CHAPTER XXII.-"JOY! JOY! IT IS ULNA AGAIN!"

Unlike Ike and Wah Shin, Sam Willett was not the least superst.i.tious, yet, as he saw the spectral figure rising from the sh.o.r.e he could not imagine it a human being.

"Did you think me dead?" asked the dripping figure.

By this time Sam had leaped to his feet and advanced toward their extraordinary visitor.

He was not long in doubt.

There was no mistaking the lithe figure and the now pinched but still expressive face.

"Joy! joy! It is Ulna again!" cried Sam, and with a bound he was on the sh.o.r.e and the young Ute was in his arms.

As soon as Ike and Wah Shin were convinced that this was Ulna in the flesh and not his ghost, they ran down and performed such a war dance about him, as they held his hands, as he never witnessed around the camp fires of his own tribe.

When Ike could give expression to his delight, he pulled Ulna in the direction of the fire, calling out the while:

"Tum along; tum along! you looks if yeh hadn't had nawthin' to eat foh years. We kin fix yeh. We kin stuff yeh with rabbits till yeh can't stan'; an' w'en dem's gone we knows de place whar we kin go an' git lots moah."

Ulna certainly did look famished, but true to himself, neither by word nor sign did he give expression to the sufferings he had pa.s.sed through nor the agony of hunger he was now enduring.

The half of a cooked rabbit was left from the recent banquet, and Ulna had this placed in his hand and made to sit on a stone before the fire.

"Eat 'em allee up; me gettee nodle one, no time," said Wah Shin, who was never so happy as when he was cooking.

"Yes," urged Ike, "wade right in. Dar ain't no stint dis time. We've found de head-quahtahs ob all de rabbits, an' we ain't a gwine foh to be hungry no moah."

After all these expressions of hospitality and good will, Sam had a chance to say, as he took a seat beside Ulna.

"I thought I had seen you for the last time, but thank G.o.d you and all of us are saved to meet again."

"When I called 'farewell' to you," said Ulna, "I felt the end had come, but like the people of my tribe I did not give up--"

"Nevah give up de ship," interjected Ike.

"I made up my mind to resist the flood till my strength was gone,"

continued Ulna.

"One ain't got much strent, onless he's got plenty to eat an' lots ob time to sleep," said Ike, who, though much interested in Ulna, felt that he must give expression to his own feelings or choke.

The young Indian explained that he was so weighted down by his rifle and cartridges that, after the first rapids had been pa.s.sed, he had only strength left to keep afloat without being able to make the sh.o.r.e.

"When I was swept into the second rapids," he said, "all hope vanished.

I must have been rendered unconscious by some blow, but be that as it may, I have no memory of reaching the bank. When I came to last night I was half lying in the water. I drew myself out and walked about, trying to find something to eat. I could not sleep for thinking of you, for I did not see, after what I had suffered, how you were to get through the rapids on the raft."

"I cannot describe to you how my heart beat with joy a few hours ago, when I saw the raft shooting out of the foam with all its pa.s.sengers except the dog on board. I saw you making for the sh.o.r.e, and I shouted to attract your attention to the opposite side."

"If we'd a heerd yeh, yeh wouldn't ha' had to hollered twice," said Ike.

"I did not feel very strong till I saw you, and then, as there was nothing else left me, I made up my mind to try swimming across."

"An' you made it; you made it like a-like a mice, an' yeh fotched yeh rifle widge yeh," said Ike, in tones of great approval.

"Ike he heap talkee," said Wah Shin, as he sat another half of a broiled rabbit before Ulna. "Me cookee light slate along."

"And now," said Ulna, who had the rare faculty of eating while he spoke, "tell me how you made out after we parted in that strange way."

Sam narrated the adventures, already recorded, and after some discussion, to Ike's great delight, it was decided to remain here for at least another day, and to lay in a supply of rabbits before they faced the unknown and dreaded canon again.

After Ulna had appeased his hunger, Sam made him lie down before the fire and take a sleep, while he and Ike went off on another hunting expedition.

They brought home several loads of rabbits during the day, and Wah Shin, who believed the game would keep better if it were cooked, busied himself broiling rabbits till the last one was in an edible condition.

Toward evening Ulna got up from the blanket, in which he had been wrapped, and when he put on his clothes he looked like an entirely different being from the spectre that appeared at the river side some hours before.

Now that the immediate danger from hunger was over, Sam would have been comparatively happy had it not been for thoughts of his father.

It is well that it is not given to us to lift the veil of the future, or to tell what is happening beyond the range of our own vision. Yet, it must be confessed, that it would have eased the minds of the loving father and the devoted son, if each could have known of the situation of the other at this time.

It was not in Ike's nature to feel trouble for any length of time. He had all the light-heartedness of his race, and an enviable capacity for enjoying the present.

He played with the dog; he laughed and sang, till at length, overcome with the excess of enjoyment-and it may be the great quant.i.ties of broiled rabbit he had eaten, he threw himself on the ground before the fire and was asleep in no time.

Again Sam detailed the guards, taking the first watch himself, and when another morning dawned they found themselves more rested and refreshed than they had been at any time since leaving Gold Cave Camp.

The night before Ulna busied himself cutting the jack-rabbits' skins into strips, which he knotted and twisted into ropes, and these ropes were found of the greatest use in binding the pieces of the raft together before they resumed their journey down the long, dark, watery arcade.

They were afloat again soon after daylight, and the thought that they were safe and sound and all together again brought unspeakable joy to every heart-and we might include Maj in the list, for from his seat in the middle of the raft he eyed his friends with an expression of great comfort and satisfaction.

Long before the sun rose high enough to look into the canon they had drifted many miles away from their camp of the morning.

The current, which Sam estimated at about three miles an hour, was unbroken; flowing on in silent majesty, between the cold, gray cliffs that rose at points for more than a mile sheer up, till their eyes grew giddy in measuring their elevation.

Here and there, to the right and left, they pa.s.sed side canons, black and forbidding, like cells set in the walls of a mighty prison.

In the afternoon these side canons became more frequent, and as they approached one Sam saw that a stream of clear water was pouring out from between its walls.

As this opening was on the east, or left bank, and in the direction of Hurley's Gulch, he determined to try and get the raft into it, and see if they could find an avenue to the upper world through its bed.

He told Ulna of his purpose, and in an instant the young Ute had a pole in his hand.

They could touch bottom at this point and as the current from the side canon was not very strong, they succeeded in getting the raft in.

The bed of the stream was so narrow in places that Ike on one side and Wah Shin on the other were enabled to help along by pulling at the rocks.

It was growing dark again, and Sam, elated at their success so far, began to fear that they might not be able to reach a place where they could make fast for the night, when all at once the canon walls, as if they had been touched by the wand of a magician, expanded into a beautiful bowl-shaped valley.