Lost in the Canon Part 13

CHAPTER XII.-THE VOYAGE IS RESUMED.

When Sam Willett and Ulna returned to the camp they found Ike, Wah Shin and the dog lying on the rocks near the dying fire.

Although they had been sleeping for nearly five hours, it was with difficulty that Ike could be aroused, and when he did sit up and rub his eyes, he declared with laughable solemnity that he had only been asleep a few minutes.

"If you look at the sun I think you will see you are mistaken," said Sam, pointing to the west.

"Dat sun," said Ike, with the fine contempt of one who had lost all faith in the luminary that rules the day; "I don't got no use foh it.

'Tain't like the sun we uster know way back at Detroit. Wy, sometimes he gets up and hurries across the sky like a race-horse, an' sometimes he don't get up foh weeks an' weeks. He's foolin' us, dat's all I got to say." And Ike rose and yawned till he showed every tooth in his capacious mouth.

"I gottee heap muchee sleep, me no sleep mole foh twenty-one day," said Wah Shin, who seemed determined not to agree with Ike in this matter.

"If ebber I should get out of this yar sc.r.a.pe, an' I should hab lots of money an' plenty ob time," said Ike with comical earnestness, "I'll go off to some place whar it ain't dark most all de time, an' I'll sleep in de sun foh weeks an' weeks an' weeks at a stretch, an' don't you forgit it."

As it was now about three o'clock in the afternoon Sam, after consulting with Ulna, and recalling their experience of the night before, decided not to launch their raft till the following morning.

Wishing more than ever that he was a bird, Ike went off with Wah Shin to gather fuel, and Sam and Ulna, both much exhausted, lay down to get a little much needed sleep.

When they closed their eyes the western sun was flooding the canon with a river of golden glory, when they woke up "night had let her sable curtain down and pinned it with a star."

A great fire was blazing near by, and Ike and Wah Shin were preparing supper, while Maj sat licking his chops and eagerly watching the operations.

Sam had already divided the provisions, so that with care, "an' not eatin' nigh's much as they felt like," to use Ike's words, they could manage to live without much suffering for another week.

After supper Ike startled the company by saying:

"See heah, Mistah Sam, I'ze got an offer to make."

"What is it, Ike?"

Before proceeding Ike turned and pointed to the parcels containing their little stock of food.

"Ain't I de owner ob one-quarter ob dat grub?"

"You shall have your share, Ike; but why do you ask?" said Sam, who half guessed what was coming.

"I've eat my share for to-night."

"Yes, Ike."

"An' I still feel as holler as a drum," and Ike rolled his eyes and tightened his belt.

"You have had as much as the rest," said Sam.

"Oh, I ain't a complainin'; no one won't say, Mistah Sam, dat you don't tote fair, but heah's de pint I wants to git at--"

"Go on, Ike."

"You let me have all my share now."

"What would you do with it?"

"Do wif it!" echoed Ike. "Wy, I'd sit right down an' gib it all a inside pa.s.sage. I'd a heap sight rudder hab one good, squar meal dan a hundred scrimpsy ones. Dar ain't no pleasure in stoppin' jest when yeh wants to keep right on eatin'."

"Nevertheless we must all do it, Ike. We are not eating for pleasure, but to keep alive till we get out of this place."

"Wa'al, if we ebber does git out, an' I can sit down before grub an' eat all I wants, dat grub will suffer-if I has any strent left," and Ike sat down and watched Maj with a hungry look that boded no good to that faithful creature.

Sam had often been surprised at Ulna's gentle manners and the excellent English he spoke; he seemed so little like the wild Indians he had read about that he was anxious to know something of his life, but from feelings of delicacy he had never asked him about his past up to this time. By way of pa.s.sing the time before setting the guard, he asked Ulna where he had learned English so well.

"In the Mission School at Taos," said Ulna. "My father, who was a brother of our chief, Uray, was killed in the Sierra Madre Mountains, by the Hill, or Arizona, Apaches, when I was a little child."

"And your mother?" suggested Sam.

"She could read and write, and she could speak Spanish and English as well as the language of her own people; all this she had learned in the school at Taos, to which place the good missionaries took her when she was a child; that was long before the white man crowded into this land."

"Is your mother living?"

"Yes, and my sister; she is a year older than I, and she is very good.

Two years ago my mother, who still lived at Taos, married a white man-a Mexican. I did not like him and I ran away and joined the tribe. But I did not like the ways of our people, though I felt that their free life on the hills and along the great rivers was the only one to live. Yes, I have much of the white man's knowledge, and I am glad of it. Still, my heart has ever hungered for the free life of the Ute. No matter what befalls me, I do not complain; the Great Spirit rules and directs all,"

and as Ulna ceased speaking, he uncovered his head and raised his handsome, expressive face to the stars.

"I thank you for telling me this," said Sam, taking the young Indian's hand and pressing it warmly, while he added: "It does not make me love you any the less or more, Ulna, but somehow I think that the more good people know of each other the warmer friends they become."

"Dem's my sentiments," said Ike, who looked as if he had been sleeping, though he must have been wide awake. "Foh instants, when I didn't know Mistah Sam, I didn't like him at all; but now dat I does know him better'n any one in de world, w'y as a consekence I likes him a heap sight more'n I does any one in de world."

Sam had been inclined to feel angry with Ike when he spoke in the way he did about dividing the food, but this little expression of genuine sentiment on the black boy's part quite touched his heart, and he showed his feeling by saying:

"Ah, Ike, you may have a hungry stomach, but it cannot be truthfully said that you haven't got a kindly heart."

"Bimeby, mebbe, I tell you sometings all 'bout me, Wah Shin," said the Chinaman, who felt that he must add something to the expressions of good-fellowship.

After a little further talk, in which they discussed the situation and vainly tried to guess where they were, Sam gave the order in which the guards should be called and handed his watch to Ike, whose turn came first, and lay down on the blankets, which were quite dry and comfortable by this time.

To prove that Ike was not in the least selfish, though his display of healthy-boy appet.i.te might lead us to a different belief, it is but just to him to say that when his two hours guard were up, he did not call Sam, whose turn it was next, and who appeared to be sleeping very soundly, but he stood the whole four hours on watch and then awoke Wah Shin, and, after whispering to him what he had done added:

"Mistah Sam's got the keer of all on his shoulders, an' he needs all de sleep he kin git. W'y, I ken sleep any time; he can't, so I sez, let's let him sleep his fill w'ile he's at it."

They were up again before daylight, and the allowance of food for breakfast made ready, a portion being set apart for Maj, for though the dog was not at all a useful member of the little band, indeed, his consumption of rations for one made him undesirable, yet Sam could not find it in his heart to put the faithful creature out of the way.

There was no need to discuss the course they should next take; there was only one avenue that held out the promise of escape, and that was the swift stream rushing by their resting place to an unknown landing.

By this time all hands had become quite expert in loading and unloading the raft, so that it did not take them long to get under way this morning, each one in his accustomed place and Maj crouching down on the blankets in the center.