The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-03-03


Suddenly the door fiew open and the
hunted man leaped into the hall. Be
fore the marshal or his deputy could
raise hand, the desperate man began
unloading a couple Of rapid-firing six
shooters in the narrow hallway. The
two officers retreated, for the frs& shot
had Jared the hanging hall lamp out
and left them in the dark. Covered by
his own smoke, the desperate followed
the men down the stairs, and before
he had been missed he was already over
the back fence mounting his horse. The
horse was shot down by one of the
posse, and the desperate 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 brush hut,
sheep-herder, and rude rowboat on
the banks of the swollen stream.
Ferry me over" said the stranger,
as the shepherd came yawning from
his hut.
mot for your fleece, my buck-sheep,"
said the boatman; ''yon rivers danger
GUS"
"so's this said the man, fiourishing
his firearms. Ferry me over P. D.
o."
When the boat had 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
imPassable, even at low water-that a
little way down the Grand joined the
Green, and the two, forming the Col
orado, went leaping, plunging, boiling
and churning through the Cataract
canyon, through which Cthe Indians
said) 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 fragile boat
would be drifting silently between the
soft 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 bowlder 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 perpendicularly AS the river
touched the wall above and below there
was no escape. The little resting
on which the two men found themselves
was filed with driftwood Hanging to
the rock that had wrecked them was
a long rope that had been in the boat;
this the desperate fished out.
wen build a raft, said the outlaw.
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 hitch
ing 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.
San right" said the smiling villain,
and the wild report of his revolver
filed the canyon and went on and out
through the canyons, laundering its
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 boil
ing stream the men, now on the rude
raft, were tempting fate. They lay
fat down, hanging to the ropes, some
times beneath, sometimes far above
the mad torrent; leaping from the
crest of high falls, shooting rapids
and creeping 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, sun-kissed 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 streaIed and striped the red sand-
stone until it looked in the sunlight
like beautiful piece of tapestry, and
the desperate called it Tapestry wall,
and so it has been called ever since.
The river, however, did not end here.
Swinging in a long, graceful curve,
growing swifter and swifter, it sucked
into a narrow pass and became a
raging. frothing cataract.
For some moments they saw moth
ing and heard only the awful tumult
Of the boiling river, and then with a
slam the raft hung upon big rock
that split the current near the middle
of the stream.
When the shepherd had wiped tine
spray from his eyes he saw that he
was alone. The force OF the shock
had thrown his companion into the
water. He had landed, and now came
limping along the bank Of the river.
The desperate smiled out over the
foam at the helpless shepherd, who pe-
gan TO hope that the fellow would
shoot him and end the awful suspense,