“Liftinant!” exclaimed Sweeny, “thim naygurs up there is washin’ their dirty hides an’ pourin’ the suds down on us.”

“It’s the rain, Sweeny.  There’s a shower on the plateau above.”

“The rain, is it?  Thin all nate people in that counthry must stand in great nade of ombrellys.”

The scene was more marvellous than ever.  Not a drop of rain fell in the river; the immense facade opposite them was as dry as a skull; yet here was this muddy cataract.  It fell for half an hour, scarcely so much as spattering them in their recess, but plunging over them into the torrent beneath.  By the time it ceased they had eaten their supper of hard bread and harder beef, and lighted their pipes to allay their thirst.  There was a laying of plans to regain the river to-morrow, a grave calculation as to how long their provisions would last, and in general much talk about their chances.

“Not a shine of a lookout for gittin’ back to the Casa?” queried Captain Glover.  “Knowed it,” he added, when the lieutenant sadly shook his head.  “Fool for talkin’ ’bout it.  How ‘bout reachin’ the trail to the Moqui country?”

“I have been thinking of it all day,” said Thurstane.  “We must give it up.  Every one of the branch canons on the other bank trends wrong.  We couldn’t cross them; we should have to follow them; it’s an impassable hell of a country.  We might by bare chance reach the Moqui pueblos; but the probability is that we should die in the desert of thirst.  We shall have to run the river.  Perhaps we shall have to run the Colorado too.  If so, we had better keep on to Diamond creek, and from there push by land to Cactus Pass.  Cactus Pass is on the trail, and we may meet emigrants there.  I don’t know what better to suggest.”

“Dessay it’s a tiptop idee,” assented Glover cheeringly.  “Anyhow, if we take on down the river, it seems like follyin’ the guidings of Providence.”

In spite of their strange situation and doubtful prospects, the three adventurers slept early and soundly.  When they awoke it was daybreak, and after chewing the hardest, dryest, and rawest of breakfasts, they began their preparations to reach the river.  To effect this, it was necessary to find a cleft in the ledge where they could fasten a cord securely, and below it a footing at the water’s edge where they could put their boat together and launch it.  It would not do to go far down the canon, for the bed of the stream descended while the shelf retained its level, and the distance between them was already sufficiently alarming.  After an anxious search they discovered a bowlder lying in the river beneath the shelf, with a flat surface perfectly suited to their purpose.  There, too, was a cleft, but a miserably small one.

“We can’t jam a cord in that,” said Glover; “nor the handle of a paddle nuther.”

“It’ll howld me bagonet,” suggested Sweeny.

“It can be made to hold it,” decided Thurstane.  “We must drill away till it does hold it.”