ed
the gorge over the river, and hurried down into the shadowy
amphitheater under the looming walls.

The boat lay at the mooring, one end resting lightly the sand-bar. With
strong, nervous clutch Bostil felt the knots of the cables. Then he
peered into the opaque gloom of that strange and huge V-shaped split
between the great canyon walls. Bostil's mind had begun to relax from
the single idea. Was he alone? Except for the low murmur of the river
there was dead silence--a silence like no other--a silence which seemed
held under imprisoning walls. Yet Bostil peered long into the shadows.
Then he looked up. The ragged ramparts far above frowned bold and black
at a few cold stars, and the blue of its sky was without the usual
velvety brightness. How far it was up to that corrugated rim! All of a
sudden Bostil hated this vast ebony pit.

He strode down to the water and, sitting upon the stone he had occupied
so often, he listened. He turned his ear up-stream, then down-stream,
and to the side, and again up-stream and listened.

The river seemed the same.

It was slow, heavy, listless, eddying, lingering, moving--the same
apparently as for days past. It splashed very softly and murmured low
and gurgled faintly. It gave forth fitful little swishes and musical
tinkles and lapping sounds. It was flowing water, yet the proof was
there of tardiness. Now it was almost still, and then again it moved
on. It was a river of mystery telling a lie with its low music. As
Bostil listened all those soft, watery sounds merged into what seemed a
moaning, and that moaning held a roar so low as to be only
distinguishable to the ear trained by years.

No--the river was not the same. For the voice of its soft moaning
showed to Bostil its meaning. It called from the far north--the north
of great ice-clad peaks beginning to glisten under the nearing sun; of
vast snow-filled canyons dripping and melting; of the crystal brooks
suddenly colored and roiled and filled bank-full along the mountain
meadows; of many brooks plunging down and down, rolling the rocks, to
pour their volume into the growing turbid streams on the slopes. It was
the voice of all that widely separated water spilled suddenly with
magical power into the desert river to make it a mighty, thundering
torrent, red and defiled, terrible in its increasing onslaught into the
canyon, deep, ponderous, but swift--the Colorado in flood.

And as Bostil heard that voice he trembled. What