Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-03-29


two officers retreated, for the first shot
had Jared the hanging hall lamp out
and left them in the dark. Covered
by his own smoke, the desperate fol-
lowed the men down the stairs, and
before he hal been missed he was al
ready over the back fen mounting
his horse. The horse was shot down
by one of the posse, and the desperate o
was compelled to foot it.
Leaving the desert lands, he headed
for the canyon, and at dawn rested
where the trail touched the Green
river. Here he found a brush hut, q
sheepherder and rude rowboat on
the banks of the swollen stream.
"Ferry me over," said the stranger,
as the shepherd came yawning from
his hut.
''Not for your fleece, my buck
sheep, said the boatmaa; lyon river $
dangerous.
SOS this" sail the man, flourish
ing his firearms. Ferry me over p.
d. O.
When the boat bad reached the mid
die OF the wild river the desperate
brought his gun out again and ordered
the boatman to head her downstream,
pointing out the way with his loaded
revolver. The terrified sheepman tried
to tell the fugitive that the river was
impossible, even at low water-that a
little way down the Grand joined the
Green, and the two, forming the Colo
RADIO, went leaping, plunging, boiling
and churning through the Cataract
Canyon, through which (the Indians
sa;d) no white man had passed and
lived. The hunted man only smiled
and twirled his pistol.
The two men would dash through
wild cataracts, over white foaming
falls, and the next hour their frail
boat would be drifting silent Y between
the softly shaded walls that gave back,
in echo, the faintest ripple of water,
or the almost whispered words, few
though they were, that passed between
the two voyagers.
Suddenly they found themselves in
the canyon, driving down the raging
stream. Going over falls the boat
was driven against a boulder near the
shore. SO violent had been the shock
that both men were cast upon shelf
in the curve of the river unhurt.
The walls here rose thousands of
feet almost perpendicularlv. AS the
river touched the wall above and
below there was no escape. The little
resting place on which the two men
found themselves was filled with drift
wood. Hanging to the rock that had
wrecked them was long rope that
had been in the boat; this the desper-
ado fshed ont.
''We'll build raft" said the out
law. He made the sheepman carry
cedar logs, limbless and SCARED, cross
ties and pieces of bridge timber that
had drifted for hundreds of miles
down the mad river, and were gnawed
like the hitching post in front of a
country church.
When he had lashed lot of these
together he told the sheepman to get
aboard, and the sheepman said he'd
die first.
''All right" said the smiling villain,
and the wild report of his revolver
filled the canyon, and went on and out
through side canyons, laundering it's
echoes back to the two men there in
the awful gorge. The bullet whirred
past the shepherds ear.
Once more on the breast of the
boiling stream the men, now on the
rude raft, were tempting fate. They
lay flat down, hanging to the ropes,
sometimes beneath, sometimes far
above the mad torrent; leaping from
the crest of high falls, shooting rapids
and capering over awful cataracts. At
the end of an hour they emerged from
the narrow canyon and entered long
stretch of deep green water, slowly
moving. sunkissed and quiet. SO
still seemed the beautiful river that
they were obliged to take markers on
the shore to see if they really moved.
Far away, at the end of the stretch of
peaceful water, the river seemed to
end. Across its path wall rose, red
and high. The water, running over,
| and flowing down the face of the cliff.
had stleaked and striped the red
sandstone until it looked in the sun
light like beautiful piece of tapestry,
and the desperado called it Tapestry
Wall, and SO it has been called ever
| since.
The river, however, did not end
here. Swinging in long, graceful
curve, growing swifter and swifter, it
sucked into narrow pass and became
a raging, frothing cataract.
For some moments they saw moth
lug and heard only the awful tnmult
of the boiling river, and then with a
slam the raft hung upon big rock