Out Of The Depths Part 43

He swung one of the other bundles on his back, under the level. The third, which was made up of railroad spikes and picket-pins, he sent rolling down the steep slope, tied to one end of the rope. He had driven a spike into a crevice of the rock. Hooking the other end of the rope over its head with an open loop, he grasped the line and started to walk down the gorge bottom. As he descended he dragged the loose lengths of rope after him.

Ashton stood rigid, staring at the spike and loop. If the loop should slip or the spike pull out, he need only climb back out of the ravine--to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out.

The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack around to get at the tripod--and paused to look upwards at the three tiny faces peering down over the brink of the cliff.

He slung the pack over his shoulder and grasped the rope to follow his leader, who had come to the narrow shelf from which another measurement must be taken. He made the descent no less rapidly and easily than had the engineer. He was naturally agile, and now he was too full of his purpose to have any thought of vertigo. Yet quickly as he followed, when he reached the shelf he found that Blake had already lowered the bundle of spikes over the cliff below and was reenforcing with a spike a picket-pin that he had driven deep into a crevice.

"Drop over the chain at that point," curtly ordered the engineer.

"Think you can climb back up this slope without the rope?"

"Yes," answered Ashton, still more curtly.

Blake lifted the line and sent up it a wave that carried to the upper end and flipped the loop from the spike-head. He jerked the freed end down to him and knotted it securely to the picket-pin, while Ashton was making the third vertical measurement. He then lowered everything except the level in loops of the line, and wrapped a strip of canvas around the line where it bent over the sharp edge of the cliff.

Ashton laconically reported the measurement. Blake noted it in his book, and promptly swung himself out over the edge of the cliff.

Again his a.s.sistant looked at the fastening of the rope; again he looked upwards at the three tiny down-peering faces; and again he followed his leader. The sun was glaring directly down into the gorge.

Later they would descend into the shadows where no eye could perceive from above the loosening of the rope.

Blake cut off the line at the foot of the cliff and left it dangling.

They would require it for their ascent. Another t.i.tan step took fifty feet more of the rope.

There followed a series of steep pitches, which they descended like the first, unlooping the rope from spike-head after spike-head. The only real difficulty of this part of the descent was the tedious task of carrying the vertical measurement down the slopes at places where even Blake could not find footing to climb out horizontally on either wall of the gorge to obtain a clear drop.

Always, as they descended, the engineer scanned the rocks both above and below, calculating where the gorge bottom could be reascended without a line. Whenever he considered the incline too smooth or too steep for safe footing, he drove in spikes near enough together to be successively la.s.soed from below with a length of line.

Had not the nature and condition of the rock provided frequent faults and crevices that permitted the driving of spikes, the descent must soon have become impracticable. But the engineer invariably found some c.h.i.n.k in which to hammer a spike with his powerful blows. As, time after time, he overcame difficulties so great that his companion could perceive no possible solution, Ashton began to feel himself struggling against a feeling of reluctant admiration.

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 canon.

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.

Close before his eyes he saw the clearly outlined shadow of his head.

He hesitated and straightened on his knees to stare up at the top of the gorge. He could no longer discern the three down-peering faces, but he knew that they were still there. And the sunrays still pierced down to him between the walls of the gorge. The shadows were farther down, in the lower depths. He must follow and wait.

When he slid to the foot of the cliff, Blake silently cut off the rope. There was still nearly a hundred and fifty feet left for them to use below. But they went down more than a thousand feet before they again had need of it. As Blake had foretold, the lower half of the descent was far less precipitous than the upper. In places the vertical measurements were carried down by rod readings, the level being set without its tripod on the points of rock where the previous readings had been taken. At other places Blake marked out horizontal points ahead on the gorge wall, and climbed to them with the chain.

All the time the reverberations of the canon were becoming louder.

Dark shadows began to gather along one wall of the gorge. The sun was no longer directly in line with the ravine, and they were now far down in the lower depths. Ashton's knees were beginning to tremble with weakness. They had brought no water, for they were descending to the river. The torment of thirst was added to the torment of his hate. He began to look with fierce eagerness for the opportunity to do his work--to accomplish the deed for which he had descended into this inferno. Then he could go up again, out of the roaring, reverberating h.e.l.l about him, away from the burning h.e.l.l within him.

The shadows were creeping out at him from the side of the gorge. The sunshine was going--it was flickering away up the opposite precipices.

Now it had gone. All the gorge was somber with shadows. And below were the blue-black depths of the canon bottom. Dread crept in upon his smoldering hate to sweep across its white-hot coals with chill gusts of fear.

But now they were come to another sheer cliff--the last in the descent. From its foot the gorge bottom inclined easily down the final three hundred feet to its mouth, where the river of the deep roared past along the canon bed, its foam flashing silvery white through the gloom.

Here at last was the opportunity for which he had waited--here down in these dark shadows where no eye could see--here where no shriek or cry could pierce up to the outer world of light and sunshine through the wild uproar of the angry waters. He awaited the moment, aflame with pent-up fury, shivering with cold dread.

Blake dropped his chain from the cliff-edge and took the last vertical measurement--fifty-three feet. He smiled. The hardest part of the work was almost accomplished. He swung over the edge.

Ashton flung himself on his knees beside the triple knot that held the line fast to its spike. This time he did not hesitate, but began to tug at the rope end with fierce eagerness. He loosened one knot. The next was harder to unfasten. Blake had tied it with utmost secureness.

At last it yielded to the tugging of his gloved fingers. He started to loosen the third knot. Suddenly the taut line slackened. With a stifled cry of rage, he paused to peer over the edge. Blake had slipped down the line so rapidly that he was already at the foot of the cliff.

Reaching back, Ashton jerked the rope from the spike-head, to cast it down on the engineer. A glimpse of the flashing water in the canon bottom gave momentary check to his vengeful impulse. If only he had a drink of that cool water! He was parched; his lips were cracking; in his mouth was the taste of dust. Must he stay up here on the dry rock while Blake went on down beside the foaming river to drink his fill?

As he paused, a doubt clutched his heart in an icy grip. 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? There seemed no bounds to his ingenuity.... No, he must be followed on down into the canon and destroyed, else he would escape--he would come up out of this inferno, like the demon he was, and destroy _her_. He must be followed!... And the water--the cool, refreshing water!

His thirst now seized upon Ashton with terrible intensity. Rage, no less than the laborious exertion of the descent, had dried up his body with its feverish fire. Almost maddened with the torment of his craving, he looped the rope on the spike-head with reckless haste and slid down over the edge of the cliff.

As the line tautened with his weight it gave several inches, but he was too nearly frantic to heed. He slipped down it so swiftly that the strands burned his hands through the tough palms of his gloves. In a few moments his feet were on a level with Blake's head. He clutched the rope tighter to check his fall. An instant later he dropped heavily on the rock shelf at the cliff foot, and the rope came swishing down after him.

"G.o.d!" shouted Blake. Involuntarily he flung back his head and stared up the great gorge to the faraway heights where were waiting his wife and child.

But Ashton neither paused nor looked upward. Rebounding from his fall, he rushed down the slope to the river, with a gasping cry--"Water!

water!"

For a time the engineer stood as if stunned, his big fists clenched, his broad chest heaving laboriously. Yet he was far too well seasoned in desperate adventure to give way to despair. Soon he rallied. He lowered his gaze from the heights to examine the cliff and the adjoining walls of the gorge. All were alike sheer and unscalable. The lines about his big mouth hardened with grim determination. He picked up the rope and began winding it about his mid-body above the low-buckled cartridge belt.

He arranged the coils with such care that he did not notice the condition of the end of the line until he had drawn in over eighty feet. Then at last he saw. Though he had not forgotten to wrap the line with canvas where it pa.s.sed over the cliff edge, he had thought the strands must have been frayed through on a sharp corner of rock.

Instead, he found himself staring at the clean-cut string-wrapped rope end that he had knotted to the spike.

For several moments he stood looking at it, his forehead creased in thought. What had become of the knot?... He could think of only one solution to the puzzle. He turned and gazed down through the gloom at the dim figure crouched beside the edge of the swirling water.

"Locoed," he said pityingly--"Locoed.... Poor devil!"

CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE GLOOM

When the engineer came down to the river, Ashton still crouched low, his dripping head close over the water, as if he was afraid even to look away from it. Blake rinsed out his mouth and stood up to sip slowly from his hat, while looking about at the awesome spectacle of the canon bottom.

His first glance was at the swift-flowing stream. His eyes brightened and the furrows in his forehead smoothed away. The river was not as formidable as its tumult and foam had threatened. It could be descended by wading at the places where ledges and bowlders along the base of the canon walls failed to afford safe footing. He glanced up the stupendous precipices at the blue-black ribbon of sky, but only for a moment. His present thought was not of escape from the depths.

He bent over to grip the crouching man by the shoulder and lift him to his feet. Ashton writhed about and glared at him like a trapped wolf.

"Let go!" he snarled. "It was an accident! I didn't mean to do it!"

"Of course not," replied Blake, releasing his grip but standing close that he might not have to shout. "It's all right, old man--my fault.

The knot slipped."

"You own it! You own it's your fault!" cried Ashton. "You've brought me down here into this h.e.l.l-pit! We can't get out! Lost! All your fault--yours!"

He made a frantic s.n.a.t.c.h and jerked the revolver from Blake's holster.

The engineer caught his wrist in an iron grasp and wrenched the weapon from him.