CHAPTER XXIII

THE BOAT IN THE RAPIDS

“Well, boys, we’re here at last,” remarked Jerry, after a while, when they had traversed some length of the canyon in the airship. “We’re here after a lot of hard work, and the next question is, what are we going to do; now that we are on the ground?”

“Go to Snake Island at once,” suggested Ned.

“Eat,” advised Bob, who had started to get a meal, but who had come back to the cabin, to wait while some of the things cooked.

“Chunky’s infallible recipe whenever anything goes wrong,” commented Jerry. “Still it wouldn’t be a bad idea. We can talk it over while we’re eating, and decide what’s best to be done.”

“What’s the matter with going at once to the island?” asked Ned. “I thought that was what we came here for.”

“It is, but I think it will be a good plan to see if we can learn anything about it before we go too far down the river. It may be that there is no such place as Snake Island. Or, it may be that, even in our airship, it is impossible to get to it. We want to find out all about it before we go too far.”

“Well, what’s your idea?” asked Ned.

“I think we ought to----”

“Dinner’s ready,” interrupted Bob, and they went out to the table, the professor carrying with him a book, carefully marking the place where he had been reading by putting his finger between the pages. The airship was moving at slow speed, and had been set to steer herself automatically. So the boys had nothing to interrupt their talk of the best plan to follow.

Eventually they decided to travel on until they reached Grand View, the point where Berry Trail led down into the canyon to the banks of the rushing river. They would make their inquiries there, regarding the possible existence of Snake Island.

It was night when they reached Grand View, and, in order that they might be among other tourists, who had come to visit the canyon, the boys and the professor put up at a hotel almost on the verge of the great chasm, storing the airship in a big open shed, sometimes used for autos.

“Snake Island!” exclaimed the clerk, when Jerry asked him about it. “Never heard of the place. Don’t believe there’s an island in the whole stretch of the river. But there are some guides around here. You might ask them.”

Which Jerry and his chums did, but with little satisfaction, for it developed that few of the guides had been farther than the regularly traveled routes taken by tourists, and this had not brought them to the more inaccessible parts of the mighty river.

“Snake Island?” repeated one grizzled guide, when Jerry had put the question to him. “If anybody knows whether or not there is such a place, it’s old Hance Stamford. Hance give up guidin’ long ago, but in his prime there wasn’t a better one at it. He’s gone in places no one else dared, and if there’s a Snake Island he’ll know about it.”

The boys sought out Hance the next day. He lived in a little cabin, not far from the hotel, being cared for by his son, who was employed as a waiter. Hance was indeed old, being past eighty. Yet his dull eyes opened quickly when Jerry put to him the question that meant so much to the motor boys.

“Snake Island!” exclaimed old Hance. “It’s been many years since I heard that name. Many, many years.”

“But is there any such place?” asked Jerry.

“Is there? Bless you, I don’t know, son. I’ll tell you as much as I can, however. It must have been forty years ago, and there weren’t many tourists in them days. Mostly Indians. I was making my way along the canyon with an Indian, for in them days I had a notion I’d like to discover things. Well, as you know, the canyon is narrow and steep in places, and when it rains you want to make tracks, for the river sometimes rises thirty feet in a short time. If you’re caught where you can’t climb up, well--it’s good-bye for yours.

“A thunderstorm came up while the Indian and I were in a narrow part of the canyon, where the river rushed along between black walls like a mill stream down the flume. We knew we’d have to make tracks out of there, and we did. But the rain came faster than we’d calculated on, and we had to climb. Then came a fog that nearly did for us. We managed to get some distance down the stream, and then climbed up the steep sides of the chasm until we came to a niche in the wall. There we stayed until the river went down, and we were there a day and a night, with nothing to eat.”

“But about the Snake Island?” asked Jerry.

“The island. Oh yes. Well, when we were hiding there in the hole in the wall, there came a rift in the fog. I happened to be looking down stream, and I saw something big and black rearing up, right from the river it seemed. I poked the Indian in the ribs--he was half asleep, you know--Indians’ll sleep anywhere if they think they’ve got to--anyhow I poked him, and he grunted and woke up. I pointed to the tall, black, wiggling thing, and the Indian said: ‘Snake Island.’

“‘Snake!’ I yelled. ‘Who ever see a snake as big as that?’ Then he grunted some more, and went on to say that there was a sort of stone island in the middle of the river. It had been pretty well worn away except a big hill and a tall thing, like a tower, that stuck up in the middle, like a church steeple. It was this tall tower of black rock that seemed like a snake. Of course the fog made it indistinct, and the motion of the mist made it appear as if it was wiggling about. So that’s all I know about Snake Island. I never went there, and I never heard of anyone getting on it.”

“There was a party of college men----” began Uriah Snodgrass.

“Oh, yes, I heard about _them_. But they never got there, and one of their number was lost. I tell you Snake Island is in a bad part of the river.”

“But just where is it?” asked Jerry.

“As near as I can tell, between here and Bright Angel Trail,” replied the old guide, as he nodded in slumber again. “I wouldn’t go there, if I were you.”

“Well, we’re going,” said Jerry softly, as he bade the old man good-bye.

Saying nothing to anyone in the hotel about their plans, the boys made an early start the next morning, and were soon gliding down over the great chasm in their airship.

Below them rushed and foamed the great river--below in its chasm trough, with walls of vari-hued marble, of sandstone that rivaled the rainbow in tints, while in other places, near the water itself, were black rocks, of flinty hardness.

“And to think that it’s seven thousand feet from the top of that gulf to the water,” spoke Bob in awed tones. “I wouldn’t want to fall.”

As they went on they could see fogs and mists arising, while, as the sun rose higher and higher, it made a scene of indescribable beauty, the tints on the walls of the canyon changing every moment.

It was about noon, and Jerry had calculated that they had made about half the distance from Grand View, when Ned, who was looking at the rushing, foaming river below them, as it dashed along over a gorge filled with rapids, cried out:

“Jerry, do you see anything down there?”

The tall lad looked through the plate glass window in the bottom of the airship. Then he snatched up the binoculars and focused them.

“It’s a boat!” he cried. “A boat in those awful rapids! They’ve lost control of her, and she’ll be dashed to pieces!”

“Anyone in it?” asked Bob.

Once more Jerry looked carefully.

“Three persons!” he exclaimed. “Well, it’s all up with them. That boat can never make the passage.”

And, as he spoke, the frail craft was lost to view as a curtain of mist rolled down and hid the rushing river from sight.