B

the
shelving cliff they picked their way cautiously, and turned a corner.
Lights twinkled in Hare's sight, a fresh breeze, coming from water,
dampened his cheek, and a hollow rumble, a long roll as of distant
thunder, filled his ears.
    "What's that?" he asked.
    "That, my lad, is what I always love to hear. It means I'm home. It's
the roar of the Colorado as she takes her first plunge into the Canyon."

IV - The Oasis
*
    AUGUST NAAB'S oasis was an oval valley, level as a floor, green with leaf
and white with blossom, enclosed by a circle of colossal cliffs of vivid
vermilion hue. At its western curve the Colorado River split the red
walls from north to south. When the wind was west a sullen roar, remote
as of some far-off driving mill, filled the valley; when it was east a
dreamy hollow hum, a somnolent song, murmured through the cottonwoods;
when no wind stirred, silence reigned, a silence not of serene plain or
mountain fastness, but shut in, compressed, strange, and breathless.
Safe from the storms of the elements as well as of the world was this
Garden of Eschtah.
    Naab had put Hare to bed on the unroofed porch of a log house, but routed
him out early, and when Hare lifted the blankets a shower of
cotton-blossoms drifted away like snow. A grove of gray-barked trees
spread green canopy overhead, and through the intricate web shone crimson
walls, soaring with resistless onsweep up and up to shut out all but a
blue lake of sky.
    "I want you to see the Navajos cross the river," said Naab.
    Hare accompanied him out through the grove to a road that flanked the
first rise of the red wall; they followed this for half a mile, and
turning a corner came into an unobstructed view. A roar of rushing
waters had prepared Hare, but the river that he saw appalled him. It was
red and swift; it slid onward like an enormous slippery snake; its
constricted head raised a crest of leaping waves, and disappeared in a
dark chasm, whence came a bellow and boom.
    "That opening where she jumps off is the head of the Grand Canyon," said
Naab. "It's five hundred feet deep there, and thirty miles below it's
five thousand. Oh, once in, she tears in a hurry! Come, we turn up the
bank here."
    Hare could find no speech, and he felt immeasurably small. All that he
had seen in reaching this isolated spot was dwarfed in comparison. This
"Crossing of the Fathers," as Naab called it, was the gateway of the
desert. This roar of turbulent waters was the sinister monotone of the
mighty desert symphony of great depths, great heights, great reaches.
    On a sandy strip of bank the Navajos had halted. This was as far as they
could go, for above the wall jutted out into the river. From here the
head of the Canyon was not visible, and the roar of the rapids was
accordingly lessened in volume. But even in this smooth water the river
spoke a warning.
    "The Navajos go in here and swim their mustangs across to that sand bar,"
explained Naab. "The current helps when she's high, and there's a
three-foot raise on now."
    "I can't believe it possible. What danger they must run—those little
mustangs!" exclaimed Hare.
    "Danger? Yes, I suppose so," replied Naab, as if it were a new idea.
"My lad, the Mormons crossed here by the hundreds. Many were drowned.
This trail and crossing were unknown except to Indians before the Mormon
exodus."
    The mustangs had to be driven into the water. Scarbreast led, and his
mustang, after many kicks and reluctant steps, went over his depth,
wetting the stalwart chief to the waist. Bare-legged Indians waded in
and urged their pack-ponies. Shouts, shrill cries, blows mingled with
snorts and splashes.
    Dave and George Naab in flat boats rowed slowly on the down-stream side
of the Indians. Presently all the mustangs and ponies were in, the
procession widening out in a triangle from Scarbreast, the leader. The
pack-ponies appeared to swim better than the mounted mustangs, or else
the packs of deer-pelts made them more buoyant. When one-third way
across