Robert Ames Bennet

“ He stretched himself out on the rock-shelf and, regardless of the sullen resistance of the younger man, drew him into his arms. Chilled to the marrow by his frequent icy drenchings, Ashton was shivering in the cold wind which came down the cañon with the approach of night. But Blake’s massive body and limbs were aglow with abundant vitality. Warmed and sheltered from the wind, the exhausted man relaxed like a child in the strong arms of his companion and quickly sank into the deep slumber of overtaxed nature. ”

“ Gowan was afoot. His horse, as well as the regular pack animals, was heavily loaded with stores. He walked with Isobel, who had insisted that Ashton should ride her pony. Blake strode along at his wife’s stirrup, carrying his son in a clasp as tender as it was strong.
The engineer was the only cheerful member of the party. Even Thomas Herbert, that best tempered of babies, was peevish and fretful. He was instinctively reflexing the suppressed nervousness and anxiety of his mother. Gowan and Ashton were as gloomy in look and speech as the shadowy depths of the cañon. ”

“ Horse and rider were still in the curve of their swift flight when Isobel Knowles came out into the porch, yawning behind her plump, sunbrowned hand. A glance at Gowan cut the yawn short. She looked alertly afield and at once caught sight of the runaway.
“Kid!––O-oh!” she cried. “Mr. Ashton!––on Rocket!”
Gowan spun about to her with a guilty start, but answered almost glibly: “You said he could ride, Miss Chuckie.”
“He’ll––he’ll be killed!––Daddy!”
Knowles stepped out through the doorway, cocking his big blue-barreled Colt’s. Gowan hastily pointed towards the runaway. ”

“ All his hate could not blind him to the extraordinary mental and physical efficiency displayed by the engineer. Never once did the steely muscles permit a slip or false step, never once did the cool brain miscalculate the next most advantageous movement.
They were now so deep that Blake had to shout his infrequent directions, to be heard above the booming reverberations of the cañon. Half way down they came to a forty-foot cliff. Blake made his preparations, and swung over the edge. Here was an opportunity. Ashton instantly bent over the knot of the rope. ”

“ The puncher bent nearer to the half-frenzied man. “You’re going down that gulch with him. Suppose a spike gets knocked out or a rope breaks or a loose rock gets pushed over?”
“God!” cried Ashton, putting his hands over his eyes. “That would be murder!”
“Bah! You’d make a dog sick! Willing to do anything for her––except save her from him! And nothing to it but just an accident that’s just as like as not to happen anyway.”
“But––murder!” shudderingly muttered Ashton.
“Murder a skunk,” sneered Gowan. “If saving her from him isn’t a case of justifiable homicide, what is? Don’t you get the idea? ”

“ The thirsty pony needed no urging to start at a lively jog up the slope of the first ridge. As he topped the crest and broke into a lope the sun dipped below the western edge of High Mesa. A few seconds later horse and rider disappeared from Isobel’s anxious gaze down the far side of the ridge.
“Old Buck knows the trail,” murmured the girl. “He knows he is headed for the waterhole. Yet if––if he should lose the trail!”
A spasm of fear sent her hand to the pistol hilt under the fold of her skirt and twisted her head about. She glared along the cañon rim. Gowan was still striding away from her. ”

“ Heedless of the blood spurting from the wound in the side of Ashton’s head, Blake snatched up the automatic rifle and fired at a point between two knobs of rock on the hill crest. Promptly a hat appeared, then an arm and a rifle. It might have been expected that a bullet would have instantly followed; yet the assassin was strangely deliberate about getting his aim. Blake did not wait for him. He began to fire as fast as the automatic ejector and reloader set the rifle trigger. Three bullets sped up at the assassin before he had time to drop back out of sight. ”

“ All the way down that devil’s stairway he had been witness to Blake’s extraordinary resourcefulness and tremendous strength. What if he should find a way to clamber up the precipices? He had lowered everything before descending. There was nothing to fling down upon him––no loose rock or stone to topple over and crush him.
Chilled by that doubt, Ashton hesitated, his hands alternately tightening and relaxing their grip on the rope. What if the man should contrive to escape? ”

“ When he looked up, the pony was stolidly cropping a tuft of grass. Beasts are not often troubled with imagination. The hunter remembered his brandy flask. After two long pulls at its contents, the vivid coloring began to return to his cheeks.
He rose to his feet and walked down to a ledge on the brink of the precipice with an air of bravado. But when he looked over into the chasm, he quickly shrank back and crouched on his hands and knees. Before again peering over he stretched himself out flat on the level ledge and grasped an out-jutting point of rock. ”

“ On such an ascent most city men would have preferred to climb afoot. But there was a month’s layer of tan on the hunter’s handsome, supercilious face. He balanced himself lightly on his flat English saddle, and permitted the wiry little cow pony to pick the best path over the ledges and up the stiff slopes between the scattered pines.
In keeping with his saddle, the hunter wore English riding breeches and leggins. Otherwise he was dressed as a Texas cowboy of the past generation. His sombrero was almost Mexican in its size and ornateness. ”

“ Her relief was correspondingly great when at last she saw him coming towards her around the bend of the nearest hill. But his horse was walking and he was bent over in the saddle as if injured or greatly fatigued. Puzzled and again apprehensive, she urged her pony to sprinting speed.
When he heard the approaching hoofs Ashton looked up as if startled. But he did not wave to her or raise his sombrero. As she came racing up she scrutinized his dejected figure for wounds or bruises. There was nothing to indicate that he had been either shot or thrown. ”

“ He added somberly, “And now we are both going to the devil.”
“No,” said Blake, with no less earnestness. “There is no devil––there is no room for a devil in all the universe. What man calls evil is ignorance,––his ignorance of those primeval forces of nature which he has yet to chain; his ignorance of those higher qualities in his own nature which, if known, would prevent him from wronging others and would enable him to bring happiness to himself and others.” 321
“You say that!” cried Ashton. “You can mock! You do not believe in hell!”
Blake smiled grimly. ”

“ When the ladies explained their plans for remaining in camp on High Mesa, Blake gave a ready assent.
“All right, Jenny. It’ll be something like old times. Can’t scare you up any lions or fever, leopards or cyclones; but you may see that wolf.”
“I should welcome all savage Africa if it would rid us of this awful cañon!” replied his wife.
“Won’t you please give it up?” begged Isobel. “I am to blame for your coming here. If anything should happen to you, I––I could never forgive myself––never!” ”

“ Isobel had well expressed it when she said that he was climbing swiftly and bravely. Running along shelves, clambering ledges, following up the crevices that offered the best foothold, the tattered climber fought his dizzy way upwards, upwards, ever upwards!
Rarely, after some particularly hard scramble, he flung himself down on a shelf or on one of the steps of the Titanic ladder, to rest and summon energy for another upward rush. His good fortune seemed as marvelous as his endurance and daring. He never once slipped and never once had to turn back from an ascent. ”

“ Jenny,” he remarked.
The cultured child of millions smiled up at him reproachfully. “What! after I have been with you so long, Daddy? But it’s true there was a time––before Tom taught me that men cannot be judged by mere polish and veneer, or the lack of polish and veneer.” 384
Isobel, all her doubts and fears allayed, had risen from the precipice’s edge in time to hear Genevieve’s reply. She added eagerly: “Nor should men be judged by what they have been if they have become something else––if they have climbed up––up out of the depths!” ”

“ She looked at Isobel, her soft eyes shining with love and pride. “Once he gets a grip on anything, he never lets go.”
“Oh, I can believe that!” exclaimed the girl with an enthusiasm that brought a shadow into the mobile face of Ashton.
“A man can’t help holding on when he has something to hold on for,” said Blake, gazing at his wife and baby.
“That’s true!” agreed Ashton, his eyes on the dimpled face of Isobel. ”

“ Whatever might follow, he must and would unlock the secret of the hidden waters. Afterwards might come death by slow starvation or the quick dashing down from some half-scaled precipice. That mattered not now. First must the engineer perform his work,––first must he execute the task that he had set himself for the conquest of the chasm that was likely to prove his tomb.
Vastly different in purpose, yet no less resolute than the engineer, Ashton joined zealously in the grim battle with the abyss––for battle it soon proved to be. ”

“ The third evening, after supper, Gowan handed Isobel the horny, half-flattened rattles of an unusually large rattlesnake.
“What is it? Do you wish me to guess his length?” she asked, evidently surprised that he should fetch her so commonplace an object. “I make it four feet.”
“You’re three inches short,” he replied.
“Well, what about it?” she inquired.
“Nothing––only I just happened to get him up near the bunkhouse, Miss Chuckie. Thought I’d tell you, in case he has a mate around.”
“We must all look sharp. You, too, Mr. Ashton. They are more apt to strike without warning, this time of year.” ”

“ We must do the best we can. You must go yourself. I can stay and watch––”
“No, no!” cried Isobel. “The way he looked at Lafe!––I dare not go! He may come back––and I not here!”
She knelt to place her trembling hand on Ashton’s forehead.
Genevieve looked at the setting sun. “There is no time to lose,” she said. “Saddle my horse while I nurse Baby. I cannot take him with me down the mountain, in the dark.”
“Genevieve! You dare go––at night?”
“Someone must bring help, else Tom––all alone down in that dreadful chasm––!” ”

“ Blake sought to divert Ashton from his disappointment, 182 but he had ears only for the laughing, chatting couple behind him. The fact that Blake was a married man did not prevent the lover from giving way to jealous envy. Chancing to look around as he warned the hilarious pair of a gully, he saw the girl grasp Blake’s shoulder. Natural as was the act, his envy flared up in hot resentment. Except on their drive to Stockchute, she had always avoided even touching his hand with her finger tips; yet now she clung to the engineer with a grasp as familiar as that of an affectionate child. ”

“ You are so strong! so full of hope!”
“Not hope, dear. It is trust. I know Tom better than you. That is all.”
“Another flash!” cried Isobel. “So soon, yet all that long way from the last! They are traveling far faster!”
“Yes, they have finished with the levels,” divined Genevieve. “We must hasten.”
Isobel called the news to the silent puncher, and all moved along to overtake the hurrying fugitives below. Though both parties went so much faster, Blake’s frequent shots kept the anxious watchers above in closer touch than at any time before. ”

“ Blake considered a full half minute, looked up the cliff face, and replied: “Perhaps it’s as well. I shall do the best I can. But first I want to tell you I’ve wiped out all that past affair. You are another person from that Lafayette Ashton. We stand here almost face to face with the Unknown. One or both of us may soon go out into the Darkness. As we may never meet again, I wish to tell you that you have proved yourself, even more than I hoped when I saw you come rushing down the ravine to join me. You have proved yourself a man. ”

“ I must tell Daddy. Give me Thomas. See, he is fast asleep, the poor abused little darling! Go and watch them, and our climbers. They are going down like a string of mountain sheep.”
Genevieve placed the baby in his aunt’s outstretched arms and went to look into the abyss through the field glasses. Isobel drew her father away, out of earshot of the down-peering group of men. She stopped behind the tent, which Gowan had pitched part way up the slope of the ridge.
“You want to talk with me about Lafe, honey?” surmised Knowles, as the girl started to speak and hesitated. ”

“ Night settled down close and dense over the plateau. The girl crouched beside the sleeper, her eyes peering out into the blackness, the drawn pistol ready in her hand. She could see only a few feet in the dim starlight. But her ears, accustomed to the dull monotone of the booming cañon, heard every sound––the click of the horses’ hoofs, even the munching of the nearest one, the hoot of the owls that flitted overhead, the distant yelps and wails of coyotes. 355
An hour passed, two hours––a third. She crept around to replenish the fire. When she returned she heard the baby fretting. ”

“ This Gowan can’t be much older than I am.”
The girl dropped her bantering tone, and answered soberly: “He is only twenty-five, and yet he is a full generation older than you. He was born and raised in a cow camp. He is one of the few men of the type that remain to link the range of today with the vanished world of the cattle frontier.”
“Yet you say that the fellow is only my age?”
“In years, yes. But in type he belongs to the generation that is past––the generation of longhorns, long drives, long Colt’s, and short lives; of stampedes, and hats like yours, badmen, and Injins.” ”

“ Blake burst into a hilarious roar. But Mrs. Blake now beamed upon Ashton. “Then you, too, see the resemblance, Lafayette! Isn’t it wonderful, and he so young? His name is Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake.––Now, my dear, if you please, I shall take him in. We must be preparing to start, if it is so long a drive.”
“Do let me hold him until you and Mr. Blake are ready,” begged the girl.
“I am not quite sure that––You will be careful not to drop him? He is tremendously strong, and he squirms,” dubiously assented the fond mother. “Come, Tom. We must not keep Miss Knowles waiting.” ”