Mad River

“ It proved, in fact, to be Mad River, already noted in the expedition of Mr. Hunt. On the banks of this river they encamped on the 18th of September, at an early hour.
Six days had now elapsed since their interview with the Crows; during that time they had come nearly a hundred and fifty miles to the north and west, without seeing any signs of those marauders. They considered themselves, therefore, beyond the reach of molestation, and began to relax in their vigilance, lingering occasionally for part of a day, where there was good pasturage. The poor horses needed repose. ”

“ They hired Indians to row them across in canoes, and all except the doctor bundled in. Finding himself about to be left, he grabbed up his instruments and waded out into the stream to reach the canoe, which had no intention of leaving him. He got in, wet and very angry, nursing his wrath till shore was reached; then he treated his companions to some vigorous language. They responded in kind, and the altercation became so violent that the row gave the stream its name, Mad River.
They continued down the beach, camping when night overtook them. ”

“ And for the first time Orde completely lost his poise and became fluently profane. He shook his fist against the menacing logs; he apostrophised the river, the high water, the jam, the deserters, Newmark and his illness, ending finally in a general anathema against any and all streams, logs, and floods. Then he stormed away to see if anything had gone wrong at the dredged channel.
“Well,” said Tom North, “they've got the old man real good and mad this time.” ”

“ And each year there are the new things to pass from mouth to mouth, from cabin to cabin, from the lower reaches of the Mackenzie to the far end of the world at Athabasca Landing. For the three rivers are always makers of romance, of tragedy, of adventure. The story will never be forgotten of how Follette and Ladouceur swam their mad race through the Death Chute for love of the girl who waited at the other end, or of how Campbell O'Doone, the red-headed giant at Fort Resolution, fought the whole of a great brigade in his effort to run away with a scow captain's daughter. ”

“ Nothing, indeed, can be imagined more arduous than this tracking up a swift river, against constant head winds in bad weather. Much of it is in the water, wading up "snies," or tortuous shallow channels, plunging into numberless creeks, clambering up slimy banks, creeping under or passing the line over fallen trees, wading out in the stream to round long spits of sand or boulders, floundering in gumbo slides, tripping, crawling, plunging, and, finally, tottering to the camping-place sweating like horses, and mud to the eyes—but never grumbling. ”

“ As the man watched that red spot on the black wall, the stream swung his drifting boat around a bend, and the light vanished. The dreadful mystery of the river drew close. The world of men was far, very far away. Centuries ago, the man had faced himself in the mirror, and had obeyed the voice that summoned him into the darkness. In fancy, now, he saw his empty boat swept on and on. Through what varied scenes would it drift? To what port would the mysterious will of the river carry it? To what end would it at last come in its helplessness? ”

“ Rivermen who follow their hazardous calling along the Magdalena do not lightly risk the dangers of travel by night in their native canoes, when at any moment a false stroke, a sudden crash against a tossing forest tree, and a cry through the inky blackness, might sound to the straining ears of hushed listeners on the distant banks the elements of another of the mighty river’s grim nocturnal tragedies. ”

“ The imagination can scarcely picture the dread realities, and it would be difficult to overdraw the awful features of a calamity which has every element of horror.
The River and Lake.
Nature is so framed at the fated point for such a disaster that man was called upon for unceasing vigilance. The Conemaugh makes its channel through a narrow valley between high ranges. Numerous streams drain the surrounding mountains into its current. Along its course swarm frequent hamlets busy with the wealth dug from the seams of the earth. ”

“ Over the river—what a contrast. If here be life, brightness, intense activity, what have we there? A black, oozy, slimy flat; sulphurous steam, too, hangs over the Stygian, quaking bog; but instead of azure water, only bubbling, lethargic mud comes, with a thick, slab mass; seething, in horrible suggestiveness of witches' broth and malignant wizard spells. One could fancy the flat a fit abode for ghouls, vampires, and evil spirits. While the living stream, the pure white and deep blue of the terraces, and lively pools, might be the chosen abode of spirits of healing and beneficence. ”

“ If our travelers expected to escape the impression they were under by driving down to the rapids and whirlpool below, they were mistaken. Nowhere is the river so terrible as where it rushes, as if maddened by its narrow bondage, through the canon. Flung down the precipice and forced into this contracted space, it fumes and tosses and rages with vindictive fury, driving on in a passion that has almost a human quality in it. ”

“ Neither Jud nor the other brother was anywhere in sight. I looked up at the steel cable above the man's head. It ended twenty feet away in the water.
I arose in the stirrups and searched the bank for the boat. It was gone. The Valley River ran full, a quarter of a mile of glistening yellow water, and no way across it but the way of the bass or the way of the heron.
The human mind has caves into which it can crawl, pits where it hides itself when it wishes to escape; dark holes leading back under the crags of the abyss. ”

“ Down, and down, and ever down, roaring and leaping and throwing its spiteful spray against the hampering rocks the terrible river ran, carrying our boats along with it like little wisps of straw in the midst of a Niagara, the terraced walls around us sometimes fantastically eroded into galleries, balconies, alcoves, and Gothic caves that lent to them an additional weird and wonderful aspect, while the reverberating turmoil of the ever-descending flood was like some extravagant musical accompaniment to the extraordinary panorama flitting past of rock sculpture and bounding cliffs. ”

“ A gray mist rolled with the wind, and dull clouds scudded over. We pitched camp in a clump of cottonwoods and made flapjacks; after which the Kid and I, taking our blankets and the rifle, set out to explore Hell Creek.
Reveille!
The Pen and Key Ranch.
The windings of the ravine soon hid us from the river, and we found ourselves in a melancholy world, without life and without any human significance. It was very easy to imagine one's self lost amid the drear ashen craters of the moon. We pushed on up the creek, kicking up clouds of alkali dust as we went. ”

“ The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamour. ”

“ From fertile hillsides and deep-loamed prairies its tributaries carried fine particles of earth in their water and dropped it as they went along the channel until there was a deposit of mud in the center of the valley much higher than the surrounding country. The old river has made itself a bed where it can overlook the valley. There it still turns and twists, with never-ending restlessness. All the banks of mud are soft. ”

“ We crawled down to the river bank and feeble folk were we, That Julie Claire from God-knows-where, and Barb-wire Bill and me. From shore to shore we heard the roar the heaving ice-floes make, And loud we laughed, and launched our raft, and followed in their wake. The river swept and seethed and leapt, and caught us in its stride; And on we hurled amid a world that crashed on every side. With sullen din the banks caved in; the shore-ice lanced the stream; The naked floes like spooks arose, all jiggling and agleam. ”

“ The river itself has a character of wildness all its own-now, brawling over rugged rocks-now foaming between high and narrow sides, abrupt as walls, sometimes, flowing over a ledge of granite, without a ripple on the surface-then plunging madly into some dark abyss, to emerge again, lower down the valley, in one troubled sea of foam and spray: its dull roar the only voice that echoes in the mountain gorge. ”

“ And now and then the sky grew grey, too, as a sudden squall swept down the gorge; and it was easy to associate with the wild mountain fiord the strange tales told to the early explorers, and to see in imagination the fur-laden canoes, with their silent, dusky paddlers wending their way down the rocky cañon, which the river seems to have hewn for itself with such difficulty, from the inaccessible solitudes behind, through the sea of rocks between these and the St. Lawrence. ”

“ Half an hour later the scattered lights of the little camp winked and twinkled for the last time. Turning, she set her face forward, and, adjusting the cushions to her comfort, strained her tired eyes towards the rising and falling shadow of her boatman. She seemed borne along on a mystic river of gloom that hissed and gurgled about her, invisible but all-pervading, irresistible, monstrous, only the ceaseless, monotonous creak of the rowlocks breaking the silence. ”

“ As yet the season was too early for much joy along Hell's Half-Mile. Orde's little crew, and the forty or fifty men of the drive that had preceded him, constituted the rank and file at that moment in town. A little later, when all the drives on the river should be in, and those of its tributaries, and the men still lingering at the woods camps, at least five hundred woods-weary men would be turned loose. Then Hell's Half-Mile would awaken in earnest from its hibernation. The lights would blaze from day to day. ”

“ That meager bag of crackers must feed six mouths until they reached the end of the cavern. That event might be in a week, and it might be in a month. The uncertainty and the suspense were terribly trying.
It was some consolation to discover that the river was still flowing very rapidly. The possibility of encountering more rapids they now dreaded but little, for it was very improbable that worse places could exist than that which the raft had navigated so stanchly.
249“We must travel night and day,” said Guy, “and in darkness. We have four torches left. ”

“ Thus, far from the beaten highways and the dust and din of travel, we beheld the country privately, yet freely, and at our leisure. Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the traveller to stare at her, but the river steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently creating and adorning it, and is as free to come and go as the zephyr. ”

“ Instead of being dependent for interest upon waterfalls, depth, wall sculpture, and beauty of parklike floor, like most other great cañons, it has not waterfalls in sight, and no appreciable floor spaces. The big river has just room enough to flow and roar obscurely, here and there groping its way as best it can, like a weary, murmuring, overladen traveler trying to escape from the tremendous, bewildering labyrinthic abyss, while its roar serves only to deepen the silence. ”

“ The river ran by, grim, dark and vast, and having been untouched by history, old as hills and stars, it seemed from a bridge, not like a wild beast in a pit, but like a strange, reminiscential amulet, worn by the city to remind her that she shall pass. How tameless and cold the water, alien, careless, monstrous, capable of drowning in a little while the uttermost agony or joy and making them as if they had never been. ”

“ On looking back, below me is spread out the narrow, winding valley, between its two mountains, widening at that point into an extensive bar, through which, on account of the many dams, canals, and other obstructions, the tortured river seems to have infinite difficulty in forcing its way. There is also the collection of tents, and the miners engaged in cooking, and collected in small groups about their camp-fires, for it is a cool morning. There stand the wrecks of our aqueduct and canal; the bare half channel of the river, and the surface of the bar scarred and pitted over. ”

“ The flooded world rose up before the five voyagers, the vast river, still black in the night light, floating trees, perhaps rooted up by the stream from shores thousands of miles to the north and west, the low dim outline of forest to right and left, and all around them an immense desolation. Everything to other minds would have been gigantic, somber, and menacing. ”

“ Rickard moved from bank to raft; knee deep in water, screaming orders through the din; directing the gangs; speeding the rock trains; helping Wooster, who was driving large gangs of Mexicans and Indians. The river must not be allowed to creep around the bulwark, to catch them unawares; the work must not halt for an instant; the force of the thwarted river growing fiercer with each pour of rock. [385] Haste against strength, or the victory the river’s! Hardin oscillated between the levee and dams, taking orders, giving orders. ”