g-gull,
the murmur of running brooks, the song of a child, the whisper of a
woman. And there were the boom of the surf, the roar of the north wind
in the forest, the roll of thunder. And there were the sounds not of
earth--a river of the universe rolling the planets, engulfing the stars,
pouring the sea of blue into infinite space.

Night with its fitful dreams passed. Dawn lifted the ebony gloom out
of the canyon and sunlight far up on the ramparts renewed Shefford's
spirit. He rose and awoke the others. Fay's wistful smile still held its
faith. They ate of the gritty, water-soaked food. Then they embarked.
The current carried them swiftly down and out of hearing of the last
rapid. The character of the river and the canyon changed. The current
lessened to a slow, smooth, silent, eddying flow. The walls grew
straight, sheer, gloomy, and vast. Shefford noted these features, but
he was listening so hard for the roar of the next rapid that he scarcely
appreciated them. All the fugitives were listening. Every bend in the
canyon--and now the turns were numerous--might hold a rapid. Shefford
strained his ears. He imagined the low, dull, strange rumble. He had it
in his ears, yet there was the growing sensation of silence.

"Shore this 's a dead place," muttered Lassiter.

"She's only slowed up for a bigger plunge," replied Joe. "Listen! Hear
that?"

But there was no true sound, Joe only imagined what he expected and
hated and dreaded to hear.

Mile after mile they drifted through the silent gloom between those
vast and magnificent walls. After the speed, the turmoil, the whirling,
shrieking, thundering, the never-ceasing sound and change and motion
of the rapids above, this slow, quiet drifting, this utter, absolute
silence, these eddying stretches of still water below, worked strangely
upon Shefford's mind and he feared he was going mad.

There was no change to the silence, no help for the slow drift, no
lessening of the strain. And the hours of the day passed as moments,
the sun crossed the blue gap above, the golden lights hung on the upper
walls, the gloom returned, and still there was only the dead, vast,
insupportable silence.

There came bends where the current quickened, ripples widened, long
lanes of little waves roughened the surface, but they made no sound.

And then the fugitives turned through a V-shaped vent in the canyon.
The ponderous walls sheered away from the river. There was space and
sunshine, a