"Can you get down there to gather up our belongings?"
Eagle-eye shook his head.
"No get um."
"Why not?" interjected Walter.
"Pony fall in--Injun fall in," grunted the Shawnee.
"But can we not go forward or else back a mile or so and find an entrance to the gorge?" demanded the Professor.
"Yes, that"s the idea. Of course we can," urged Ned. "We are not half as bad off as we thought. Of course the mule is done for, but we can divide up the pack amongst us boys and carry it all right until we get where we can either hire or buy another mule. Don"t think a little thing like that will stop us."
"How about it, Eagle-eye?" asked Tad.
"No get um. Water him deep. Him cold, b-r-r-r! Pony drown, Indian drown. Mebby fat boy drown, too."
"That seems to settle it," announced the Professor. "We shall have to hold a council of war, as Eagle-eye does not seem to have any suggestions to make. What have you to say about it, Master Tad?"
"I think it would be a good idea to take a look over the cliff before offering any suggestions," answered the lad, dismounting and tethering his pony. "Perhaps the guide may be wrong."
One look over the bold cliff, however, was sufficient to convince Tad of the correctness of the Indian"s judgment. He found himself gazing down into one of those deep canyons that had been cut through the mountains by water courses during hundreds of years.
The wall on each side, while nearly straight up and down, was jagged and broken, but so precipitous as to make any idea of descending it impossible. There was not a bush nor shrub in sight until near the bottom, where Tad discovered a thick growth of bushes on the edge of the swiftly flowing water course.
A disturbed spot among these showed where the pack mule had fallen.
That he had not gone on into the stream and been swept away was due to the matted growth down there. The others had joined Tad by the time he had made up his mind that their guide had described the situation correctly.
"What do you make of it, Master Tad?" asked the Professor.
"Nothing very encouraging."
"Whew! That"s a drop!" exclaimed Ned, peering cautiously over.
"Where is our kitchen outfit?"
"There, where you see the bushes trampled down. What there is left of it, anyway. But perhaps the canvas wrapped around the stuff has protected it from serious damage."
"Little difference it makes to us whether or not," answered the Professor. "The supplies are lost and that"s all there is about it.
We have scarcely enough left to carry us through the day."
"No!" said Walter. "Then what are we going to do?"
"I don"t know, Master Walter."
"We"ve got to get the stuff up here, that"s all," answered Tad, with a firm compression of the lips.
"Then you"ll have to borrow a flying machine if you do. That"s the only way we"ll ever reach the pack mule. Why, it"s a mile down there--"
"Not quite," answered Tad.
"How deep do you think the gorge is, Tad?" asked the Professor.
"Oh, forty or fifty feet, I should say. I hardly think it is deeper than that. But that is quite enough--"
Tad, in the meantime, had been considering the problem, thinking deeply on the best means of solving it.
"Yes, I think I can do it," he decided.
"Do what?" asked Walter.
"Get the stuff up."
"How?" demanded Ned sharply.
"Why, go down after it, of course."
"Out of the question," answered the Professor, with emphasis.
"No, I think it can be done, if you will allow me to--"
"You mean, Master Ted, that you will attempt to get to the bottom of that gorge and bring up the provisions?"
"Yes, sir; I"ll try it."
"Impossible. I cannot permit it."
"I should say not," growled Ned. "If anybody goes it should be the guide. He is an expert at climbing, I should imagine, and--" Tad laughed.
"Why, my dear Ned, you couldn"t even push Eagle-eye down there. For some reason he seems to have a superst.i.tious dread of that place. I don"t know why, for Indians are not supposed to be much afraid of anything. I"ll ask him. Eagle-eye, will you go down there and try to get the provisions for us?" asked Tad, turning to the guide.
Eagle-eye shrugged his shoulders, at the same time giving a negative twist to his body.
"Eagle-eye not go down there," he grunted.
"Why not?" asked Ned.
"Bad spirits live in waters. Bymeby come out and get Eagle-eye."
"Oh, shucks!" jeered Ned. "My opinion is that they wouldn"t bother to get you, even if there were any such things down there."
"Then there remains only one thing for us to do," said the Professor.
"And that?" queried Walter.
"Get to the nearest settlement as quickly as possible."
"That would take at least a day or two, would it not?" inquired Tad.
"Yes, I believe so."