The trail
led down, and Slone had no doubt that it crossed the river and led up out of
the canyon. He wanted to stay there and gaze endlessly and listen. At length
he began the descent. As he proceeded it seemed that the roar of the river
lessened. He could not understand why this was so. It took half an hour to
reach the last level, a ghastly, black, and iron-ribbed canyon bed, with the
river splitting it. He had not had a glimpse of Wildfire on this side of the
divide, but he found his tracks, and they led down off the last level, through
a notch in the black bank of marble to a sand-bar and the river.
Wildfire had walked straight off the sand into the water. Slone studied the
river and shore. The water ran slow, heavily, in sluggish eddies. From far up
the canyon came the roar of a rapid, and from below the roar of another,
heavier and closer. The river appeared tremendous, in ways Slone felt rather
than realized, yet it was not swift. Studying the black, rough wall of rock
above him, he saw marks where the river had been sixty feet higher than where
he stood on the sand.
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