The Frontier, May 1926 — page 74: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

64 He was close enough now so he could almost rubberneck over and see the man, when suddenly the latter re- appeared, scrambling, running. Toi- Yabe had used only a short length of fuse this time, and he possessed a wholesome respect for dynamite. Dickie stared, bewildered. What made that funny man run in and out of that hole? Was it the big bang he had heard? That second, while Toi-Yabe still sprinted for the horse, Dickie’s ques- tions were answered decisively. Of a sudden a hideous, jarring roar blasted his ears. The rock upon which he crouched, quaked and leaped, throw- ing him sidewise, and the shock drove consciousness from him. He saw a swirl of black and green; then he knew no more. It was as well. Though protected by a foot-high sleeve of rim rock so that none of the upflung débris struck him directly, Dickie had perched on a battered ledge which had been about to slide of its own weight. The second shock was just enough; unostenta- tiously nine hundred pounds of rock, cracking to fragments, broke away, hesitated, then slumped gently into the prospect shaft, bearing on its top a tat- tered, unconscious little five-year-old who on this morning alone had lived through enough perils for a lifetime. Toi-Yabe was delayed a few min- utes in spite of his impatience. The pinto, Cochise, just then decided he had quite enough of these rumbling explosions, and acted fractious. So Toi-Yabe saw neither the small ava- lanche nor the figure of Dickie. But he came on as soon as possible; and it was while fanning the fumes with his Stetson that he caught sight of something decidedly strange there in the bottom of the shaft. Was that the yellow, curly head of a child, for the love of heaven? He _ blinked, gasped as sudden, icy dread clutched his heart. [lis mind raced. The shoes and stockings—the sheriff’s pointed question— Had he killed some little youngster unknowingly? III mM) VEN as these thoughts flashed through his mind he was scrambling down, however. He | lit sliding in the <3 loose rock. It was a child, a boy, half buried, but still breathing! Toi-Yabe =n THE FRONTIER flung himself to his knees, tearing away the rock with his finger. “God, I hope he ain’t hurt!” he half prayed in the stress of anxiety. | Just then came an odd straining creak from the floor and the rock walls about him; supposedly solid as they were, just then they moved slowly an inch, two—— But Toi-Yabe was lifting out the youngster, noting with increasing be- wilderment the queer attire—and the fact that Dickie wore both shoes and stockings. Hurriedly examining the child, Toi-Yabe could discover naught save a multitude of small bruises. Just then Dickie sighed and moved in Toi- Yabe’s arms. “Oh—oh !” Oh!” *’Sall right, old-timer. All O. K.,” broke in the prospector, vastly relieved. “Tl have yuh fixed up an’ goin’ strong in jes’ a second. I wonder how in hell yuh ever got——” He rose to his feet, bearing Dickie with one arm and stamping a way over the loose rock toward the upward slant. Right there a black aperture, through which cold air rushed vehemently, sep- arated the floor from the side wall —and inch by inch, to the accompani- ment of weird creaks, that crack was widening alarmingly! Toi-Yabe saw and understood—just too late. A cry ripped from his throat, and he sprang for the slant. But as one boot was upraised to catch a foot- hold, suddenly and with no further ostentation, a rough circle of foot- thick rock—the thin floor of the shal- low shaft—dropped downward into unmeasured blackness ! Toi-Yabe, holding fast to Dickie, pitched forward, an involuntary cry bursting from his set, dry lips, and one arm grabbing widely and seizing— nothing! Tumbling headlong, he went into the black, fathomless pit. In the brief split second of falling he touched nothing; and gave himself up for lost. There was no telling how deep might be this awesome subterranean cavern. He found out almost instantly. With a ripping splash which reverberated from close-constricting walls, the sec- tion of rock ceiling struck the surface of a black, sweeping, almost silent river hastening on its way beneath the rock arches to the flume which gave it back to the daylight in the far, almost inaccessible canyon of the Virgin River, Toi-Yabe and his companion in mis- fortune struck the upflung spray in falling; and then his breath was caught he gasped. “Torky! from him in a constricted gasp. He clove the surface of an icy stream, was caught by the full force of the deep current, and fought with a reaction of furious energy against the whirling, sucking current, against the bruising outthrusts of the rock wall, and above all against the unbelievable chill of this subterranean river. The immersion brought a choked outcry of terror from Dickie, coming abruptly to consciousness, With child- ish instinct he flung both arms about the neck of Toi-Yabe and held on with all his strength. It was, perhaps, the best thing possible, as Toi-Yabe, in the following seconds, could not even spare the use of one arm. This was no sunken spring of the desert, gradually cooled by its hidden course. In its majestic onsweep could be recognized the force of miles of de- scent and the pull of a predetermined outlet. In its gripping cold was the taste of far distant snows of the high Sierras. Hampered as he was by Dickie, by heavy boots, crisscrossed belts with their weights of cartridges and hol- stered six-guns, Toi-Yabe struggled for every breath he drew. Much of the time, as helpless as a curled pifion chip in a whirlpool, he was drawn be- neath the surface, flung sidewise or end-on against slime-smoothed gran- ite, or bruised by obstacles in the curv- ing course, He scraped his fingernails along a slippery wall, and then without warn- ing was tossed to the far side of the river. There he struck with stunning force against something which held him a moment in spite of the dragging power of the relentless river. Instinct- ively he clutched and, though his fin- gers slipped as if trying for a hold on buttered brass, this was a rock forma- tion of such shape that he was allowed to grip one elbow about it, clasping his own bent wrist. Instantly he was swirled about, his boots swinging to the surface as his body skittered as a float of little appreciable weight. “Hold on, kid!” he gasped. Only then did he truly come to grips with the immensity of the stream’s mo- mentum. For several: seconds he held on, breathing in great gasps of the chill air, coughing and choking out the water which had descended to his lungs. He did not dodge comprehension of the issue. If once he let go of this up- right column which, like an I-beam, let the flood roar past on both sides, both of them were finished. He never would COmniclboooxs. com