T was getting dusk when Wheeler swung himself from the saddle near the head of the gully and, with the bridle of the jaded horse in his hand, stood still a few moments looking about him. A wonderful green transparency still shone high up above the peaks, whose jagged edges cut into it sharply with the cold blue-white gleam of snow, but upon the lower slopes there was a balmy softness in the air, which was heavy with the odours of fir and cedar. Summer was breaking suddenly upon the mountain-land, but Wheeler, who had crossed the divide in bright sunshine, was sensible of a certain shrinking as he glanced down into the depths of the cañon. A chilly mist streamed up out of it, and the great rift looked black and grim and forbidding.
Wheeler noticed a dusky figure beneath the firs, and, moving towards it, came upon a man with a pipe in his hand, sitting upon a fallen tree. In view of the strenuous activity that was the rule in the cañon, such leisure was unusual.
"Well," he remarked, "you don't seem busy, any way."
The man grinned. "I'm looking out," he replied. "Guess I've had my eye on you for the last few minutes, and a stranger wouldn't have got quite so far. You haven't got any papers from the courts on you?"
"No," said Wheeler, who noticed that there was a rifle lying near the man, "I haven't. Still, if I'd looked like a lawyer or a court officer"
"Then," asserted the man, "it's a sure thing you wouldn't have got in. The boys have enough giant-powder rammed into the heading to lift the bottom right out of the cañon two minutes after any suspicious stranger comes along."
Wheeler laughed, for it was evident to him that Nasmyth had been taking precautions, and, turning away, he led his horse down the gully. It grew colder as he proceeded, and a chilly breeze swept the white mist about him. The trees, that shook big drops of moisture down on him, were wailing, but he could hear them only faintly through the clamour of the fall. He left the horse with a man he came upon lower down, and, reaching the shingle at the water's edge, saw the great derrick swing black athwart the glare of a big fire. The smoke whirled about the dark rock wall, and here and there dusky figures were toiling knee-deep amid the white froth of the rapid. The figures emerged from the blackness and vanished into it again, as the flickering radiance rose and fell. Scrambling to the ledge above the fall, Wheeler found two men standing near the mouth of the heading, which was just level with the pool.
"Where's Nasmyth, boys?" he inquired.
"Inside," answered one of the men. "Guess he's wedging up the heading. If you want him, you'd better crawl right in."
Wheeler glanced down at the black mouth of the tunnel, on which the streaming radiance fell. He fancied that the river flowed into it, and the man's suggestion did not appeal to him.
"Won't you tell him that I'd like a talk with him?" he asked.
The man laughed. "Guess that's not going to bring him. It will be daylight, any way, before he lets up. You'll have to go right in."
Wheeler dropped cautiously upon a slippery staging, across which the water flowed, and, crawling into the heading, with a blinking light in his eyes, fell into a sled that was loaded with broken rock. He crept round the obstruction, and a few moments later found himself knee-deep in water before a little dam that had been thrown across the heading. The heading dipped sharply beyond it, which somewhat astonished him, and when he had climbed over the barricade, he descended cautiously, groping towards another light. Big drops of water fell upon him, and here and there a jet of it spurted out. At last he stopped, and saw Nasmyth lying, partly raised on one elbow, in an inch or two of water, while he painfully swung a heavy hammer. The heading was lined with stout pillars, made of sawn-up firs, and Nasmyth appeared to be driving a wedge under one of them. Two or three other men were putting heavy masses of timber into place.
The smoky flame of a little lamp flared upon the rock above, which trickled with moisture, and the light fell upon Nasmyth's wet face, which was deeply flushed. Nasmyth gasped heavily, and great splashes of sand and mire lay thick upon his torn, drenched shirt. He appeared to see Wheeler, for he looked up, but he did not stop until he had driven the wedge in. Then he rose to his knees and stretched himself wearily.
"The rock's badly fissured. We've got to get double timbers in as soon as we can," he explained. "I'm going to do some boring. We'll go along."