Out Of The Depths Part 39

CHAPTER XXIII

THE TEMPTATION

When the ladies explained their plans for remaining in camp on High Mesa, Blake gave a ready a.s.sent.

"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 canon!" 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!"

Blake looked at the two lovely, anxious faces before him, and smiled gravely. "There you go again, and you have yet to see that gulch. But even if you find that it looks dangerous, you wouldn't want me to let a little risk interfere with my work, would you? Think of the fools who climb the highest and steepest mountains just for sport. I am going down there because it is necessary."

"But is it?" the girl half sobbed.

"Someone must do it, sooner or later," he replied, and he took his wife's hand in his big palm. "Come, little woman, speak up. Do you want your husband to be a shirker and quitter?"

"Of course not, Tom. Yet one should be reasonable."

"I have had enough experience in climbing to know not to attempt the impossible, Sweetheart," he a.s.sured her. "The worst looking places are not always the most dangerous. I promise you to take only reasonable risks."

"Have we time enough to look at the place this afternoon?" she inquired.

Blake glanced at the sun, and nodded. "The riding is good. We can get back long before dark. Ashton, you had better stretch out and rest."

"No, I shall go with you," replied Ashton, his lips set in as firm lines as Blake's.

"You cannot go, Lafe, unless you agree to ride my pony," said Isobel.

"I'm not going to have Gowan call me a baby again," he objected.

"You will need all your strength tomorrow," predicted Blake.

"You must ride," insisted Isobel.

"Very well--to please you," he agreed. "We shall take turns."

Blake again looked at the sun. "As long as we are going, we may as well carry forward the line of levels. We can take long turns nearly all the way, so there will be little delay."

"And I shall rod for you!" delightedly exclaimed Isobel.

"Only part of the time," qualified Ashton with a sharpness that the others attributed to his zeal to serve her.

He filled his canteen from one of the cans of water brought up by Gowan, and rinsed out the mouths and nostrils of the thirsty ponies.

This done, he and Genevieve mounted, and the party started off on a route parallel with the canon, which here trended back away from the edge of the plateau.

They soon came to where the surface of the mesa was slashed with gulleys and ravines, all running down into the canon. Blake swung away from the canon, in order to head the worst of these ravines or to cross them where they were less precipitous. Presently, however, he struck in again towards the great rift along the flank of a high barren ridge. At last he led over the ridge and down to the side of a very large ravine where it pitched into the canon at an angle little less steep than the descent of Dry Fork Gulch.

The line of levels, as Blake had foretold, had been an easy one to run. It was stopped on the corner of a shelf of rock that jutted out above the gorge. Having provided a soft nest for the baby, the four went out on the shelf and peered down the dizzy slope into the black shadows of the depths.

The two ladies drew back shuddering. Blake looked about at them and seeing their troubled faces, sought to quiet their dread.

"You have not looked close enough," he said. "With spikes and ropes, the worst of this will be comparatively easy. There are ledges and crevices all the way down. You cannot see the lower half. When I was here with Gowan and Mr. Knowles, the sun was shining to the bottom.

The lower half of the descent is much less steep than this you see."

Genevieve smiled trustfully. "Oh, if you say it is safe, Tom!"

"We shall take down the rope and all the spikes we can carry," he explained in further rea.s.surance. "At the worst places a spike and a piece of the rope will not only let us down safely, but can be left for our ascent."

"Then it will be all right!" sighed Isobel.

"For him--yes!" broke in Ashton, his voice harsh and strained. He was cringing back, white-faced, from the edge of the gulch.

"Why, Lafe!" exclaimed the girl. "If Tom--Mr. Blake goes down, surely you can't mean that you--"

"He's used to climbing--I'm not!" Ashton sought to excuse himself.

"Oh, very well," she said. "Of course it is not right to ask you to do it if you suffer from vertigo. I shall ask Kid to take your place. If he refuses, Daddy will do it."

"That may mean delay," remarked Blake. "If that scoundrel really is headed for Utah, your father may not be back for several days. Yet he asked me to settle this matter as soon as possible."

"Then, if Kid will not go down with you, I shall," declared the girl, her blue eyes flashing.

"No, no indeed, dear!" protested Genevieve. "It is simply impossible!

You shall not do it!"

"I shall, unless Kid--"

"You shall not ask him!" interposed Ashton, his pale face suddenly flushing a hot red. "I am going down!"

"You will, Lafayette?" cried Genevieve. "That is very brave and--and kind of you!"

"But if you have no experience in climbing?" objected Isobel in a tone that trans.m.u.ted the young man's angry flush into a glow of delight.

"Don't inexperienced climbers go up the Alps with guides?" he nonchalantly replied. "I can trust Blake to get me safe to the bottom.

He will need me in his business."

"Good for you, Lafe!" commended Blake.

It was the first time that he had ever addressed Ashton so familiarly.

He accompanied it with the proffer of his hand. But Ashton did not look at him. He was basking in the frankly admiring gaze of Miss Knowles.

The party returned in the same manner that they had come out, for Isobel firmly refused to permit Ashton to walk. Blake allowed her to set the pace, and she chose such a rapid one that they reached camp a full half hour before sunset.