Arizona state miner., 1926-08-07
CHAPTER /
The Canyon

Caleb warner cOnSc1enClOuSIy nSneQ
every foot of the likeliest-looking hole
ne had seen on Hermanos creek, but
there came no rise, no eager tug, no
submerged gleam of rainbow's shim-
mering flank.
He waded ashore, put up rod and
tackle, climbed through the thick, tail
ferns and brambly underground to the
narrow trail and turned upstream.
All the day was his, the next, for that
matter, and he fancied the fishing
would be better higher up. Caleb
walked with his coat tucked between
che sings of his creel, his shirt open
at the throat; lean, long, well-shoul-
dered and Slender-fanked, tanned of
skin, springy of action, generally good
TO look at. By the canons of moving
pictures and magazine illustrations he
was not handsome. New England an
cesrry had made him too aquiline of
feature, but he had youth and
strength, his gray eyes were clear, his
forehead high to his straight, close
cropped hair. his lips clean-cut and
bis chin well forward. not too narrow.
His general makeup was typically
American, Yankee-American, un-
nlarred by inbreeding.
Below him Hermanos creek sang
half hidden by the underground. His
economic, New England brain saw po-
tentiality going to waste. In Massa-
chusetts Hermanos creek would long
ago have been harnessed. Mills and
factories would have sprung up along
Its banks. Here was water for steam,
for turbines. for commercial and do
mestic use, for irrigation; all unused
its energy seemingly doomed, for there
was a peculiar thing about the creek
that Caleb as an engineer, had noted
Contrary to the habit Of most we'll
hammered watercOurses, It's volume
diminished as it flowed
He was twenty-seven. six years out
OF the college chrysalis that he had
spun at Columbia. He had served in
che war. hard, practical service in
tasks that were low-grade but neces-
sary, the crude, swift work Of build
ing and repairing war-roads and
bridges, and in it Caleb Warner had,
in large measure, found himself. He
had acquired initiative, resource. COM
mand OF men, If nothing else. And he
had come out unscathed, unwounded.
nngassed, reduced to an acme of CO.
ordination, sane mind and sound body.
He had been granted wider horizons.
So he had come west to find his oyster
and TO open it.
Swiftly the woody cave Of the can
gon became a tunnel, the creek now
far below him in a water-chiseled
gorge. The tunnel became a gut. A
suspension bridge, a shivery thing of
wire rope and short planks, anchored
with wire cables to high walls of rock,
crossed the gorge. 1t shook under his
tread and hung trembling as he
stopped midway to look at the gush
OF compressed water surging through
the gap, twenty feet down. There
were signs on the rock that at times
the creek rose close to the flooring.
Before him, to the south, lay Her
manos valley, a green bowl Tipped by
rolling hills, their crests brOnzed by
the summer sun, blazoned with great
patches = of golden poppies, with
clumps of purple lupine, the lower
slopes furred thick with wild oats
waving in the wind, oats as high as
Caleb's head, shimmering sea of en-
erald and silver.
He stood for a while undecided
whether to adventure on to the water
fall or to stay where he was until it
was time to fish down the canyon with
she hope of better results than the
fhree trout his persistence had lured
1rom the creek. He had a book tucked
fnto his pocket but he was not tired.
And he had lunched an hour before.
The view held him. Looking down.
he saw that the stream was vagrant,
that, In the rains, one bed was not
enough to convey it's waters. A sec
oud course. now dry and partly grown
over, err4tfcally paralleled the actual
creek. Willows bOrdered it.
Along this idle water-track, racing
20 fast it seemed a gray streak, head
down. brush lowered, a coyote ran at
top speed, pursued, not hunting, COW
ering ground at frantic pace,
pressed to it's utmost by fear.
After It, perhaps fifty yards away